by in
Welcome, Gamers and Potterheads! Hogwarts Legacy is now available to us, this is the moment we were waiting for. An Open World RPG in the wizarding world itself. Come and let’s board the train on platform 3/4 for our wonderful School semester! If you still don’t have the ticket for the train click here. For now, catch our initial impressions of the game.
gameplay
Hogwarts Legacy is an open-world game where you can explore Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, and some other regions of the Harry Potter world. The plot is set in the 1890s,100 years before Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s stone. In Hogwart Legacy, you can freely explore the world as you wish with almost no restriction. This allows you to explore and discover the secrets of Hogwarts.
This game allows you to create your own character, pick which Hogwart Houses to join, and customize your very own Wand! Hogwarts Legacy can offer a unique gameplay experience by choosing between being a Good Wizard or embracing the Dark Arts. I embraced the power of the Dark Arts, which gave me the power to rival the Dark Lord.
quest
The Quest line consists of three parts, The Main Storyline, The Character Relationship Quest, and the Side Quest. In the game, your character starts as a 5th-year student. To make you catch up in the school year the Professor agreed to give you an extracurricular task in return for various spell lessons.
Hence the sidequest. Some of these side quests are needed to progress the Story. The Main Quest is where you will learn various weird stuff like why you can see what other people see, and why Ranrok (The main antagonist) wants to get his hand on you. It will also teach you a lot of spells that could be useful in your explorations.
Character Relationship Quest is where you get friends! or rather how you become friends with specific NPCs like Sebastian, Poppy, Deek, and Natty. These four have their own mini-story aside from the main story. You can unlock a POWERFUL spell or a rare beast, and various collections from them. This is where you will determine if you are a Good Wizard or if you will be my comrade who seeks greater power!
Some of the Side Quests are just a way for your character to level up but some are worth doing because this is where you will see the harm from the constant poaching and attacks by goblins on the Wizarding world.
cosmetics
Thankfully Hogwarts Legacy offers us to customize our character and gears freely. So for the players who have a big issue in Fashion sense don’t worry, no matter how ugly your armor is, you can just change it to the one you have already unlocked or discovered.
So make sure to explore every part of the map and do a lot of sidequests to unlock more cosmetics. There is one that is good-looking and lights up every time you cast a spell, you can unlock this by completing the Dandelion Side quest. You will also get your own Household Robe that will light up every time you cast a spell.
talents and combat
Talents are where you enhance your spell mastery to be compatible with your personality. It will determine how you will approach and defeat your enemy. It’ll also give you your unique combat style, you can either be stealthy by casting a disillusionment charm on yourself to become invisible, power up your combat spells, and attack enemies head-on, or by being a Herbology and Potion Master, where you throw an angry cabbage and drink a lot of potion until all of your enemies are defeated. If that’s not enough you can mix them up according to your own preference.
Collections
The collection is where all the unlockable skins, field guides, decorations, and the other stuff you discovered while exploring the world will be. The field guide is one way to learn more about Hogwarts history, artifacts, and different places around the wizarding world. Skins and Decoration can be used to customize the Room of Requirement or as I prefer to call it “My very own private room”.
challenges
Trust me when I say this, These Challenges will make you busy and occupied to even do the Main Story Quest. I already finish the Main Mission and most of the side quests, but my progress in the Exploration Challenge is only 36%. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. I’m looking forward to more secrets I could discover once I finish everything.
Initial Verdict
Hogwarts Legacy isn’t all rainbows, sadly. There are some bad gaming experiences such as the never-ending repetition of an NPC whenever you go to a different area of the map, especially in Hogsmeade. The shop or side quest giver needs to finish saying what they want before you can interact with them. Despite having different mounts you will still mostly be using the flying broomstick because it’s much faster and more convenient. Lastly the limited decoration you can do in the room of requirements.
Aside from all those though, the rest of the game is fun and interesting. Hogwarts Legacy definitely meets the expectation of potter heads out there. I only wish that they would release a DLC that foreshadows the Harry Potter or the Fantastic Beast series. Despite the game being set years before either of the two.
