#ChibiReviews: Hogwarts Legacy

Or how to do fan service right.

Hogwarts Legacy has been one of the most anticipated AAA games on the landscape for a long while, and after spending more than 40 hours with this masterclass of fan service, we understand why.

Most of us remember the first time we read or saw Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Many of us remember being deeply saddened that our Hogwarts letter didn’t arrive. It took 20 years, but every disappointed witch or wizard can now finally fulfill all their Wizarding World fantasies.

The game is absolutely beautiful. I often found myself getting lost in Hogwarts castle, staring at the moving portraits and walking down the endless corridors. Or riding through the stunning Scottish landscape on my shiny broom before landing in Hogsmeade for a butterbeer, some Fudge Flies and a new haircut. The world is so intricate and detailed, with something exciting happening in every corner, it lives and breathes magic.

The story is exciting, albeit a bit too predictable at times. It plays out like a Harry Potter book with your witch or wizard in the center of the action. The game contains more than thirty epic and thrilling main quests, accompanied by close to a hundred side quests and a ton of collectibles and challenges smartly placed all over the map. It encourages exploration in a natural and intuitive way and you will always have something to come back to.

Combat starts simple and is easy to learn, but with the right spells and strategy, you will be such a powerhouse of ancient magic and finesse, that you will make all the dark wizards tremble in your sight. Unless you want to play as a dark wizard yourself - then the world will wish you hadn’t received your late acceptance letter.

The game has so many different systems, beautifully interwoven with each other, and everything makes sense. Long-term fans of the Wizarding world will find they don’t need a lot of instructions on how to approach combat or solve puzzles or get what they want.

Paying attention to your Harry Potter books, and memorizing all the spells, wishing the twig you found on the street would produce sparks or make your chores do themselves will finally come in handy.

Spells work exactly how one would imagine. Puzzles have so many different solutions, whether you want to brute force them, find the most logical solution, or just want to rush through to get your rewards. I remember discussing puzzle strategy in the Hogwarts Legacy Discord for a specific challenge, thinking my solution was the only one, and tons of people chiming in saying they’ve done it in a completely different way than me. Mind-blown.

Hogwarts Legacy is a gaming phenomenon. It’s the perfect example of fan service done right. The Wizarding World is an empire at this point, and Hogwarts Legacy is its crown jewel. I sincerely hope the developers realize the potential of this game and keep it alive with content, DLCs, and expansion packs for as long as they can. We will eat it up because it’s what we’ve always wanted - to finally go home to Hogwarts.

Mischief managed.

P.S- Now, if only the wands I have at home were real, so that I could cast Obliviate on myself and experience it again for the first time.