Hey Somethings!
New Year, New Us, Same Blog!
We have some things in the works that we’re excited for coming in March, and we hope you end up excited for it too!
So, over the holidays, thanks to Steam’s sale (=shakes fist at clouds=), I ended up buying Hogwarts Legacy because… well.. I had wanted to try it when it came out, but the price was a huge turn of for me (to say nothing of the personality issues and social beliefs of Ms. R…) but the pricing on the sale made me ok with my decision (in both regards) and I was eager to dip into it.
First thing I noticed is the game is… not… overly stunning graphics-wise. Now my rig has a 3060 and 32g of ram.. not bleeding edge, but still a strong system. It looked… “ok”. Even on Ultra settings, the game looked “ok”… it SURE didn’t look like one would assume a game on Ultra would look. After doing some digging, I found many online who agreed that “Medium” and “Ultra” were not huge differences… in some cased no different… in the appearance of the game. I ended up finding one link that suggested a mish-mosh of “High-Low-Ultra-Medium-off-off-on…” settings that, made the game look as best as it was going to. Ok.. settings handled, off to Hogwarts!
The gameplay is… ok. The spells you learn are varied and visually pretty cool, and the school and surrounding areas are well designed.
Pros : You get to ROAM AROUND HOGWARTS! HOGSMEADE! QUIDDI..well.. no. No Quidditch. The pitch is there, and you can fly around it on your broom, but you can’t play. More on that. The accuracy and care given to the design of the school and Hogsmeade is impressive and… for those who’ve read the books and seen the movies.. dare I say ‘comforting’. I feel most of the movies were a great visual representation of the books descriptions, and now with the game, being in control of WHERE you go and roam around… it felt…good. As far as gear goes, you can make your character look regal, understated, or outright SILLY, and I like that. Tailored and smart? Sure. Want to look like Snape dressed as a grandma coming out of a boggart closet? You can do that too.
Cons : You get to roam around Hogwarts, Hogsmeade and.. so much of it feels like fan service. Can you go in Honeydukes? Sure! And… look around.. and.. activate a few things. Now, some places have quests or are shops to buy certain things needed down the road, but even then, interaction feels stifled. Quidditch? The pitch is there, but the game tells you right from the beginning that there’s no Quidditch season ‘this year’…. apparently a different company is working on a stand alone Quidditch game, so the rights weren’t available. The other thing that was an… odd choice for me… the game takes place 100 years before ‘Sorcerer’s Stone’, but some of the choices felt STRICTLY made for fan service. The two co-headmasters are related to characters in the movies.. yet.. why did the movies/books never say anything? Yes, I know the movies/books came first.. but they created such a rich world to pull from.. would Ron and the other Weasleys be treated the way they were if it was ‘known’ that Ron’s Great-Great-Grandmother was a Co-Headmaster of the school? There are a lot of choices that make you go “Hey! That’s neat! …waitaminute…”
The combat also feels, while interesting with spell combos.. repetitive. I’m hoping as I get deeper into the game, that feel will change.
Overall, it’s an ok game. If you’ve been looking for the opportunity to get into it, definitely get it on sale IMO. Capture the warm and fuzzies of the fan service and hopefully that will keep you warm enough during the Meh of the game.
What did YOU think? Let us know in our socials!
– PCR
