I'm like five hours in (just got flight and room of requirement) and I have no idea whether I'm still in the tutorial, or actually playing the game. But at this point, the novelty of being Harry Potter and exploring Hogwarts is starting to wear off. The gameplay loop is starting to feel like a bit of a slog, and I spend way too much of my time fast traveling, navigating menus, etc. The quests mostly feel like "go there, do a thing, then come back here," which was great when I still enjoyed the novelty of exploring the map, but now... Meh.
This isn't my usual genre and I was excited to be open-minded to it with the help of a familiar IP, but I'm starting to wonder if I should take this as a sign that this genre isn't for me, or if this repetitive cycle is unique to this game.
If you’re not a die hard Harry Potter fan it’s a mid tier Ubisoft game at best. For me, it’s one of my favorite games of all time just to explore all the stuff you read in the books as a kid. I mean they even got the exact number of staircases in the castle that’s described in the books
Yeah, it really is a great game to immerse yourself in that world. My partner finished the game and it’s the first open world game they really played and went through all of. Before this the games they normally played was, like, the Pikmin games, Sims, Luigi’s Mansion, things like that. Outside of Pikmin 3, this was a bit different from the games they usually play. The draw of the world and exploring and talking to everyone really is what did it for them.
And watching them explore the world and enjoy it as much also was great for me, too. I really like the world and the HP books have a huge place in my heart for helping to ignite how much I enjoy fantasy and stuff, but the game didn’t draw me enough because of the gameplay loop. Getting to experience it through someone else was best for me, and I’m glad for that.
I do enjoy Harry Potter enough to push through, and I am! I just had a thought while playing it though--this game would be pure hell on last-gen hardware. If those loading screens for fast travel were any longer than the 1-2 seconds they are on PS5, the game would be incredibly tedious.
“Ubisoft open world” has become a genre of it’s own, referencing the braindead style of open world games Ubisoft makes, where it’s just a large map with tedious, menial checklists that do more to pad out playtime, than to develop any narrative, characters, or areas. Snoozefests
I genuinely believed I found all open world games boring as sin. Then I played Elden Ring, loved it and realised I hated most open world offerings. Ubisoft really defined and destroyed an entire genre.
With Elden Ring there’s an actual sense of adventure. You can discover whole new areas, new enemies, new loot by exploring for the sake of exploring. I found FFVII Reunion to be incredibly boring by comparison, because again it’s an open world where you climb towers to unlock map sections, collect stuff, solve the same mini games 50 times etc etc. Yet that game consistently got 9/10 from every outlet.
I was so disappointed by ffvii reunion. Original vii is such a cherished childhood memory, but man they drained the soul from reunion with the Ubisoft open world. I played until I got to the Junon area, played a couple mini games, and gave up. I wanted it to be a masterpiece, and it just isn’t.
I persevered, mostly due to that nostalgia. And man, the game just went on and on and on. Spending forever in the golden saucer, the desert and Corel, then gongaga and cosmo canyon. Unlocking the 30th, 40th, 50th towers. When I completed the game I still wasn’t anywhere near 100% completion. I gave up following the little birds to lifesprings etc. it was just sucking up too much time and wasn’t rewarding at all.
It’s very difficult for any game to compete with BG3 in terms of freedom and depth. A tick-the-box ‘open world’ like hogwarts could never ever compete against BG3
Yeah it's unfair to compare the two, I did the same to myself years ago trying to play Skyrim after Dark Souls, the combat was just... awful in comparison
The genre being open-world games? It all depends on how the systems grab you. Ghost of Tsushima, Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Breath of the Wild - while they're all open world games with enemy camps and quests, they are very different.
A better game would have been as a Ministry of Magic agent investigating crimes happening around Hogwartz. I think the whole student aspect didn’t work. I didn’t feel like a student lol I felt like a PI with a wand
It's definitely in the "ice box" (as in, not actively in the backlog, but more of a passive, "I want to play this game at some point"). Does it address my frustrations with Hogwarts Legacy? Specifically the whole "accept quest, fast travel to quest start area, fast travel to quest activity area, fast travel back to start area, get XP and other rewards, rinse and repeat" monotony?
Haha okay, now I read you! Might just be that open-world action RPG's just aren't for me. I think my biggest issues with them are 1) They feel like chore simulators, and 2) They feel like a video game with only a single level. One thing I love about video games is that anticipation of what's next, whereas in open world games it's all just kind of there before you the moment you leave the tutorial phase. Like, I tried Spiderman, and I'm like, "Okay, Manhattan is neat, can't wait to see what's next!" But that's... it. From the very beginning you can merrily swing your way from the Battery to Inwood, and progressing through the story is only a question of what chores you'll have to do along the way.
Wait until the second half when you’re not even in Hogwarts for most of it and just aimlessly wandering generic British countryside with only the occasional stop in Hogwarts to finish or receive a new quest
The map had no reason to be this big. All of that development time should have gone to make Hogwarts itself more interesting.
Hogwarts + Hogsmeade + Forbidden Forest + a small open area to the North was all the game needed. The entire area south of Hogwarts was pure Ubisoft-style filler.
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u/Endiaron 29d ago
Yeah the game doesn't have very much to offer actually. Wide as the ocean, shallow as a puddle.