Wizards, witches or muggles, the magic of Wizarding World it somehow touched the lives of all of us. Whether you are a big fan of The philosopher’s Stoneor you have recently approached magic, the allure of the world of Harry Potter is undeniable. Now, thanks to the work of Avalanche Softwarecon Hogwarts Legacy we will soon have a new videogame adventure in our hands, which we needed. The Harry Potter video games have represented for many of us one of the tools to fully immerse yourself in the magic of Hogwarts but it had been far too long since the last noteworthy adventure. Thanks to Sony, we got to receive our admission letter in preview and we tell you a little about Hogwarts Legacy in this review WITHOUT SPOILERS!
Also read our review on the TV series of the moment: The Last of Us
Our review of Hogwarts Legacy
Hogwarts Legacy tells a new adventure in the Wizarding World, set in the 1800s. The protagonist of this story will be the character (wizard or witch) that we will create and that due to various vicissitudes, will start his career as a student of Hogwarts directly from the 5th year. To help him along this anomalous path, the Professor Fig he will mentor him and initiate him into his studies. The early stages of his student years will be far from peaceful and a series of events will plunge him into a whirlwind of mysteries, intrigues and threats coming from the most unthinkable places and people.
Thus begin a series of adventures and misadventures that will lead him to the discovery of Hogwarts, Hogsmede and the school’s surroundings while, at the same time, we should fulfill our student obligations. On this trip we will discover the magical world and its peculiarities, the animals that inhabit it and the enemies who want to fight it. For them and against them, we will attend the lessons of Hogwarts and the bizarre professors who teach there to learn a series of spells with which to defend ourselves.
Ma an ancient magic inhabits this world and we seem to be the only ones able to hear its traces. This peculiarity will be a great opportunity for us and at the same time a burden that will make us protagonists of trouble and intrigue. To this they will add new and exciting stories that revolve around Hogwarts: a conspiracy, a scourge, the complicated relationship between wizards and goblins, dark wizards, dragons and all those extraordinary things that only the Wizarding World can offer.
Spells, school and exploration
Hogwarts Legacy is a third-person camera action RPG. As anticipated, in this title we will take on the role of a young wizard or a young witch that we will create ourselves. The character creation system is not the most detailed but it will give us the possibility to create a truly unique protagonist. Like any self-respecting game set in the world of Harry Potter, at the beginning of our journey we will be sorted into one of the 4 Hogwarts Houses: Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw o Tassorosso The choice is up to the sorting hat who will ask us a series of questions but it will be very easy to choose which House to be sorted into. From this choice, in addition to our common room, some of the characters we will interact with will change. The House will not distort the main story but will offer interesting variations in the dialogues that make everything more immersive.
Our journey as a student will take us exactly where we dreamed. We will have to go to magic class, potions, defense against the dark arts… interact with other students, buy our magic wand, learn to fly and so on. Everything is exactly as we expected and more.
There is no real path to follow but the game is divided into 4 types of missions:
- Main questswhich move the story forward
- Assignments of professorswhich will teach you new spells
- Friends missions
- Side quests
There is no right or wrong order or way to move between the many missions that will be entrusted to you but an interesting interweaving between them will make the gameplay more diverse. In fact, to carry out some main missions, you will need to know certain spells. In turn, to learn a specific spell, you will have to fulfill the tasks that the Professors will entrust to you.
Perfect Magician’s Kit
To fulfill the missions and get the better of the enemies, we will soon have a really rich set of spells. And actionto attract enemies to itself, a Fireto set it on fire. From Drownto explore places in the dark, a Leviosa (not Leviosa!) to levitate objects and enemies. And obviously…the unforgivable curses! Each spell has a particular effect and must be used at the right time, whether it is to overcome an obstacle, solve a puzzle or eliminate an enemy. Along with spells, potions and usable items will make the job easier and more fun. Stun and enemies with a Mandrake it is something extremely fulfilling!
To this they also add pieces of equipment. We’ll have 6 available slots, including gloves, capes, hats and so on. There are some many types and with the most extravagant styles which made hunting for equipment really interesting. Each boss will improve the characteristics of Health, Defense and Attack of our character. These will be the only stats available, which flattens out the RPG level we expected. To balance the issue a bit, i think about it Talents.
In fact, solving missions and eliminating enemies will give usexperience with which we will level up. LvL Up, in addition to improving our health, will provide, from a certain point in the game, a talent point. These points can be used in different categories: Spells, Dark Arts, Main, Futrivity e Room of necessities. Each feat category will enhance certain spells or character traits that suit your unique and personal playstyle.
A world to discover
The amount of items to manage the character is only greater than the things to discover inside and outside of Hogwarts. The map available is certainly not the largest ever seen but the amount of things to do is very high. Hogwarts itself is a map within a map and exploring the thousand rooms and secrets is an extremely difficult experience to describe. The area around the school offers hidden caves, challenges, flying competitions, spells to learn, animals to catch, items to find and collect, quests and much, much more.
Everything is imbued with that magic that made us dream as children and that continues to excite us even today. The quotations and references to literary and cinematographic works are many, they will evoke sweet memories and create new ones. This greatly improves the degree of immersion in the game and you will forget that you are a Muggle for many hours. In fact, to complete the main story it takes about 30 hours which will go up enormously if you want to complete the game 100%.
The game elements certainly do not end here but we want to use a Protego Maxima on you and not spoil further surprises.
Magic also on the technical side, without overdoing it
Moving on to the technical side of Hogwarts Legacy, we can’t say enough about the excellent work done by Avalanche Software on PlayStation 5, console used for this review. The graphic rendering of theUnreal Engine 4 is excellent and the amount of meticulous detail is impressive and helps to make the game world even more enchanting. At the same time, the sight of the landscapes outside Hogwarts really left us dumbfounded and when you can finally fly on a broom (or whatever), you will be amazed.
With “Fidelity” graphic setting 
With graphic setting “Fidality + Ray Tracing”
The optimization work of the various graphic settings between: Performance, Fidelity and Fidelity with Ray Tracing is also excellent. The Performance mode guarantees a higher number of FPS for excellent stability while the Fidelity mode maximizes the graphics performance. Despite our initial concerns, the Fidelity + Ray Tracing mode has been optimized to the fullest and it didn’t give any stuttering or FPS drop problems of any kind, even in the most intense fights.
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Huge praise also goes to the composer-led video game soundtrack Peter Murray who manages to tread the thunder of films without copying them.
A small note of demerit should be made to a rendering of the textures that is not always so efficient and pop-up phenomena of objects, characters and textures deriving from the large amount of elements to be loaded. In this regard, we also report an unusual amount of loading in 2023. It will very often happen to see a black screen between rooms and sequences (only the word “loading” is missing) or to stand still for a few moments in front of a door because the next room is not it is still fully loaded.
And the flaws?!
At this point, it might seem that Hogwarts Legacy is a “perfect” game but of course, it’s not. the main shortcomings that we have noticed concern the rendering of the characters and their stories. While the main storyline maintains a balanced pace from start to finish, the development of the characters, even the main ones, seemed a bit hasty and not very thorough which makes it harder to empathize with them. Halfway through the game we still struggled to frame certain students who, even if we had seen hours earlier in a lesson in …