A Dream Come True | Hogwarts Legacy

[Music] ever since I first heard that there was going to be an open world Harry Potter game a couple of years ago my interest was peaked I mean it just made sense like we should have gotten a game like this a long time ago given the ridiculous popularity of open world games today and the fact that Harry Potter already has a massive fan base and Source material to draw from not to mention it being a dream so many Harry Potter fans have shared over the past two decades at this point it was only a matter of time before we got a modern open world Harry Potter game and Hogwarts Legacy in many ways I think is that game people dreamed of now personally I was always more of a Star Wars fan growing up that was kind of my big Die Hard franchise but I always enjoyed Harry Potter and thought it was a given that it needed some type of open world game like this and I think Hogwarts Legacy delivered almost exactly on the kind of experience I imagined where you're a student at Hogwarts you can roam the halls and explore the castle go to classes and even check out the surrounding cities and outskirts I think regardless of how good Hogwarts Legacy actually was as an open world game it would have done well because of the mass following the IP has but it also helps that it's actually a really solid open world game that's better than a good majority of the mediocrity we get from the genre in many ways Hogwarts Legacy is a dream game that has come true [Music] I think what's perhaps the most impressive part about Hogwarts Legacy though is the studio behind it Avalanche software it's a pretty incredible story for the studio starting out making toy to life games for various Disney movies like Cars Toy Story and Disney Infinity in fact their last game before Hogwarts Legacy was the Cars 3 game that was released in 2017. however because of the decline in interest in Toyota life games Disney closed to the whole operation down including Avalanche until it was acquired and reopened by Warner Bros and six years later Avalanche software is better than ever with one of the best selling AAA releases of the year to think that a studio that spent almost 20 years making toy to life Disney games was capable of of such a massive game and achievement is pretty shocking it makes you think what other Studios and developers could be capable of if given the chance and to think for the Studio's first time making this kind of a massive open world game and that they were able to do it better than a large majority of other games with Studios that solely make these kinds of games is unbelievable now I'm not gonna oversell it it's not one of the best open worlds ever made but it's definitely on the higher end side and better than a vast majority I'd say it's evident when a studio actually cares about the source material and IP they're working on and that passion shows in the game the detail and accuracy of Hogwarts and the little Easter eggs and references sprinkled throughout the game the sheer amount of lore alone only genuine fans could be capable of something like this and I think that really shows this is also a little thing but I love that they had these extended gameplay showings months before or the game was even released and how candid the developers were about where the game was and what we could expect from it not only does it show they're proud of the game they've made but they were very transparent with the community it's something you rarely see and I personally really appreciated that I wasn't even entirely sure for a while if I wanted to make a video on this game but these showcases are what got me interested Hogwarts Legacy is quite the Marvel especially when you consider the history of avalanche and that this is their first crack at a large open world game like this and that they managed to do it better than companies who've been making games like this for decades at this point whatever they do in the future whether that's a sequel or another big open world project Avalanche has certainly proven themselves in just how much potential they have [Music] now what makes Hogwarts Legacy better than your average open world game well a lot of it has to do with the open world itself for starters the school Hogwarts is incredibly well made it's packed full of students doing different magical tasks or engaging in conversations you can stumble upon some pretty funny moments happening within the school come now Annabelle it was a long time ago be if I could undo all that happened that day I would no no they are little things and some games wouldn't include these fun little moments like this but those little things add up to be a lot and make it more immersive and lived in World Hogwarts is absolutely massive and thank God for the little Waypoint system or I would have been lost for 60 hours seeing some of the iconic locations from the movies is obviously awesome and even some places that weren't seen in the movies but mentioned in the books having all the students constantly roaming around the school generally helps with immersion as well however I do wish they had a little bit more of a reaction to your actions like some extra voice lines or reactions to when you start hitting them with your spells they just kind of stand there and feel a little inanimate sometimes but that's a very minor complaint in the grand scheme of things I was kind of worried that the areas outside the castle may feel a little Barren and Bland in comparison to Hogwarts but that to my delight was for the most part not the case there's plenty of little towns hamlets and of course the bustling city of hogsmead which also looked fantastic and was a lot of fun to explore Hogwarts Legacy Nails what makes an immersive and engaging open world I always like to compare these games to The Witcher 3 my favorite open world game of all time and the game that set the standard for what a lot of open World Games look like now there's plenty of things to do in the world whether it's side quests Merlin trials random enemy encounters or Arenas even something as simple as popping balloons whenever you're exploring there's always something to do you'll always come across something to keep you engaged and not tuning out on your way from point A to point B it's something The Witcher 3 nailed and I found a very similar Concept in Hogwarts Legacy all of that mixed with hidden locations little interactable objects again little things that really add up and make a big difference it makes for a very rewarding EX exploration experience exploring in Hogwarts Legacy is fun in fact I dare say it was my favorite part of the game because I was always finding something to do and being compensated and rewarded accordingly for it I would just wander off not following any Quest and could get lost exploring for hours open world games that are able to offer that kind of exploration are the best now it's not perfect I thought the game was a tad too long and the exploration eventually got stale and a bit repetitive especially once you've done all the different Merlin trials and everything I did get a little burnt out of it by the end but the core of it is very enjoyable and I had a great time with exploration especially in earlier portions of the game but again I think they well understood what made a fun engaging open world while capturing that magic feeling of Harry Potter and everything that entails it has the dedicated camera angles and cutscenes for side class and a good array of choices for each Quest again like The Witcher 3 while I don't think the stories or questlines were as deep or well written as The Witcher 3s they've got the general formula of it down it also helps that this world is just really fun to Traverse once you get your broom a couple of hours into the game it makes going through the world so enjoyable a lot of open World Games struggle to make traversal fun and engaging and luckily Hogwarts Legacy has the benefit of magic so you can use your broom to zip around the world and eventually even a magical Beast the broom also has upgrades you can make to it as you progress through the game which makes it even faster you're obviously not allowed to fly everywhere since some areas are designated as no-fly zones and there were a bit more invisible barriers than I would have liked in the world it would have been really cool to fly over the mountains and everything but I understand there's limitations to how much they could allow you to fly through in the world I also like how they took a age out of Bully's Playbook by having the world changed through the different seasons as the school year progresses it gives a fresh new aesthetic to the world makes everything feel a bit new it really helps refresh the experience which is needed when you have such a long game that an environmental variety which there is plenty of with areas like the Forbidden Forest all sorts of different caves or even the incredibly massive detailed trial rooms the room of requirement was fun to customize and manage getting to capture all sorts of different beasts and then groom feed play and even breed them all the different potions and plants you can Brew and Grow it was a very satisfying Loop and serves as a home base essentially I love how much customization and creativity it allows for I mean you can spend hours customizing all of that I'm sure it had all you interior decorators out there completely consumed the world itself is also far bigger than I was expecting and more regions of it opened up as I got further into the game really my biggest issue and this was more so a problem at launch although it's still a bit of an issue was with the frame drops on PC particularly in Hogwarts and hogsmead there were some really bad stuttering but there is some good fixes on YouTube and even some mods that really helped albeit it's still not perfect or at least not for me I mean I'm not surprised though all things considered being able to go through all the massive areas of Hogwarts without loading screens is a very impressive feat and I think it works quite well but the stuttering and frame drops were certainly frustrating another kind of small and annoying thing and maybe this is just a personal pet peeve but there's so many repeated voice lines I know they already reduced the frequency of how often the flu flame lady talks but even your own character is constantly repeating the same lines I can't tell you how many times I heard all roads lead back to hogsmeade or does it get any more cozy than hogsmeade or the various generic lines they repeat every time you take out a group of enemies van Rock has fooled you all to your demise it drove me a little crazy and luckily it seems like something they've addressed a bit with updates but it's certainly a lot most games have similar issues with repeated dialogue but not to the frequency of Hogwarts Legacy anyways those issues aside like I said Hogwarts Legacy has a very good open world it succeeded my expectations and the way it's paced and how all the different quests and puzzles are spread out kept the world engaging there's an incredible amount of detail put into the world especially in Hogwarts and hogsmead and I feel like I have a much better grasp and understanding of The Wizarding World and the pure scale of Hogwarts than that I ever had before [Music] foreign one of the things I was most concerned about when it came to Hogwarts Legacy was the combat since you know you're fighting with a wand using spells while in most games like this you'd have a sword or something like that in fact the combat takes a lot of inspiration from the Batman Arkham and kind of Middle Earth games so I was a little worried how that would translate into a Harry Potter game but turns out those concerns were unwarranted because it's a satisfying combat system there's a bit of a learning curve and adjustment period to it at first but once you get a handle on it and start unlocking more spells it really opens up and allows for so much creative potential in the combos it's not boring to look at either which was something I was a little worried about but it's very fast paced and fluid which makes the duels thrilling it has great progression learning new and more powerful spells as you go using the Forbidden curses was especially fun of course what's up I spent the whole game looking forward to unlocking Avada Kedavra and I like the story implications when you do actually get it but the progression with the Spells is what kept me playing and it feels great becoming a more powerful wizard over time my biggest complaint with the combat and I swear I'm not just saying this to flex or anything but it just feels too easy I played on hard difficulty and it was still easy again I'm not saying that to brag but it really wasn't challenging much at all once you get used to the combat it feels like the hard mode should have been more difficult or there should have been another difficulty option above hard because I barely died during my over 60 hours with the game and when the combat is too easy you tend to disengage with it a little bit it doesn't make you think or Focus as much but I do like that in combat you can use all these different potions and plans to help boost or Aid you you can actually stack the potions and their effects so I was just doing this and those big boss fights oh of course the enemy variety is a little lacking I do wish there was some more variety I can't tell you how many spiders I killed in this game I just think some more unique enemies as you progress to the later game to kind of shake things up more would have been nice but again this is avalanche's first time doing a game like this I just think it really would have helped with that feeling of repetition in the later game because the combat is very fun and allows for so much creativity but it can get a bit repetitive by the end I will say the inventory system was a very annoying part of the game for me especially at first you're very limited in how much gear you can have at once so whenever you're looting chess you'll constantly be out of space and have to destroy gear or wait until you can sell it all at a merchant and the only way you can increase your inventory space is by completing the Merlin trial challenges which isn't too hard but having to constantly inventory manage whenever opening chess especially towards the begin beginning where you have so very few slots was frustrating as for the actual gear itself first of all I love that they actually allow you to change the appearance of gear without sacrificing good stats this is in other open world RPGs and it should be in every single one because yes you want the best stats but you also want the good fashion and thankfully in Hogwarts Legacy you can have both I like the system of using a beast fur or items to upgrade your gear with the loom it gives you incentive to take care of your beasts and gives them a use outside of just looking adorable the way the gear works is very standard you get your health offense and defense and you're just trying to boost those numbers and you can equip little runes to give you extra bonuses again very typical for a modern open world RPG I did kind of feel like the numbers were just there for the sake of being there kind of like a gimmick rarely did I notice a big difference in gameplay when I got new or fully upgraded gear but that's not really a huge issue and maybe a little bit more nitpicky on my part and Hogwarts Legacy does have some light stealth mechanics you can use the disillusionment spell to go invisible and use petrificus totalis on unexpecting enemies stealth is fun it is very basic and again very easy but I appreciate them including stealth mechanics in the game just giving you more ways to play there's a little bit of depth to it with the skill tree where you can start chaining stealth takedowns or making it harder for enemies to spot you it was a clever way of bringing stealth into a Harry Potter game overall the gameplay is a lot of fun it's easy that's really my biggest issue with it and it may get a bit repetitive after a while but all in all I think it works very well it makes you feel like a badass witch or wizard just slaughtering countless creatures and people as a Hogwarts student [Music] thank you foreign so while of course the storyline to a single player experience like this is very important I think even if the story wasn't the best people wouldn't mind too much since they care most about the world and gameplay I really wasn't expecting a crazy high quality or mind-boggling narrative from this game but instead just a fun adventure as a Hogwarts student and that's pretty much what we got it wasn't an amazing story and it wasn't bad and was what it needed to be for this game that's not to say I don't have my issues with it again I think it's a tad long which makes the story feel a little dragged out and slow at times a lot of the characters are one-dimensional and forgettable aside from a few standouts and there's a lot of padding and filler which is a bit unavoidable when you have this long of a story but again it was by no means terrible and there were some good storylines and characters the most notable student characters and quest lines were for Nazi onai and Sebastian Silo they by far have the most screen time of all your other classmates and their story arcs are the longest stretching through almost the entirety of the game in fact Sebastian's storyline was perhaps one of if not the most memorable and interesting in the game he's a Slytherin who has a sister that he believes has been cursed by goblins and is slowly dying and he'll use any means necessary to save her this was by far the darkest storyline in the game and a good contrast from the rest of the game that feels a little bit lighter and more upbeat in tone the choices in this particular Quest have weight and consequences that actually lead to some tough decisions of all the major quest lines Sebastian's was definitely my favorite there's a few others that are interesting and have their moments but ultimately it's nothing too special as for the main story itself you of course get to create your own Hogwarts student who had been accepted into the School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as a fifth year some something extremely rare in the school's history it's the 19th century so well before Potter and the Gang are even born you quickly realize that your character has some sort of special affinity for ancient magic and a lot of that mystery will slowly unravel as the game progresses as the main antagonist ranrock leads a goblin resistance and hopes to destroy wizard kind the story is a slow burn it starts off really strong and ends really strong but there's a long journey to get there I think it absolutely succeeded with the role play Fantasy as a Hogwarts student with the extensive customization options and dialogue choices the choices aren't quite as in-depth or extensive as some games with this similar format but it's a necessity for a role-playing game like this I think a lot of the smaller side quests do have choices but they don't have much impact usually you get two options be nice or be mean a lot of the time you'll be doing favors for teachers or students who for one reason or another can't do things themselves and then once you've done it you'll get an option to demand a reward or do it out of the kindness of your heart I bet you can guess which one I often chose unless you want your classmates to know how you really feel about them you might reward me for my time ah you're not at all who I thought you to be and you're not who I thought you'd be based upon your diary you seem terribly judgmental but that's typically the kind of choices you'll get with these little relationship quests a lot of them are pretty forgettable and don't offer much in terms of substance but as a Harry Potter role-playing experience it definitely delivers getting to choose your house to attend various classes learn new spells make friends with other students like I said it's not the best story ever but it delivers on what it needs to be and that's a fun and immersive role-playing adventure and of course graphically speaking this game is beautiful specifically the environments just the pure sense of scale seeing Hogwarts from a distance is breathtaking the facial animations and models don't look the best or most detailed but the game in general still looks gorgeous aside from those performance issues I had which was mostly more of an issue when the game first came out Hogwarts Legacy looks great no surprise and they did an excellent job designing this world visually thank you foreign [Music] Hogwarts Legacy may not be one of the best open world games ever made it delivered a really solid and enjoyable experience and most importantly brought a lot of Harry Potter fans dreams to life I enjoyed my time with the game it did a lot of things right and when you consider Avalanche software and their history this is so impressive I'm very excited to see what they do next and Hogwarts Legacy sold incredibly well and I think Avalanche deserves it for their efforts here I mean I know some people who've never touched a video game before who bought consoles just to play this game that's the kind of hype and excitement a game like this brings and there's so many other huge movie and book franchises that would be so cool to see an open world game like this for we're talking Lord of the Rings Star Wars Dune Song of Ice and Fire I'm glad Harry Potter finally got one and that it's a really solid open world game not just a cash grab because of the popularity of the IP the world is engaged aging with tons of stuff to do and some incredible visuals the combat is fun and pretty in-depth and the story is an entertaining Adventure despite some of its shortcomings Hogwarts Legacy in many ways is a dream come true foreign [Music] [Music] God

Channel: MasterAssassin

Views: 35,274

Keywords: Hogwarts Legacy, hogwarts legacy review, hogwarts legacy gameplay, hogwarts legacy trailer, hogwarts legacy tips and tricks, hogwarts legacy common room, hogwarts legacy avada kedavra, hogwarts legacy character creation, hogwarts legacy playthrough, hogwarts legacy ending, hogwarts legacy switch, hogwarts legacy combat, hogwarts legacy walkthrough, hogwarts legacy multiplayer, masterassassin

Id: 09pZpkpKtoE

Length: 24min 9sec (1449 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 11 2023