Hogwarts Legacy: The Best Harry Potter Spinoff Since the Original Books

Console: Nintendo Switch (Also available on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Windows, Xbox Series X/S, and Xbox One)

Time Played: 52 hours

Hogwarts Legacy is an action-RPG with a supremely worthwhile main storyline, engaging side stories, and open world elements that lead to enchanting exploration at one’s own pace. While the game does suffer slightly from having not as outstanding graphics and longer loading times being played on a Nintendo Switch when compared to other systems, the developers did a great job overall making Hogwarts Legacy run smoothly on the console.

Over my playthrough of Hogwarts Legacy, the time when I actually enjoyed the game the least was in those first few hours of gameplay. Once you get past some story setup, players are pretty quickly given access to all of Hogwarts to explore. As someone who’s familiar with Harry Potter lore, but definitely not a huge fan, it was just a big, confusing area that was easy to get lost in.

Some games, such as the most recent Zelda game, Tears of the Kingdom, do a better job more deliberately introducing players to a smaller area of the map so you can get comfortable before letting you move on to more areas. Maybe having players be in just a smaller part of Hogwarts to start would’ve worked better for me. There are also a lot of buttons that you have to click in certain combinations to cast spells (there are a lot of spells) and this takes a while to get used to.

Once I was more acclimated to the map and the controls though, the game was pretty fantastic. It’s rare that a game’s greatest strength is its story, but I believe that’s the case here. Sure, there are some cool exploration elements with how open world the game is, but the main storyline, revolving around the player-character learning to control ancient magic and discovering its history from a secret group of other ancient-magic wielding wizards while at the same time an evil goblin attempts to harness the same power, is great.

The game’s creators did an outstanding job crafting a story that feels like it could take place in the same world of wizards and witches that Harry Potter did (with this game being set over a century earlier), but without the baggage of needing to be connected directly to that Harry Potter storyline. There are also three main side stories, in addition to lots of smaller side quests, and I found two of the three side stories to be also interesting and fun to play through. Playing Hogwarts Legacy feels almost like reading a really good book.

Another A+ element of the game is the voice acting. I don’t know if I’ve ever played a game where the voice acting was as good as it is in this one. It definitely adds to the immersion of the player in the Hogwarts Legacy universe.

Actually battling enemies in the game, which requires firing off spells in quick combinations, does take some getting used to as I stated earlier, but once you know what you’re doing, it’s fun. This is a massive game and there’s a lot to do depending on what a particular gamer happens to be most interested in, whether that’s fighting dark wizards or something else. You could spend hours just catching (and raising) beasts, completing Merlin Puzzles, or working on your Room or Requirement. All of these elements of the game were good, though none was such a strong strength of the game in the same way as the plot.

Loading times for different parts of the map, particularly when in Hogsmeade, did get a little bit long, but it was never so egregious. This was just a smaller issue I had to accept since I wanted to play the game on my preferred console.

Overall, I think that whether you’re a wizard or witch, or even a muggle, this is a great game. It has a fantastic story and fully immerses you into an exciting wizarding world. You don’t have to be a big Harry Potter fan to get a lot out of Hogwarts Legacy.

Grade: 9/10