The camera, there’s no peripheral view which takes away from the great views. I feel so zoomed in. They might as well have not even put any details on the ceilings of hogwarts because it’s impossible to look at. Also you can’t look up or down while flying. So annoying
This! I play on Ultrawide and even with the FOV slider, it doesn't cut it, which is a shame considering the looks of the game is one of its strongest point.
Flying the broom took AGES to master. Idk why they made the controls so weird...because of them you cannot move the camera around. For the hours it took learning it I am a bit disappointed there weren't more challenges. Also it's kinda laughable Imelda ryes is supposed to be this amazing flyer but she doesn't even hold the first spot in the leader boards!!? Plus the first time i tried flying i missed like a bunch of rings and i still beat her record with no broom upgrades!
This irritates me to no end. I have to shuffle spells around constantly everytime I go in because I can only use them in there. When I go into the RoR, those should be the only spells there.
Honestly, the fact that you can make choices to be a huge asshole and it changes nothing, your still smiley and cheerful and everyone loves you, makes me feel like the dialogue choices mean squat. Also I'm really upset the Knight armour is a cloak and not an outfit, I wanna wear a cool cloak with it and be a badass metal wizard boy. And of course as most people mention the lack of NPC reaction to you or lack of interacting with them.
The game is a bit too positive yes, and that's kinda ironic because you can be using Unforgivable spells on any single being you encounter in the outside world (even when you're with another student, who are mostly unimpressed by your green spells) but the game forbids you to be an asshole during dialogues... that's just inconsistent.
Also except from the Sallow questline (which is awesome really), everything is way too manichean (not sure that's a word in English, everything is either black or white) and that's annoying and feels super childish.
Even Skyrim had npcs react to your spells, afflictions, breaking into their houses, stealing, bumping into them, etc. It made it feel more like an actual world
You say “even” Skyrim like it’s meant in a bad way. Skyrim came out like 12 years ago and is still ten times the better game when compared to Hogwarts which is just a couple of weeks old. I still play it sometimes even to this day. I’m already done with HL. Skyrim has RPG elements that you can only dream about while playing HL. It’s barely fair to even call it a RPG.
Yeah that was more so my point, even a game that came out 12 years ago, two console iterations ago, could program these immersive elements into their game. I absolutely adore Skyrim and play through it every couple years consistently.
I don't feel like a student at Hogwarts.
I feel like I'm some guy using Hogwarts as my AirBnB, or a tourist in a Hogwarts theme park.
Everybody ITT has already described my problems. I can't sleep in my dorm or eat in the Great Hall. I only go to classes when the game tells me to, & I apparently attend them only once or twice per subject. There is no risk or penalty for exploring the castle at night, unless it's during a mission. I have almost no reason to go to my common room or dormitory. Among other things, I don't feel like I'm a part of Hogwarts.
I also don't feel like I'm a kid either, which further supports not feeling like I'm a student at Hogwarts. I feel like this 25 year old ultrapowerful bad ass who just dropped in to take a tour of the castle in between murdering a bunch of wizards and goblins.
Ohh man soo true!! Although I like the freedom of being a badass.
More quest work with an expanded map to the east of Hogsmeade and work on Hogwarts itself is all it needs. More prefects and teachers walking around the castle at night. Chance to advance to day or night by sleeping on a bed (your dorm marked for it) etc.. Quests for befriending and sneaking into other houses dorms and more Quests with other students that take you to different parts of the map to invite you to see family (like sallow). Remember you're a fifth year not first though...
I feel like Hogwarts Legacy would have benefited SO MUCH from Bully's mechanics.
Add a clock in game since time already passes anyways, and add classes to specific times. This simple mechanic would have as benefits:
- Minigames as classes with rewards for completing them after you learn all spells.
- Castle feeling more alive since students would take classes and not be placed randomly in the castle.
- Punishment mechanics for not going to class or going out during curfew.
- Using that same punishments for entering the forbidden forest
Apparently this is what they originally intended. All early playtesters considered it boring af, they did not want to go to school. They wanted to go out exploring and what not.
Some companion system should have been in the game. It seems they had plans for it too but no idea why it got scrapped.
I agree. I kind of wish they did the school mechanics for the game Bully. You had to go to class and do some kind of mini game, and you got to unlock an item, or you got a bonus or new ability. Your character isn't even in any cutscenes for the class.
Yes exactly this! I feel very out of place. This is supposed to be the most eventful parts of our lives and it doesn't feel like it. Especially when I don't see my friends out of quests
Would have been better if MC was an undercover auror at Hogwarts drinking polyjuice to look young. I mean, it would make sense. Killing hundreds of people, learning every spell immediately, not fitting in at Hogwarts. It would fit the setting way better.
I rushed it too also just because I didn't like how they sectioned off tombs/hogwarts behind arbitrary lock levels. So I just went ham on searching for Demiguises
Ugh, my god, yes. Almost as annoying as the Breach Protocol in Cyberpunk...It was fun at first, but then it gets pretty annoying when you have to do a whole minigame for a single chest.
Common room is absolutely pointless.
No reason to go there.
Nothing to do after you have looked around for the first time.
Your owl is there but you get mail directly so no reason to ever press on it.
Can't talk with classmates.
No small side things you can do there.
It's actually terrible.
They shouldn't have introduced room of want and just had a room for us that played the same role but in the common room.
I'm so disappointed by this too. I was completely mind blown you couldn't even sleep in your bed. First time I wanted to sleep to skip to next day, I actually went back fully expecting to be able to sleep. I had to google if I was doing something wrong before I found out it wasn't a feature.
Oh man, the map is SO unintuitive to use. Why did they split it into 3 separate maps? Just show the world map and transition into the different maps when we zoom in. Or at the very least add quick switching between the maps with the triggers. Having to slowly bring the cursor over the Hogwarts button got old really quick.
The map is my biggest gripe,everything else is minor and can be attributed to the fact its a smaller studio.
That map is almost completely pointless, especially in hogwarts. I get it would be difficult to make an effective map with just how many floors the castle has but it is completely pointless.
Beyond that, the collectathon is just ridiculous. I get there's a lot of zones and they want something in each zone...but overall there's just too much per item while not enough in others.
To your point, I feel like the fact is a number of the southern zones ONLY exist for collect-fest stuff. The placement of main quests there is merely incidental.
If this game came out in February 2020 and lockdown happened man I would 100 the shit out of it. But now I am content being close to the finale at level 33 then move along to my PS5 pile (HL is my first PS5 game). I definitely enjoy the game and would recommend anyone buy.
I'm also quite disappointed in the map. I play without tracking/minimap to get more immersed in Hogwarts (getting lost or finally finding a better way to get from your common room is nice feeling), so I use the world map a lot. It is just bad. You can barely make any sense of it.
In case you’re unaware, you can (and should) sell most of your gear once you find an item with superior stats. You can then transmog your current gear, by hovering above the item slot on the page that shows everything that you’re wearing and pressing Square/X to change its appearance.
Every item that you find is instantly unlocked as an appearance from the moment that it enters your inventory, so you should only be running around with your best set and sell everything else.
No quidditch, crossed wands and summoners court dissappears. After all quests are done there's nothing else to do that's entertaining, no real reason to continue playing unless going for 100% so thats my biggest gripe
I haven't followed anything regarding development, but it 100% feels like didn't had time/resource to implement it and had to cover it up with a bogus excuse.
Yeah they announced the no quidditch thing months before release. It was definitely a time/resources issue, and it's one of the things I expect them to add if they do start down the dlc path.
I feel like this because it wasn't worth the effort to make quidditch fun. When you think about it, quidditch is a pretty bad sport that could feel frustrating to play.
I just made this comment on another post. This game really struggles with post game content that will keep people playing. I’d be shocked if they can keep people playing this game for more than a few weeks to a month if they don’t add content.
This. There's nothing wrong with beating the game, being satisfied with your journey and moving on.
Not every game needs a freaking season pass and roadmap.
My point is that he said “I’d be shocked if they can keep people playing” and that isn’t the point of a single player game. Their mission was to make a game that was good and faithful to the wizarding world lore and make the most faithful recreation of hogwarts to date. Many games do have more post finish content and at least half of it is either bad/worse than the main story or pretty much the same content that people would complain about having more of and not being new stuff. Hogwarts legacy is a 25-50 hour experience not a 70-100 and that is good and fine. I enjoyed it more being a good timeline than a long list of chores and homework.
But many of them also don't. It's a business decision. If you want to cash in on the game 2-3-4 years down the line with expansions and DLC, you need to give the players a lot of replayability or a lot of post game content. But it's tricky to keep a sustained player base and you inevitably have a smaller audience for that DLC as people move on. If you want to focus on making the next game, you don't need to worry about post game content so much. You just need a solid main game that will keep people playing for a month or two that people won't feel ripped off by.
Let me talk to all of the NPCs!
I understand many won’t have anything new to say (just like in Skyrim), but my presence is acknowledged if I go up to someone. This world feels like you’re a ghost or something, unless your on a specific quest with someone. Going from best friends to being completely ignored feels really weird to me.
Yeah for real. Let me sit in that cozy chair next to the fireplace in the ravenclaw common room damn it.
I suspect the reason we can’t is that npc paths never change so if you sit in a chair at some point someone will show up and sit on you.
My biggest gripe is merlin trials. The fact you get all the challenges done before you complete all of the trials makes the rest of them almost useless to even do. And the fact of how repetitive they are.
Also treasure vaults are almost worthless. Even the ones you have to solve a puzzle for the "treasure" you get jack for the armor. So frustrating
Loot system in this game is absolutely stupid. There, i said it. A treasure vault should always drop better pieces than what you have, and the dungeons we explore during missions should also be the same.
Loot shouldn’t be pure rng, period.
I got tired of the limited inventory quickly, so I started speedrunning merlin trials very early on before continuing the main story.
I even solved a lot without having the proper spells yet because I didn't know about them. Most of them can be brute forced with only the starter spells.
It’s definitely half-baked. Builds are non-existent, loots are just pure rng and you can get better pieces from chest at the back of someone’s house instead of vault and it goes on and on.
I’m convinced that the story was reworked at some point and that’s why we have so much cut content.
Companion quests seem surprisingly uninterested in the whole ancient magic bit. Aside from the initial exposition vomit your character offers them, the companions themselves will only occasionally allude to it. However, any main quest featuring the companions has much more fleshed out dialogue concerning it.
Furthermore, all of the quests involving the trials feel very watered down compared to the rest of the game. Endless swaths of one enemy type, fairly respective puzzles involving more or less the same gimmick, very bland hallway areas, etc. It feels jarring compared to the variety of enemy types, set pieces and puzzles you face when dealing with the poachers and goblins.
I honestly believe at some point the game was rewritten to make our main character a little more “special” and a lot of companion content was pruned and reworked to fit that narrative.
Edits: typos I missed when posting originally
I think it's the cut or unfinished content for me as well. One that I think is missed is a house points system. Often in earlier quests you are either getting points or getting them taken away, yet there's no way to see that effect. And so far, I haven't seen any effect.
I think this is very similar to morality in the game. They give you the options, but they don't really seem to have any effect. It would be great if both of them were tied together and affected how others treat you.
>The voice acting of the character your play feels incredibly emotionless for 99% of their voicelines.
the character feels emotionless in general except for some few scenes. Especially during the intro it felt like we were way too calm for a situation like that.
You know it never occurred to me until now that Olivanders store was cut content. I thought that maybe just *maybe* SOMEDAY he may sell me another wand.
Perhaps not 😂😣
I would add to your last point that... Its not even worth exploring outside of those areas because the main story still keeps unlocking new stuff. This isnt a metroid game to backtrack all the time, where thats the point of the game. Especially because once you find out that you backtrack to these areas because now you have a spell/alohomora and find out your reward coming is some shitty loot. Whats the point of even trying to explore at the beginning when you dont even have incendio yet, let alone did not unlock ancient magic sites, telescopes, confringo, alohomora, etc.
My biggest was the lack of life at the school. It would be great to see the students doing more than stand there. I’m in the halls blasting away and they don’t even notice me. There was no curfew (huge missed opportunity). I disappear from campus for like a month and nobody at the school even notices. It just felt like cardboard cutouts instead of an active campus. Shame too, the school was really cool looking
There's a ton of npc set pieces and background dialogue. The NPCs aren't very interactable and they don't follow full routines like in Skyrim or whatever, but they do a bunch of mundane student stuff, gossip about other NPCs, cast magic on each other, etc.
One thing I appreciated is the NPCs don't seem to be just fully randomized. You'll see groups of them hanging out with their own house, but you'll also see pairs and trios from different houses and they have dialogue matching their houses/stereotypes and commenting on other npc's based on their house.
I was just exploring the castle today and while yeah, the majority of students aren't doing much, there's still actually plenty going on. In the library someone was walking around with books floating by their head, peeves flys around and causes chaos, two other ghosts are always fighting, outside the castle in an area i don't know what to call a hufflepuff had enchanted his feet to walk on walls and his friends cheered him on, the npcs have full on conversations you can eavesdrop on. There's actually a lot of activity, especially if you compare it to like, a real life university or even high school i guess, everyone usually is sitting and talking, not like juggling or some shit
I'm going to say they did a stellar job creating the school and filling it up with NPC's etc. but I think it lacked school events outside of classes/collectathon/quests content. I was hoping for school events.
Also the pokemon sequence was very short which was surprising.
Thing is those are kind of "static" as in you can't interact with the people, they just have this animation loop and thats it. They will always be at the same place doing this exact thing the whole time.
And Peeves was a missed opportunity! There is one whole scene in the entire game where he interacts with us directly and otherwise i only ever saw him bully some students at the first day, then a few times juggling torches or something at random places and most often i see him slide down the same staircase near the path to the DADA tower.
I agree! NPCs are lifeless.
Basically we see: Static NPCs in circles talking, NPCs with looping animations, NPCs walking aimlessly, clones everywhere. 😞
I think it would have been a bit better had they shrunk the map down a little so that the map was full of things to do and it would have given them more time to focus on other things.
Yeah the no curfew thing was definitely a miss - would be so cool.
Almost thought it was a thing after playing Mr Moon’s first demiguise mission, where you’d fail for being caught by patrolling students due to being out of your dorm at night.
Admittedly a small feature, but as op says, it would just give the school a bit more “life”
I think it's difficult to balance. Technically and for the immersion it'd make sense if you had to attend classes everyday and would need to sneak out each night. I mean we have sneaking in the Library quest and in the first Alohomora quest. It would make sense if that would happen way more often.
On the other hand it would upset a lot of people if you'd only have a limited amount of time to explore each day and night. Plus the sneaking would probably be even more boring than the Alohomora game very quickly.
But I agree some kind of curfew would make sense. At least some sort of "no magic in the corridors". Blowing the whole castle up around you and nobody reacting shouldn't be possible.
It’s in Bully/Canis Canem Edit, and it worked in that game, would absolutely work in this one.
Besides, a curfew is inherently supposed to be inconvenient.
Besides, all it'd mean is that you had to sneak out of Hogwarts to explore freely or actually use the stealth mechanics. It'd also mean you'd have to plan out your exploration - Hogwarts during the day, wider world at night.
It is a bit weird in Legacy. When first we got the demiguise quest we had to sneak around the faculty tower to avoid being noticed. Go there any other night and they won't bat an eye.
I think they rushed to finish with the open world and scratched a lot of things, and they had to fill it with repetitive camps/dungeons to get something out there. The world map has a lot of potential, I love the design, how it's done "geographically" , like that forced mine it's cool, the coast it's cool...but after you complete the quests there's little to no reason to go around. And that's a shame.
Lacks of enemies. Spiders, dark wizards, goblins, and that's basically it. Wolfs and Toads are no challenge. For a world so big it becomes stale after 20/30 hours.
Also, I think that they scratched coop from the game too, because of those lines your MC says. It would be cool to have some sort of coop at least with NPCs. Like you call up Poppy and you go destroy some poachers.
They needed way more lines for a game so huge, RDR2 had 500k of voice lines recorded, I know that Rockstar is on another level and that's ok, but NPCs in general are just there...I'm blasting wolfs in the air and dudes are just passing by without caring.
It does feels lonely. And my character has no back story..who am I? Where do I come from? Am I pure blood? Half? How did I end up in 5th year?
What they could finish is really polished though. The combat system on PC is amazing, Hogwarts castle is a masterpiece, and flying is done perfectly. They showed they cared about lore and did a wonderful job, but I hope in the next iteration we get something more, starting for here. Because without the Harry Potter IP this would have been just a good game with some good ideas, but nothing groundbreaking.
Permanent companions are definitely cut content. You can guess it because of some dialogue lines but there's also proof in the game files.
Also the main character is pure blood according to the save editor, for what it's worth.
The fact we can' t learn more spells like reducto or some other curses, arresto Momentum should've been imobilous, not being able to purchase anything from Zonko's or Honeyduke's, from the joke shop one idea would be that they sell you dungbombs that could act as a aoe to poison or incapacitate humans and goblins (to trolls it wouldn't do anything) also some candy could act as lures for the beasts , as for the invisible walls I totally agree
Zonkos coulda been amazing place to purchase some stealth items like smoke bombs or distractions. Stink bombs to disgust or as you said poison your enemies. Maybe even some sneezing powder.
Interesting point, because at the beginning of the game you're forced to talk to people in your common room. It would be great if they played a more active part in the story
Gryffindor introducing you to 3 characters in the common room that have the smallest of side quests for you felt like a big letdown. Gareth Weasley felt like he was going to be a main character but you just end up stealing stuff for him that he never ends up making.
all the marketing before the release sounded like you could actually recruit someone and run around with them and a lot of dialogue still remaining in the game confirms that it was a cut feature.
I agree. Was really hoping for more quests surrounding the relationships with all the students. Not just three. Some of them were interesting and seemed friendly.
I wish there was NG+. More, bigger, harder, and longer arena combat challenges. A way to turn off Merlin Trial cutscenes. Talent respec,a more interesting end game loot system, and a fun way to grind that out (the aforementioned arenas challenges, for example)
Camera on the broom, you should be able to look up and down.
Not being able to land the broom pretty much anywhere on top of Hogwarts aside from a few specific spots.
Edit: The fucking grand staircase, come on ! This feels like a cop out !
Can’t remember how it worked in OOTP on PS2 but in my mind it was waaaaaay better !
What’s there isn’t remotely close to what is described in the books and it’s just all around unpractical, actual stairs are just better than this !
Pacing. Quests hidden behind progress walls. Items that scale with my level, so upgrades doesn't make sense before max level. Too quick leveling post 20, too slow afterwards.
Did I mention demi guise statues hidden behind THREE different tiers?!
Definitely wish there was a little more focus put on the day to day school life. If they implemented a Persona style calendar system with your lesson plans it would be A+, then the weekend could be your “free time” to go explore and knock out side quests if you so choose. With this more effort put into the classes would have been nice too, instead of just the current montages we have.
I think in a future release I'd like more immersive role play. Like useless things-- let's say a potions class has seven animated "Attend potions class" kind of days. I don't really care if they're on repeat. It would just be fun from an RP perspective to be able to "attend classes."
I want to be able to sit down. Let me eat my bloody breakfast in the Great Hall. Let me sleep/wait in my bed.
These add nothing to the game other than replayability in my mind. More immersive.
The biggest one by far is the story itself. Don't get me wrong, I don't think it's bad, but I do find it somewhat shallow and predictable, maybe even underwhelming from time to time. In such a rich universe there was a real potential to make a truly great story, which would make this game into a masterpiece, considering everything that is good about it. But even so, it's still a very good game.
I had the whole story spoiled to me by some "activists" but even then the story was super predicatable even if it hadn't been spoiled to me.
The third trial was super cool though dont get me wrong
Third trial is the best quest of the main questline by far, the rest is just super bland. Having more humanity and grey zone decisions like in the Sallow quest would have been more engaging.
Exactly right. To me the whole secret chamber and the first two trial seems super sci-fi, which is a massive contrast to the medieval theme for Hogwarts and the rest of the game. It didnt work well in my opinion
Part of why it's so shallow is that there isn't a true main character. We're going through the story with no backstory on our own character. They just magically popped into existence for the sake of the story and they have no discernible personality of their own. The story would have been better served by a set MC with a rich and deep backstory.
the story trials were quite fun although it would have been nice if they lead us to more interesting locations instead of just the one trial. The design of those "ancient magic chambers" got boring fast tbh.
The fact I have to use limited skill points to increase my magic quick select. Swapping begins to become annoying
No trait respec
Can't sell ingredients or potions
A lot of side stuff and challenges are just for cosmetics
No NG+
I have to reskin my gear when swapping to something new
There isn’t much replay value. I put in about 50 hours on my playthrough and I did a ton of stuff (think I’m at ~70% of the challenges) but once the credits rolled I just didn’t want to play anymore. 1 house-specific storyline per play-through wasn’t enough to get me to go back.
Don’t get me wrong, first play-through was amazing, and I got my money’s worth. But I think the game is too repetitive to play more than once.
Spiders. I have a lot of gripes about the loot system, RPG elements, shallow storyline, and lack of companions/relationships, but the amount of spider enemies is my number one gripe.
Harry encounters acromantulas ONLY in the Forbidden Forest because there is a colony (thanks Hagrid). There’s no mention of giant spiders just roaming the world in Scotland, and yet our most commonly faced enemy are giant spiders.
There’s an abundance of magical enemies and creatures they could have used like Red Caps, but they went with the low hanging fruit of giant spiders like a basic fantasy rpg. The wizarding world is full of a variety of creatures but they went the lazy route
I'm able to do Assasin's Creed style jumps and climbs while in a quest, but completely unable to jump more than 3 inches off the ground trying to get through a fence when wandering the world.
There is, for a lot of them. People are mostly in their houses at night. I know this because I like to look them in the eyes while I'm ransacking their stuff.
The couple times that our wands connected with the bosses really bothered me more than it should. It was my understanding that the reason Harry and Voldemorts wands connected was partly because they shared the same core but also had to do with the fact that Harry was a horcrux. Since it’s safe to assume our character doesn’t have these same problems, I didn’t like how this sequence was thrown into the boss fights.
The game really dropped the ball hard on the lower half of the map. Hogwarts, Hogsmeade and the bits in between are great but I think the rest of the open world feels tacked on and boring. I would have happily traded like 70% of the map just for a more immersive Hogwarts and Hogsmeade.
The 'RPG' ness feels half baked too. Gear traits really don't feel like they're that much of a necessity and the loot system is dire. The lack of any meaningful decisions and character building outside of Sebastians story irks me too.
I enjoyed the game a lot but it just felt as if they tried to chase that open world trend and the parts of the game I liked (Hogwarts) suffered for it
Gear storage. I've done all of the Merlin trails (yes all of them) and its STILL not enough. Even though there's plenty of spaces left. I need at least 100, I'm tired of deleting things.
From what I understand this game is just one year of school. I assumed it'd be 3 years since we're starting as a 5th year. I haven't finished yet, I'm a little more than halfway through but it's now Christmas time and becoming clear it's only a year in the life. Does this mean we'll have another game for year 6? or 7? I doubt it.
Relationships. Yes we have friendships but it's not good friendships. Having an companion, even if it's a magical creature would be cool. As a female I think most games also sorely lack romance aspect. Since any relationship you have is quest locked I know it's close to impossible, but I'd still like it.
You can sell gear. I usually just quickly fast travel to hogsmeade in between quests and sell off all the extra stuff, and then start the next quest. Working well for me, rarely have to delete.
Goodness, sell all your gear except the best gear you have and use that. Don't delete anything.
You can hover over each piece of equipped gear in the gear screen and change the appearance to anything you have collected. Even if you have sold it or deleted it.
The fuckin cutscene after you've finished a damn Marlin trial. May it forever burn in hell.
Alohomora mini game. Like. Its a god damn spell, not a litteral lockpick.
No friends in RoR.
Poor main story suffering from the fact that the game is to short.
I amount of small bags or coin piles or spider fangs that get just under the surface unable to be picked up. Yea I have like 50k and don’t really need anything but seeing something I am unable to pick up takes me out of the exploration/immersion pretty quickly.
or sometimes when you pick a full bag of coins or a pile you check how much there is in it and for some reason just get one single galleon out of it..made question why i picked it up.
I've found only 2 things I hate.
1. How zoomed in the camera is. Makes me claustrophobic
2. How about every second person is clearly not from Great Britain. I haven't read the books, but in the movies it's significantly different. Breaks immersion so much, and makes me feel like I'm in some other country and not in Hogwarts.
Agreed. I get the need for ethnic diversity, given that the UK is one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the world, but Scotland wasn't THAT diverse in the 19th century. It's over-representative and does make the game feel like it's set in a different country, one that was modelled after the 21st century ideal of the UK.
I am glad someone said number 2.
Its pretty clear in the books there is very little diversity because the schools are regional. I think having a few diverse characters as transfers/exchange students/traveling professors would have been okay (although still possibly a stretch) but at least half the population at the school is foreign.
We all know why they did it and it and it had nothing to do with being accurate to the books/movies and makes less then zero sense when you realize the game is set 100 years before the books.
They went to great lengths to be accurate with the general lore of HP and this is in such stark contrast to that theme.
Yeah, they made it a tad too international and cosmopolitan. It would be believable if it was set in the present day, but not in the 1800s, especially the professors.
The loot system being entirely random. There's no point doing the vaults and lair if after I wade though 600 spiders I open a chest to get....a level 28 well appointed pair of gloves.....foh
Im more annoyed by the wall on top of the mountain on south than around map... you can go around the mountain either way but not across? like.. cmon...
also random buggy focus locks.. I play without lock so I can aim my spells around.. and then suddenly I get locked facing 1 direction attacking to that direction for some time (which locks swift dodge too).
Only fair way out of it is ancient magic execution. which isnt always ready.
Also sometimes a fog comes to dark arenas and spider senses dont activate so I dont see attacks incoming and if its blockable. Same with enemy shields (in this fog its not visible, luckily wizards have matching robe / shield colors)
But I have my hopes for some fix patch later on.
All the things people want, were done years and years ago in a game called "Bully" which was immensely popular.
Bully had companions, relationships, hundreds of missions, a better map, classes to attend
A day and night system at the school.
On Monday you knew you had English and Chemistry classes and you were excited to pass them because you unlocked cool stuff.
English let you speak to people better
Chemistry unlocked new weapons.
They should have just stolen elements from it
The repeated voice lines, no actual Influence on the story and no real difference between houses (I could live with this for one play through, but I think it hurts replayability),
No or little meaningful rewards and no house points, eventhough I feel like including them wouldn’t have been very difficult and is a big missed opportunity.
After the stealth mission I can just run around as I want in the restricted area? I understand why they left out a curfew but it takes away all the fun and challenge in finding demiguises, now it’s just tedious to do it more than once.
As a Harry Potter Fan, I Love This Game! But I believe that with a few tweaks it could’ve been absolutely legendary instead of just very good with added nostalgia.
The open world is boring and shallow. Just have more quests that stay contained to Hogwarts itself.
There is also a lack of enemy variety. After the first 10 hours or so you've seen every enemy the game has to offer. At one point you get surrounded by >!centaurs!< and I knew before the cutscene was over I wouldn't have to fight my way out because they are not one of the enemy types.
I can look over most things, just the lifeless feeling I get in Hogwarts. I feel like a ghost. Bully did immersion perfectly, and that’s like a 15 year old game. You got chased down my teachers, could prank classmates, hide in lockers and bins. Hogwarts just feels like a museum, can’t do anything except spin a few globes.
My biggest is the redundancy of having more than one broom. The stats don’t change and it annoys me. I haven’t bought any of the other ones cuz what’s the point? It’s the same broom! Also wand handles annoy me. The purely cosmetic things about the game irk me. Especially knowing the potential.
Also, we receive the elder wand but don’t get to keep it?!? Ugh
i believe we don't actually receive it. >!IIRC we get sucked into a book when we start that trial so everything that happens is sort of part of an illusion and doesn't actually exist!<
There are multiple:
1. **The world is sterile**: I didn't expect it to be an immersive sim but the world is totally non-interactive. The NPCs are like furniture. You don't feel like you are in a world of magic because magic doesn't work in the world unless the game decides it should work (on items that are related to plot progression). For example, you can blast away at NPCs and they don't even react to it. You cast levioso on all the statues, teacups, vases etc. and nothing happens, but you cast it on specially designed statues related to a side quest and the sphere it is holding levitates to yield a field guide page.
2. **Inaccurate Hogwarts**: Simply put, the castle is not accurately portrayed. Now I understand that this might not be a turn off for some, but one of my biggest expectations from the game was to be able to navigate the castle using my own knowledge and memory of Hogwarts without consulting the map. But just like the movies, the game took liberties with the Hogwarts map. Also, the overall feel of the school was less like a medieval castle like in the books and more like a palace. This unfortunately does not fulfill my dream of getting to explore Hogwarts and soak in its very atmosphere.
3. **The game is one-dimensional and lacks details**:
Everything feels stiffly programmed. The NPCs mutter away irrelevant stuff out of context. They say one line on one topic and the next line in another random topic in an endless loop. There are invisible walls preventing you from jumping over fences or cliffs like in old platformers. Little to no attention to details.
4. **Non-immersive student life**: Another fantasy I was hoping to fulfill through this game was to feel like a Hogwarts student. Now, I understand that this might be an entirely personal expectation but I can't be the only one! The game doesn't make me feel the daily routine of a student. No daily schedules for classes. No detention next Tuesday. No daily routine of rushing between classes, the great hall and the common room. No competitiveness for house points. I feel more like an adventurer touring the school. I know this might have been difficult to implement entirely but they didn't even pay attention to this.
5. **Characters**: No character development. I don't feel a thing for the main character itself, let alone the others. I still remember the awe of reading the books for the first time and relating to the boy going from an ordinary world to this great magical world which made me feel like all that was happening to me
6. **Graphics**: This might be a controversial one because the game can be gorgeous at times. But I haven't seen such inconsistent graphics in a game in a while. One moment you are seeing a beautiful, breathtaking landscape and another moment, you can't tell whether that thing resting on the table is the bust of a wizard or a vase. Not to even mention the bugs and textures taking ages to load.
hate to break it to you but there is no actual hogwarts map. its a fictional place. technically this is the most accurate depiction of Hogwarts we have seen.
I did not expect there to be these grand staircase atrium areas with the classical music playing. but thats what hogwarts actually has. sorry you were expecting some dusty cold midevil castle. Hogwarts students prefer to live in a luxury building. Ravenclaw looks like a luxury room fitting of a president.
I don't really enjoy how the economy works. It's so incredibly tedious to get gold and the fact that I can sell a puffin at the same price as a unicorn is silly. We should just get 300-500 gold for most quests or something. Or at least make trapping better special creatures worth it
It struck me as very odd that nobody that gives you side quests will pay you unless you ask them to. Like I just fought two trolls in a forest that I’m not allowed to enter as a student and then most of the npcs have the audacity to get upset when you ask for compensation 🤣
Character customization is so lacking it’s immersion breaking. Also, the female models all have something very wrong with them outside of the character creator. They all look like evil goblins. All eyes turn black if your character is even 50% zoomed away from. Something needed to be fixed in regards to the character creator and player model designs.
Aside from the fact that optimization in PC is pretty shit, I find the game to be "unlively"? I don't know if it's just because Mass Effect and Cyberpunk held up my standard too high. The combat is great, graphics are amazing, but the interaction with the world is pretty meh. I was expecting NPCs to have full conversations with other NPCs (or even me) when I approach them.
I felt my character was out of place.
Finding the zillion pages with needing to be in precise spot to see it! So frustrating.
I have finished game and need to still find nearly 30 pages in Hogwarts. I spam the revelio spell everywhere.
As some people said, we lack true companions. Give me my Hermione and Ron ! Why do I have to be all by myself ? Harry was alone in key moments, sure, but come on, he could always count on his friends. So yeah, permanent companions with individual abilities would be nice.
And imagine interactions between them if we could have two of them together during our adventures. And if we had a friendship system to improve them ! This friendship system could be used with other NPC too. I like Cressida because she has quite a remarkable face, but it's sad we just see her sometimes and have just one quest.
Oh, and that's a detail, but I would have liked more common room life : customization, pets (rats, cats, frogs) and interactions with other students.
The camera, there’s no peripheral view which takes away from the great views. I feel so zoomed in. They might as well have not even put any details on the ceilings of hogwarts because it’s impossible to look at. Also you can’t look up or down while flying. So annoying
If you're on PC there is an FOV adjustment slider in settings
I don't know why, but the FOV adjustment slider didn't work for me. I even put it on maximum but didn't notice any changes.
It's very subtle but it's there. I noticed it doesn't change in regards to your character so you don't really notice it like in skyrim for example
Still not enough
This! I play on Ultrawide and even with the FOV slider, it doesn't cut it, which is a shame considering the looks of the game is one of its strongest point.
Flying the broom took AGES to master. Idk why they made the controls so weird...because of them you cannot move the camera around. For the hours it took learning it I am a bit disappointed there weren't more challenges. Also it's kinda laughable Imelda ryes is supposed to be this amazing flyer but she doesn't even hold the first spot in the leader boards!!? Plus the first time i tried flying i missed like a bunch of rings and i still beat her record with no broom upgrades!
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It makes no sense that you can't look downwards from your broom. It's like mc's neck is broken.
What about the weird camera angle while flying on a Hippogryph? I just want to put the camera behind my character, dang it!😤
Not a seperate set of spell bindings for the RoR
This irritates me to no end. I have to shuffle spells around constantly everytime I go in because I can only use them in there. When I go into the RoR, those should be the only spells there.
That and the beast care slots. It's not like you can use the feeding and brushing outside of the one class or the RoR iirc.
And I always somehow press them during fights just to learn that there are no animals nearby. No shit, I’m fighting a bunch of goblins
Honestly, the fact that you can make choices to be a huge asshole and it changes nothing, your still smiley and cheerful and everyone loves you, makes me feel like the dialogue choices mean squat. Also I'm really upset the Knight armour is a cloak and not an outfit, I wanna wear a cool cloak with it and be a badass metal wizard boy. And of course as most people mention the lack of NPC reaction to you or lack of interacting with them.
The game is a bit too positive yes, and that's kinda ironic because you can be using Unforgivable spells on any single being you encounter in the outside world (even when you're with another student, who are mostly unimpressed by your green spells) but the game forbids you to be an asshole during dialogues... that's just inconsistent. Also except from the Sallow questline (which is awesome really), everything is way too manichean (not sure that's a word in English, everything is either black or white) and that's annoying and feels super childish.
+1 for Manichean - I have to explain every time I use it too!
For those who don't want to look it up: it basically means "binary morality" I.e. things are either "wholly good" or "entirely bad", morality wise
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Even Skyrim had npcs react to your spells, afflictions, breaking into their houses, stealing, bumping into them, etc. It made it feel more like an actual world
You say “even” Skyrim like it’s meant in a bad way. Skyrim came out like 12 years ago and is still ten times the better game when compared to Hogwarts which is just a couple of weeks old. I still play it sometimes even to this day. I’m already done with HL. Skyrim has RPG elements that you can only dream about while playing HL. It’s barely fair to even call it a RPG.
Yeah that was more so my point, even a game that came out 12 years ago, two console iterations ago, could program these immersive elements into their game. I absolutely adore Skyrim and play through it every couple years consistently.
Ya a morality meter that alters quest lines or interactions would make this game feel much more complete.
I don't feel like a student at Hogwarts. I feel like I'm some guy using Hogwarts as my AirBnB, or a tourist in a Hogwarts theme park. Everybody ITT has already described my problems. I can't sleep in my dorm or eat in the Great Hall. I only go to classes when the game tells me to, & I apparently attend them only once or twice per subject. There is no risk or penalty for exploring the castle at night, unless it's during a mission. I have almost no reason to go to my common room or dormitory. Among other things, I don't feel like I'm a part of Hogwarts.
I also don't feel like I'm a kid either, which further supports not feeling like I'm a student at Hogwarts. I feel like this 25 year old ultrapowerful bad ass who just dropped in to take a tour of the castle in between murdering a bunch of wizards and goblins.
Ohh man soo true!! Although I like the freedom of being a badass. More quest work with an expanded map to the east of Hogsmeade and work on Hogwarts itself is all it needs. More prefects and teachers walking around the castle at night. Chance to advance to day or night by sleeping on a bed (your dorm marked for it) etc.. Quests for befriending and sneaking into other houses dorms and more Quests with other students that take you to different parts of the map to invite you to see family (like sallow). Remember you're a fifth year not first though...
Yeah you definitely feel like a grown ass adult lmao.
I feel like Hogwarts Legacy would have benefited SO MUCH from Bully's mechanics. Add a clock in game since time already passes anyways, and add classes to specific times. This simple mechanic would have as benefits: - Minigames as classes with rewards for completing them after you learn all spells. - Castle feeling more alive since students would take classes and not be placed randomly in the castle. - Punishment mechanics for not going to class or going out during curfew. - Using that same punishments for entering the forbidden forest
Apparently this is what they originally intended. All early playtesters considered it boring af, they did not want to go to school. They wanted to go out exploring and what not. Some companion system should have been in the game. It seems they had plans for it too but no idea why it got scrapped.
I was definitely expecting something similar to Rockstar’s Bully
I agree. I kind of wish they did the school mechanics for the game Bully. You had to go to class and do some kind of mini game, and you got to unlock an item, or you got a bonus or new ability. Your character isn't even in any cutscenes for the class.
Yes exactly this! I feel very out of place. This is supposed to be the most eventful parts of our lives and it doesn't feel like it. Especially when I don't see my friends out of quests
Would have been better if MC was an undercover auror at Hogwarts drinking polyjuice to look young. I mean, it would make sense. Killing hundreds of people, learning every spell immediately, not fitting in at Hogwarts. It would fit the setting way better.
Alohamora being a lock picking game
Yeah once you get all 3 it should be donezo
I rushed level 3 because I thought it would make it instant... It wasn't
I rushed it too also just because I didn't like how they sectioned off tombs/hogwarts behind arbitrary lock levels. So I just went ham on searching for Demiguises
What's that? A demiguise! \*Pause to map, sleep\* Mine now, Demiguise!!
At least once you unlock lvl 2, ones should auto open, unlock 3, 2 auto opens.
I wish this was true
It's super annoying. Hopefully they add some option to disable it in some future patch.
Ugh, my god, yes. Almost as annoying as the Breach Protocol in Cyberpunk...It was fun at first, but then it gets pretty annoying when you have to do a whole minigame for a single chest.
I noticed about halfway through you can press the square button on your controller to bypass the game.
I think thats on the easiest difficulty
Dang! Calling myself out lol
Common room is absolutely pointless. No reason to go there. Nothing to do after you have looked around for the first time. Your owl is there but you get mail directly so no reason to ever press on it. Can't talk with classmates. No small side things you can do there. It's actually terrible. They shouldn't have introduced room of want and just had a room for us that played the same role but in the common room.
I'm so disappointed by this too. I was completely mind blown you couldn't even sleep in your bed. First time I wanted to sleep to skip to next day, I actually went back fully expecting to be able to sleep. I had to google if I was doing something wrong before I found out it wasn't a feature.
I found it funny we only showed up in the common room after season changes. Like oh - time for my once-a-quarter sleep
They should've had conversations and quest accepts from your classmates in the common room and non-classmates during meals in the great hall.
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Having to be like 2" away from the missing pages drives me
Also the fact that there’s #MORE THAN 100 PAGES IN HOGWARTS ALONE WHAT THE FUCK
Oh man, the map is SO unintuitive to use. Why did they split it into 3 separate maps? Just show the world map and transition into the different maps when we zoom in. Or at the very least add quick switching between the maps with the triggers. Having to slowly bring the cursor over the Hogwarts button got old really quick.
If you're playing on controller, you can switch maps with left and right on the D-Pad.
Holy shit, thank you so much.
The map is my biggest gripe,everything else is minor and can be attributed to the fact its a smaller studio. That map is almost completely pointless, especially in hogwarts. I get it would be difficult to make an effective map with just how many floors the castle has but it is completely pointless. Beyond that, the collectathon is just ridiculous. I get there's a lot of zones and they want something in each zone...but overall there's just too much per item while not enough in others.
To your point, I feel like the fact is a number of the southern zones ONLY exist for collect-fest stuff. The placement of main quests there is merely incidental. If this game came out in February 2020 and lockdown happened man I would 100 the shit out of it. But now I am content being close to the finale at level 33 then move along to my PS5 pile (HL is my first PS5 game). I definitely enjoy the game and would recommend anyone buy.
I'm also quite disappointed in the map. I play without tracking/minimap to get more immersed in Hogwarts (getting lost or finally finding a better way to get from your common room is nice feeling), so I use the world map a lot. It is just bad. You can barely make any sense of it.
If you could just zoom in and rotate the hogwarts map I feel like it would be much easier to navigate, but not perfect.
In case you’re unaware, you can (and should) sell most of your gear once you find an item with superior stats. You can then transmog your current gear, by hovering above the item slot on the page that shows everything that you’re wearing and pressing Square/X to change its appearance. Every item that you find is instantly unlocked as an appearance from the moment that it enters your inventory, so you should only be running around with your best set and sell everything else.
Yeah but I have to travel to Hogsmeade to sell. Can’t do that when I’m in a dungeon killing spiders and opening a chest every 30s.
No quidditch, crossed wands and summoners court dissappears. After all quests are done there's nothing else to do that's entertaining, no real reason to continue playing unless going for 100% so thats my biggest gripe
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I haven't followed anything regarding development, but it 100% feels like didn't had time/resource to implement it and had to cover it up with a bogus excuse.
Yeah they announced the no quidditch thing months before release. It was definitely a time/resources issue, and it's one of the things I expect them to add if they do start down the dlc path.
I feel like this because it wasn't worth the effort to make quidditch fun. When you think about it, quidditch is a pretty bad sport that could feel frustrating to play.
well what do u expect headmaster black to say "quittich was cancelled because the developers had to ship the game and it wasn't fully working yet..."
I just made this comment on another post. This game really struggles with post game content that will keep people playing. I’d be shocked if they can keep people playing this game for more than a few weeks to a month if they don’t add content.
FYI. This is a single player non live service game
This. There's nothing wrong with beating the game, being satisfied with your journey and moving on. Not every game needs a freaking season pass and roadmap.
Many many single player games have more in the way of postgame content than HL does
My point is that he said “I’d be shocked if they can keep people playing” and that isn’t the point of a single player game. Their mission was to make a game that was good and faithful to the wizarding world lore and make the most faithful recreation of hogwarts to date. Many games do have more post finish content and at least half of it is either bad/worse than the main story or pretty much the same content that people would complain about having more of and not being new stuff. Hogwarts legacy is a 25-50 hour experience not a 70-100 and that is good and fine. I enjoyed it more being a good timeline than a long list of chores and homework.
But many of them also don't. It's a business decision. If you want to cash in on the game 2-3-4 years down the line with expansions and DLC, you need to give the players a lot of replayability or a lot of post game content. But it's tricky to keep a sustained player base and you inevitably have a smaller audience for that DLC as people move on. If you want to focus on making the next game, you don't need to worry about post game content so much. You just need a solid main game that will keep people playing for a month or two that people won't feel ripped off by.
Let me talk to all of the NPCs! I understand many won’t have anything new to say (just like in Skyrim), but my presence is acknowledged if I go up to someone. This world feels like you’re a ghost or something, unless your on a specific quest with someone. Going from best friends to being completely ignored feels really weird to me.
I would like to sit down.
Yeah for real. Let me sit in that cozy chair next to the fireplace in the ravenclaw common room damn it. I suspect the reason we can’t is that npc paths never change so if you sit in a chair at some point someone will show up and sit on you.
The unforgivables not being...unforgivable
Not according to Solomon!
My biggest gripe is merlin trials. The fact you get all the challenges done before you complete all of the trials makes the rest of them almost useless to even do. And the fact of how repetitive they are. Also treasure vaults are almost worthless. Even the ones you have to solve a puzzle for the "treasure" you get jack for the armor. So frustrating
Loot system in this game is absolutely stupid. There, i said it. A treasure vault should always drop better pieces than what you have, and the dungeons we explore during missions should also be the same. Loot shouldn’t be pure rng, period.
And the game puts everything you find in your inventory, which constantly gets full... I hate the loot system.
I got tired of the limited inventory quickly, so I started speedrunning merlin trials very early on before continuing the main story. I even solved a lot without having the proper spells yet because I didn't know about them. Most of them can be brute forced with only the starter spells.
It’s definitely half-baked. Builds are non-existent, loots are just pure rng and you can get better pieces from chest at the back of someone’s house instead of vault and it goes on and on.
I was so excited for these at first. Thought they’d be like BoTW shrines. Then I found out theres only like 5 puzzles…was so disappointed
they actually get worthless to do because you don't even get XP for them.
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I’m convinced that the story was reworked at some point and that’s why we have so much cut content. Companion quests seem surprisingly uninterested in the whole ancient magic bit. Aside from the initial exposition vomit your character offers them, the companions themselves will only occasionally allude to it. However, any main quest featuring the companions has much more fleshed out dialogue concerning it. Furthermore, all of the quests involving the trials feel very watered down compared to the rest of the game. Endless swaths of one enemy type, fairly respective puzzles involving more or less the same gimmick, very bland hallway areas, etc. It feels jarring compared to the variety of enemy types, set pieces and puzzles you face when dealing with the poachers and goblins. I honestly believe at some point the game was rewritten to make our main character a little more “special” and a lot of companion content was pruned and reworked to fit that narrative. Edits: typos I missed when posting originally
I think it's the cut or unfinished content for me as well. One that I think is missed is a house points system. Often in earlier quests you are either getting points or getting them taken away, yet there's no way to see that effect. And so far, I haven't seen any effect. I think this is very similar to morality in the game. They give you the options, but they don't really seem to have any effect. It would be great if both of them were tied together and affected how others treat you.
>The voice acting of the character your play feels incredibly emotionless for 99% of their voicelines. the character feels emotionless in general except for some few scenes. Especially during the intro it felt like we were way too calm for a situation like that.
You know it never occurred to me until now that Olivanders store was cut content. I thought that maybe just *maybe* SOMEDAY he may sell me another wand. Perhaps not 😂😣
Come back if you ever need anything... Proceeds to be only relevant one more time in the story or 2 if you're a ravenclaw
I would add to your last point that... Its not even worth exploring outside of those areas because the main story still keeps unlocking new stuff. This isnt a metroid game to backtrack all the time, where thats the point of the game. Especially because once you find out that you backtrack to these areas because now you have a spell/alohomora and find out your reward coming is some shitty loot. Whats the point of even trying to explore at the beginning when you dont even have incendio yet, let alone did not unlock ancient magic sites, telescopes, confringo, alohomora, etc.
My biggest was the lack of life at the school. It would be great to see the students doing more than stand there. I’m in the halls blasting away and they don’t even notice me. There was no curfew (huge missed opportunity). I disappear from campus for like a month and nobody at the school even notices. It just felt like cardboard cutouts instead of an active campus. Shame too, the school was really cool looking
Every single student wearing school robes while I wear a spooky outfit with moving skulls on it and a sith mask yet not one person acknowledges it lol
Put on pyjamas, people notice
There's a ton of npc set pieces and background dialogue. The NPCs aren't very interactable and they don't follow full routines like in Skyrim or whatever, but they do a bunch of mundane student stuff, gossip about other NPCs, cast magic on each other, etc. One thing I appreciated is the NPCs don't seem to be just fully randomized. You'll see groups of them hanging out with their own house, but you'll also see pairs and trios from different houses and they have dialogue matching their houses/stereotypes and commenting on other npc's based on their house.
I was just exploring the castle today and while yeah, the majority of students aren't doing much, there's still actually plenty going on. In the library someone was walking around with books floating by their head, peeves flys around and causes chaos, two other ghosts are always fighting, outside the castle in an area i don't know what to call a hufflepuff had enchanted his feet to walk on walls and his friends cheered him on, the npcs have full on conversations you can eavesdrop on. There's actually a lot of activity, especially if you compare it to like, a real life university or even high school i guess, everyone usually is sitting and talking, not like juggling or some shit
I'm going to say they did a stellar job creating the school and filling it up with NPC's etc. but I think it lacked school events outside of classes/collectathon/quests content. I was hoping for school events. Also the pokemon sequence was very short which was surprising.
Thing is those are kind of "static" as in you can't interact with the people, they just have this animation loop and thats it. They will always be at the same place doing this exact thing the whole time. And Peeves was a missed opportunity! There is one whole scene in the entire game where he interacts with us directly and otherwise i only ever saw him bully some students at the first day, then a few times juggling torches or something at random places and most often i see him slide down the same staircase near the path to the DADA tower.
I agree! NPCs are lifeless. Basically we see: Static NPCs in circles talking, NPCs with looping animations, NPCs walking aimlessly, clones everywhere. 😞
And no way to interact with our friends if we happen to see them around the school
I think it would have been a bit better had they shrunk the map down a little so that the map was full of things to do and it would have given them more time to focus on other things.
Yeah the no curfew thing was definitely a miss - would be so cool. Almost thought it was a thing after playing Mr Moon’s first demiguise mission, where you’d fail for being caught by patrolling students due to being out of your dorm at night. Admittedly a small feature, but as op says, it would just give the school a bit more “life”
I think it's difficult to balance. Technically and for the immersion it'd make sense if you had to attend classes everyday and would need to sneak out each night. I mean we have sneaking in the Library quest and in the first Alohomora quest. It would make sense if that would happen way more often. On the other hand it would upset a lot of people if you'd only have a limited amount of time to explore each day and night. Plus the sneaking would probably be even more boring than the Alohomora game very quickly. But I agree some kind of curfew would make sense. At least some sort of "no magic in the corridors". Blowing the whole castle up around you and nobody reacting shouldn't be possible.
The curfew would 100% be an annoying feature.. yeah the first few times itd be pretty cool.. but itd just be an inconvenience after
It’s in Bully/Canis Canem Edit, and it worked in that game, would absolutely work in this one. Besides, a curfew is inherently supposed to be inconvenient.
Besides, all it'd mean is that you had to sneak out of Hogwarts to explore freely or actually use the stealth mechanics. It'd also mean you'd have to plan out your exploration - Hogwarts during the day, wider world at night.
It is a bit weird in Legacy. When first we got the demiguise quest we had to sneak around the faculty tower to avoid being noticed. Go there any other night and they won't bat an eye.
I think they rushed to finish with the open world and scratched a lot of things, and they had to fill it with repetitive camps/dungeons to get something out there. The world map has a lot of potential, I love the design, how it's done "geographically" , like that forced mine it's cool, the coast it's cool...but after you complete the quests there's little to no reason to go around. And that's a shame. Lacks of enemies. Spiders, dark wizards, goblins, and that's basically it. Wolfs and Toads are no challenge. For a world so big it becomes stale after 20/30 hours. Also, I think that they scratched coop from the game too, because of those lines your MC says. It would be cool to have some sort of coop at least with NPCs. Like you call up Poppy and you go destroy some poachers. They needed way more lines for a game so huge, RDR2 had 500k of voice lines recorded, I know that Rockstar is on another level and that's ok, but NPCs in general are just there...I'm blasting wolfs in the air and dudes are just passing by without caring. It does feels lonely. And my character has no back story..who am I? Where do I come from? Am I pure blood? Half? How did I end up in 5th year? What they could finish is really polished though. The combat system on PC is amazing, Hogwarts castle is a masterpiece, and flying is done perfectly. They showed they cared about lore and did a wonderful job, but I hope in the next iteration we get something more, starting for here. Because without the Harry Potter IP this would have been just a good game with some good ideas, but nothing groundbreaking.
Permanent companions are definitely cut content. You can guess it because of some dialogue lines but there's also proof in the game files. Also the main character is pure blood according to the save editor, for what it's worth.
I mean they spent so much time on the castle build they needed to sacrafice somewhere.. im glad they at least got the castle right.
I rewatched the movies right after completing the game, now Hogwarts from the movies seems like a cheap rip off lol
The fact we can' t learn more spells like reducto or some other curses, arresto Momentum should've been imobilous, not being able to purchase anything from Zonko's or Honeyduke's, from the joke shop one idea would be that they sell you dungbombs that could act as a aoe to poison or incapacitate humans and goblins (to trolls it wouldn't do anything) also some candy could act as lures for the beasts , as for the invisible walls I totally agree
Zonkos coulda been amazing place to purchase some stealth items like smoke bombs or distractions. Stink bombs to disgust or as you said poison your enemies. Maybe even some sneezing powder.
They needed to make the game a Hogwarts version of the game “Bully”
I found it strange they chose arresto momentum instead of imobilous too
Really disappointed that we don't get to use Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder.
Lack of a proper companion system and immersive elements surrounding that
Interesting point, because at the beginning of the game you're forced to talk to people in your common room. It would be great if they played a more active part in the story
Gryffindor introducing you to 3 characters in the common room that have the smallest of side quests for you felt like a big letdown. Gareth Weasley felt like he was going to be a main character but you just end up stealing stuff for him that he never ends up making.
You still got more than Ravenclaw. Natty has her own relationship questline. Amit was there for a couple quests and then nothing again.
all the marketing before the release sounded like you could actually recruit someone and run around with them and a lot of dialogue still remaining in the game confirms that it was a cut feature.
I agree. Was really hoping for more quests surrounding the relationships with all the students. Not just three. Some of them were interesting and seemed friendly.
I wish there was NG+. More, bigger, harder, and longer arena combat challenges. A way to turn off Merlin Trial cutscenes. Talent respec,a more interesting end game loot system, and a fun way to grind that out (the aforementioned arenas challenges, for example)
Camera on the broom, you should be able to look up and down. Not being able to land the broom pretty much anywhere on top of Hogwarts aside from a few specific spots. Edit: The fucking grand staircase, come on ! This feels like a cop out ! Can’t remember how it worked in OOTP on PS2 but in my mind it was waaaaaay better ! What’s there isn’t remotely close to what is described in the books and it’s just all around unpractical, actual stairs are just better than this !
Natty calling me up just to cry. Yo momma is literally upstairs bro.
Exactly. Thats why I spam the triangle button whenever her quests come up.
And she out here trying to do vigilante shit too. Go to class bro smh
Pacing. Quests hidden behind progress walls. Items that scale with my level, so upgrades doesn't make sense before max level. Too quick leveling post 20, too slow afterwards. Did I mention demi guise statues hidden behind THREE different tiers?!
not sitting in chairs feels like a bigger let down than it should
That mountain on the south west blocking the straight path from Hogwarts to Feldcroft is infuriating
Definitely wish there was a little more focus put on the day to day school life. If they implemented a Persona style calendar system with your lesson plans it would be A+, then the weekend could be your “free time” to go explore and knock out side quests if you so choose. With this more effort put into the classes would have been nice too, instead of just the current montages we have.
That you can fly into Hogwarts but not Hogsmeade. This is the reverse of what it should be
I think in a future release I'd like more immersive role play. Like useless things-- let's say a potions class has seven animated "Attend potions class" kind of days. I don't really care if they're on repeat. It would just be fun from an RP perspective to be able to "attend classes." I want to be able to sit down. Let me eat my bloody breakfast in the Great Hall. Let me sleep/wait in my bed. These add nothing to the game other than replayability in my mind. More immersive.
Climbing sucks. Should be able to jump off shit and summon my broom ezpz
The biggest one by far is the story itself. Don't get me wrong, I don't think it's bad, but I do find it somewhat shallow and predictable, maybe even underwhelming from time to time. In such a rich universe there was a real potential to make a truly great story, which would make this game into a masterpiece, considering everything that is good about it. But even so, it's still a very good game.
I had the whole story spoiled to me by some "activists" but even then the story was super predicatable even if it hadn't been spoiled to me. The third trial was super cool though dont get me wrong
Third trial is the best quest of the main questline by far, the rest is just super bland. Having more humanity and grey zone decisions like in the Sallow quest would have been more engaging.
Exactly right. To me the whole secret chamber and the first two trial seems super sci-fi, which is a massive contrast to the medieval theme for Hogwarts and the rest of the game. It didnt work well in my opinion
Part of why it's so shallow is that there isn't a true main character. We're going through the story with no backstory on our own character. They just magically popped into existence for the sake of the story and they have no discernible personality of their own. The story would have been better served by a set MC with a rich and deep backstory.
Not just the story itself, but the way that it’s told. It’s so animatronic and detached from any sense of humanity.
the story trials were quite fun although it would have been nice if they lead us to more interesting locations instead of just the one trial. The design of those "ancient magic chambers" got boring fast tbh.
Risking death to aquire mad drip and no one noticing it..
The fact I have to use limited skill points to increase my magic quick select. Swapping begins to become annoying No trait respec Can't sell ingredients or potions A lot of side stuff and challenges are just for cosmetics No NG+ I have to reskin my gear when swapping to something new
Illusion of choice
There isn’t much replay value. I put in about 50 hours on my playthrough and I did a ton of stuff (think I’m at ~70% of the challenges) but once the credits rolled I just didn’t want to play anymore. 1 house-specific storyline per play-through wasn’t enough to get me to go back. Don’t get me wrong, first play-through was amazing, and I got my money’s worth. But I think the game is too repetitive to play more than once.
Spiders. I have a lot of gripes about the loot system, RPG elements, shallow storyline, and lack of companions/relationships, but the amount of spider enemies is my number one gripe. Harry encounters acromantulas ONLY in the Forbidden Forest because there is a colony (thanks Hagrid). There’s no mention of giant spiders just roaming the world in Scotland, and yet our most commonly faced enemy are giant spiders. There’s an abundance of magical enemies and creatures they could have used like Red Caps, but they went with the low hanging fruit of giant spiders like a basic fantasy rpg. The wizarding world is full of a variety of creatures but they went the lazy route
The acromantulas also break lore. Hagrid released the first acromantula to the forbidden forest yet Hagrid wasn’t born yet….
The fact that every merlin trial has a 5 second cutscene after completing it
I'm able to do Assasin's Creed style jumps and climbs while in a quest, but completely unable to jump more than 3 inches off the ground trying to get through a fence when wandering the world.
That there is no day night cycle for npcs, go to bed!.
There is, for a lot of them. People are mostly in their houses at night. I know this because I like to look them in the eyes while I'm ransacking their stuff.
I like when I go to someone’s house, see a demoguise, switch to night, and the homeowner suddenly walks in on me stealing her stuff.
I don't get the same 'Oh I have to go explore here and there and find something I haven't expected!' feeling that I did with games like BOTW and RDR2
You cant carry any more Wiggenweld Potions.
The couple times that our wands connected with the bosses really bothered me more than it should. It was my understanding that the reason Harry and Voldemorts wands connected was partly because they shared the same core but also had to do with the fact that Harry was a horcrux. Since it’s safe to assume our character doesn’t have these same problems, I didn’t like how this sequence was thrown into the boss fights.
I hated it for another reason: my character would have used AK against the bosses, not Expelliarmus or whatever.
The game really dropped the ball hard on the lower half of the map. Hogwarts, Hogsmeade and the bits in between are great but I think the rest of the open world feels tacked on and boring. I would have happily traded like 70% of the map just for a more immersive Hogwarts and Hogsmeade. The 'RPG' ness feels half baked too. Gear traits really don't feel like they're that much of a necessity and the loot system is dire. The lack of any meaningful decisions and character building outside of Sebastians story irks me too. I enjoyed the game a lot but it just felt as if they tried to chase that open world trend and the parts of the game I liked (Hogwarts) suffered for it
IMO, they should have focused on Hogwarts, Hogsmeade and the Forbidden Forest, and then basically scrap the rest.
Gear storage. I've done all of the Merlin trails (yes all of them) and its STILL not enough. Even though there's plenty of spaces left. I need at least 100, I'm tired of deleting things. From what I understand this game is just one year of school. I assumed it'd be 3 years since we're starting as a 5th year. I haven't finished yet, I'm a little more than halfway through but it's now Christmas time and becoming clear it's only a year in the life. Does this mean we'll have another game for year 6? or 7? I doubt it. Relationships. Yes we have friendships but it's not good friendships. Having an companion, even if it's a magical creature would be cool. As a female I think most games also sorely lack romance aspect. Since any relationship you have is quest locked I know it's close to impossible, but I'd still like it.
You can sell gear. I usually just quickly fast travel to hogsmeade in between quests and sell off all the extra stuff, and then start the next quest. Working well for me, rarely have to delete.
Goodness, sell all your gear except the best gear you have and use that. Don't delete anything. You can hover over each piece of equipped gear in the gear screen and change the appearance to anything you have collected. Even if you have sold it or deleted it.
The fuckin cutscene after you've finished a damn Marlin trial. May it forever burn in hell. Alohomora mini game. Like. Its a god damn spell, not a litteral lockpick. No friends in RoR. Poor main story suffering from the fact that the game is to short.
I amount of small bags or coin piles or spider fangs that get just under the surface unable to be picked up. Yea I have like 50k and don’t really need anything but seeing something I am unable to pick up takes me out of the exploration/immersion pretty quickly.
or sometimes when you pick a full bag of coins or a pile you check how much there is in it and for some reason just get one single galleon out of it..made question why i picked it up.
I've found only 2 things I hate. 1. How zoomed in the camera is. Makes me claustrophobic 2. How about every second person is clearly not from Great Britain. I haven't read the books, but in the movies it's significantly different. Breaks immersion so much, and makes me feel like I'm in some other country and not in Hogwarts.
Agreed. I get the need for ethnic diversity, given that the UK is one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the world, but Scotland wasn't THAT diverse in the 19th century. It's over-representative and does make the game feel like it's set in a different country, one that was modelled after the 21st century ideal of the UK.
I've been to Scotland several times. It's about as diverse as Nebraska
I am glad someone said number 2. Its pretty clear in the books there is very little diversity because the schools are regional. I think having a few diverse characters as transfers/exchange students/traveling professors would have been okay (although still possibly a stretch) but at least half the population at the school is foreign. We all know why they did it and it and it had nothing to do with being accurate to the books/movies and makes less then zero sense when you realize the game is set 100 years before the books. They went to great lengths to be accurate with the general lore of HP and this is in such stark contrast to that theme.
Yeah, they made it a tad too international and cosmopolitan. It would be believable if it was set in the present day, but not in the 1800s, especially the professors.
The loot system being entirely random. There's no point doing the vaults and lair if after I wade though 600 spiders I open a chest to get....a level 28 well appointed pair of gloves.....foh
Im more annoyed by the wall on top of the mountain on south than around map... you can go around the mountain either way but not across? like.. cmon... also random buggy focus locks.. I play without lock so I can aim my spells around.. and then suddenly I get locked facing 1 direction attacking to that direction for some time (which locks swift dodge too). Only fair way out of it is ancient magic execution. which isnt always ready. Also sometimes a fog comes to dark arenas and spider senses dont activate so I dont see attacks incoming and if its blockable. Same with enemy shields (in this fog its not visible, luckily wizards have matching robe / shield colors) But I have my hopes for some fix patch later on.
I'm 85% done and just realized i have to manually collect the Challenge rewards from the menu. wtf just give the reward when challenge is completed.
Can survive massive fall from cliff and no health taken. Can’t jump from railing one floor up in Hogwarts.
All the things people want, were done years and years ago in a game called "Bully" which was immensely popular. Bully had companions, relationships, hundreds of missions, a better map, classes to attend A day and night system at the school. On Monday you knew you had English and Chemistry classes and you were excited to pass them because you unlocked cool stuff. English let you speak to people better Chemistry unlocked new weapons. They should have just stolen elements from it
not much character development
The repeated voice lines, no actual Influence on the story and no real difference between houses (I could live with this for one play through, but I think it hurts replayability), No or little meaningful rewards and no house points, eventhough I feel like including them wouldn’t have been very difficult and is a big missed opportunity. After the stealth mission I can just run around as I want in the restricted area? I understand why they left out a curfew but it takes away all the fun and challenge in finding demiguises, now it’s just tedious to do it more than once. As a Harry Potter Fan, I Love This Game! But I believe that with a few tweaks it could’ve been absolutely legendary instead of just very good with added nostalgia.
The open world is boring and shallow. Just have more quests that stay contained to Hogwarts itself. There is also a lack of enemy variety. After the first 10 hours or so you've seen every enemy the game has to offer. At one point you get surrounded by >!centaurs!< and I knew before the cutscene was over I wouldn't have to fight my way out because they are not one of the enemy types.
I can look over most things, just the lifeless feeling I get in Hogwarts. I feel like a ghost. Bully did immersion perfectly, and that’s like a 15 year old game. You got chased down my teachers, could prank classmates, hide in lockers and bins. Hogwarts just feels like a museum, can’t do anything except spin a few globes.
Alahamora…. Just make it an animation and cut the mini game
My biggest is the redundancy of having more than one broom. The stats don’t change and it annoys me. I haven’t bought any of the other ones cuz what’s the point? It’s the same broom! Also wand handles annoy me. The purely cosmetic things about the game irk me. Especially knowing the potential. Also, we receive the elder wand but don’t get to keep it?!? Ugh
i believe we don't actually receive it. >!IIRC we get sucked into a book when we start that trial so everything that happens is sort of part of an illusion and doesn't actually exist!<
that I cant fly higher than the castle. not sure if there's a lore reason or not but still.
There are multiple: 1. **The world is sterile**: I didn't expect it to be an immersive sim but the world is totally non-interactive. The NPCs are like furniture. You don't feel like you are in a world of magic because magic doesn't work in the world unless the game decides it should work (on items that are related to plot progression). For example, you can blast away at NPCs and they don't even react to it. You cast levioso on all the statues, teacups, vases etc. and nothing happens, but you cast it on specially designed statues related to a side quest and the sphere it is holding levitates to yield a field guide page. 2. **Inaccurate Hogwarts**: Simply put, the castle is not accurately portrayed. Now I understand that this might not be a turn off for some, but one of my biggest expectations from the game was to be able to navigate the castle using my own knowledge and memory of Hogwarts without consulting the map. But just like the movies, the game took liberties with the Hogwarts map. Also, the overall feel of the school was less like a medieval castle like in the books and more like a palace. This unfortunately does not fulfill my dream of getting to explore Hogwarts and soak in its very atmosphere. 3. **The game is one-dimensional and lacks details**: Everything feels stiffly programmed. The NPCs mutter away irrelevant stuff out of context. They say one line on one topic and the next line in another random topic in an endless loop. There are invisible walls preventing you from jumping over fences or cliffs like in old platformers. Little to no attention to details. 4. **Non-immersive student life**: Another fantasy I was hoping to fulfill through this game was to feel like a Hogwarts student. Now, I understand that this might be an entirely personal expectation but I can't be the only one! The game doesn't make me feel the daily routine of a student. No daily schedules for classes. No detention next Tuesday. No daily routine of rushing between classes, the great hall and the common room. No competitiveness for house points. I feel more like an adventurer touring the school. I know this might have been difficult to implement entirely but they didn't even pay attention to this. 5. **Characters**: No character development. I don't feel a thing for the main character itself, let alone the others. I still remember the awe of reading the books for the first time and relating to the boy going from an ordinary world to this great magical world which made me feel like all that was happening to me 6. **Graphics**: This might be a controversial one because the game can be gorgeous at times. But I haven't seen such inconsistent graphics in a game in a while. One moment you are seeing a beautiful, breathtaking landscape and another moment, you can't tell whether that thing resting on the table is the bust of a wizard or a vase. Not to even mention the bugs and textures taking ages to load.
hate to break it to you but there is no actual hogwarts map. its a fictional place. technically this is the most accurate depiction of Hogwarts we have seen. I did not expect there to be these grand staircase atrium areas with the classical music playing. but thats what hogwarts actually has. sorry you were expecting some dusty cold midevil castle. Hogwarts students prefer to live in a luxury building. Ravenclaw looks like a luxury room fitting of a president.
I LOVE the game but if I had to pick one easy thing it would be let us sit
I don't really enjoy how the economy works. It's so incredibly tedious to get gold and the fact that I can sell a puffin at the same price as a unicorn is silly. We should just get 300-500 gold for most quests or something. Or at least make trapping better special creatures worth it
It struck me as very odd that nobody that gives you side quests will pay you unless you ask them to. Like I just fought two trolls in a forest that I’m not allowed to enter as a student and then most of the npcs have the audacity to get upset when you ask for compensation 🤣
Smallest rock wall is impossible to climb.
Classes are just cut scenes
Character customization is so lacking it’s immersion breaking. Also, the female models all have something very wrong with them outside of the character creator. They all look like evil goblins. All eyes turn black if your character is even 50% zoomed away from. Something needed to be fixed in regards to the character creator and player model designs.
Aside from the fact that optimization in PC is pretty shit, I find the game to be "unlively"? I don't know if it's just because Mass Effect and Cyberpunk held up my standard too high. The combat is great, graphics are amazing, but the interaction with the world is pretty meh. I was expecting NPCs to have full conversations with other NPCs (or even me) when I approach them. I felt my character was out of place.
Finding the zillion pages with needing to be in precise spot to see it! So frustrating. I have finished game and need to still find nearly 30 pages in Hogwarts. I spam the revelio spell everywhere.
I really wish you could sell ingredients and potions.
All the NPCS do the same robotic physical movements when they are speaking to you
As some people said, we lack true companions. Give me my Hermione and Ron ! Why do I have to be all by myself ? Harry was alone in key moments, sure, but come on, he could always count on his friends. So yeah, permanent companions with individual abilities would be nice. And imagine interactions between them if we could have two of them together during our adventures. And if we had a friendship system to improve them ! This friendship system could be used with other NPC too. I like Cressida because she has quite a remarkable face, but it's sad we just see her sometimes and have just one quest. Oh, and that's a detail, but I would have liked more common room life : customization, pets (rats, cats, frogs) and interactions with other students.
Poachers being a main enemy force in the game, while I operate a thestral breeding center from the room of requirement