Hogwarts Legacy is an extremely controversial game.

While obviously being a perfect gift for Harry Potter fans, from the gameplay point of view it's a fairly generic open world action/adventure with role-play elements, pretty much inspired by the similar projects, such as Ubisoft games.

Overall, Hogwarts Legacy is an extremely well-crafted product. Its large budget has been applied competently. Special awards go to the atmosphere and fanservice. It feels that developers are well-familiar with the Wizarding World and love it. This dive into the favorite universe initially enraptured me so much, that I was not able to see the actual problems this game has.

But if we slice the aspects of the game into pieces, most of them are relatively primitive or even poorly designed. The plot and the characters are unamusing, open world activities are repetitive and with dubious awards, as game, for some reason, adopted the Diablo-like randomly dropping loot system. Tiny inventory and inconvenient menus together with the above-mention loot system slow down the tempo of the game a lot.

There are 2 aspects that actually made me leave a positive review:
1. Combat and puzzle solving based on spell combinations. While combat is designed better, there are some puzzles in the game, which actually require some brain activity. But battles are extremely pleasant and entertaining. I haven't got tired of it.
2. Exploring. Hogwarts and the surroundings are full of secrets and one needs to spend quite a while to reveal them all. If you enjoy exploration and Metroidvania elements, you would definitely like this game.

Overall, I had a lot of fun. But I am a fan of Harry Potter since childhood. And if we take away the setting, it's a pretty average game with a lot of aspect to improve.

Hogwarts Legacy is an extremely controversial game. While obviously being a perfect gift for Harry Potter fans, from the gameplay point of view it's a fairly generic open world action/adventure with role-play elements, pretty much inspired by the similar projects, such as Ubisoft games. Overall, Hogwarts Legacy is an extremely well-crafted product. Its large budget has been applied competently. Special awards go to the atmosphere and fanservice. It feels that developers are well-familiar with the Wizarding World and love it. This dive into the favorite universe initially enraptured me so much, that I was not able to see the actual problems this game has. But if we slice the aspects of the game into pieces, most of them are relatively primitive or even poorly designed. The plot and the characters are unamusing, open world activities are repetitive and with dubious awards, as game, for some reason, adopted the Diablo-like randomly dropping loot system. Tiny inventory and inconvenient menus together with the above-mention loot system slow down the tempo of the game a lot. There are 2 aspects that actually made me leave a positive review: 1. Combat and puzzle solving based on spell combinations. While combat is designed better, there are some puzzles in the game, which actually require some brain activity. But battles are extremely pleasant and entertaining. I haven't got tired of it. 2. Exploring. Hogwarts and the surroundings are full of secrets and one needs to spend quite a while to reveal them all. If you enjoy exploration and Metroidvania elements, you would definitely like this game. Overall, I had a lot of fun. But I am a fan of Harry Potter since childhood. And if we take away the setting, it's a pretty average game with a lot of aspect to improve.