I almost quit at first.

This game had the chance to be a masterpiece but unfortunately fails short in some departments which make it just good. In fact, there are aspects of it that are pure genius 10/10 while others are really bad.
Rarely have I seen such a gap in quality within the same game.

This developer got ahold of an incredibly powerful, fleshed out IP rich with lore and personality.
And to their credit, they recreated that atmosphere impeccably. The world feels magical, dreamy, cozy, and superbly crafted as a whole. There's a lot of attention to detail that really brings this whole vibe to life.
The music, and even sound effects, which are both excellent help even further when it comes to the mood and ambiance. It is a real pleasure to just wander around, and especially to fly on your broom seamlessly across the gorgeous map. That too was perfectly recreated, you feel a real sense of freedom and liberation.

That said, the masterpiece part of this game comes from the art direction. Few games have had this kind of quality and there are some side missions that blew my mind, particularly one in a haunted basement. It felt like that side level took more effort and creativity than the whole main story put together. I wouldn't want to spoil anything so I shan't go into details. But let's just say it was a work of art. The art direction team is goated.
Visually, the one issue I had was with the face animation tech. That part looks like it's a 20 year old game. Stiff faces with barely any expression, which resets after every line, like the old point & click games.
While that's nothing major, it does hurt the otherwise extremely high standard the rest of the game has set.

The game itself starts off REALLY slow, I was wondering what the heck was going on when 5 hours into it, I was still just going from class to class doing relatively boring quests. I almost quit, But then, about 7hrs in, it picks up steam as Hogwarts opens its doors to the outside.

The main issue I've had with the game was the writing. It is just bad. It's childish and as cringe as it gets.
It was painful having to listen to the conversations most of the time, so much so that I skipped a lot of it.
Now, I do realize Harry Potter are children's books and perhaps the game is meant for a much younger audience, but it is still based on books that are written amazingly well, poignant, funny, witty, engaging. This game has none of that, every conversation is so bland, weak, void of character, even AI would've come up with better.
There is no reason it should be this way, even if small kids are the audience, they are not redacted, they're smarter and sometimes more mature than we old people are.
And I've noticed this is becoming a trend unfortunately. It is so hard to find good writing anymore.

When it comes to combat and gameplay, it's in between the incredible art direction and abysmal writing, it's neither horrible nor is it great, it's just mid. Very easy, same 5-6 enemy types, pretty much the same 3-4 buttons on repeat. The lack of diversity and challenge handicap an otherwise interesting base idea of hitting combos in a timely and reactive manner.

Now the puzzles, which are the vast majority of the game, are even more mediocre, and even simpler. A puzzle will literally consist of you jumping on 3 platforms in a row, or shooting 10 balls without moving from your spot, and you're done. It's mind numbing and that's a real shame too.

Funny story, at one point I encountered what I thought was a really challenging puzzle. Finally!
You're supposed to turn cubes on top of columns until all 3 sides match, a sort of a simplified Rubik's cube.
Only here, one of the cubes was floating above the column,
AHA! I knew exactly what I had to do, I had to first flip it while it was hovering, then slam it down with Descendo. BOOM.
But wait, no that didn't actually work, 15min later I gave up, feeling shame.
Here I was wanting a challenging puzzle and I couldn't solve it, so I looked it up.
Turns out it's a bug, it's not supposed to be floating at all :/

Speaking of, the game has a lot of bugs. Nothing game breaking, but definitely a lot of achievement breaking ones. If you're a completist you're gonna have hell in some cases. From getting stuck in the ground and having to load an old save, to crashes to desktop, to icons not showing up on the map, enemies becoming invisible mid fight so you cant hit them back, to chests not opening, and a ton of others I don't remember.

There are a lot of strange and nonsensical decisions within the game too. For example you often cannot fast travel outside a dungeon even if you completed it, you have to backtrack the whole way. The menus require multiple clicks to reach the area you want, the map is also kind of a mess. There's room for a lot of QoL improvements in Hogwarts.
And why cant I pause during cutscenes? I almost peed myself once.


So, TLDR, while the game is a masterpiece in the art direction department, it lacks in almost every other one, in some very badly. They seem to want to do too much and end up watering everything down. Ok, the Pokémon style animal hunting is cute and fun for a minute, but then what? So many resources went into building biomes for them and giving you all those tools to craft a nice place but there is zero incentive to do it. It's fun for a total of 5 minutes.
Those animals could've had a use. For example keeping your puffskin with you could have helped you sniff particular chests or items more easily, or perhaps some of them could help you in a fight.
They could've come up with a lot of incentives for all those systems they built that are completely useless and unnecessary.
They also give you map nausea with 3000 icons each of which is a 20s pointless event with nothing interesting to do it for.
Developers need to focus, make 20 epic puzzles instead of 100 ultra short mind-numbing ones. Make 10 epic fighting arenas instead of 500 small villages with 2 enemies each and ridiculous loot.
Too much emphasis is placed on quantity at the expense of quality and it's overly diluted in an attempt to appeal to a broader audience, ultimately failing to fully satisfy any of them.
It's a game riddled with missed opportunities and shortcuts.

While Hogwarts is alright, it had the potential to be a complete experience with deep systems, compelling writing, and challenging yet rewarding puzzles. And I hope that, if they ever make a sequel, it'll be just that.

WB is out of their minds by not allowing us paid customers to not agree with a very illegal personal data collection.

-Photos, Videos, or Audio Information: Images or recordings from your device or that you otherwise post or submit to us or photos or recordings of you from live experiences or events.

-recordings of your interactions with our Services, which may include mouse clicks, mouse movements, keystrokes, and page scrolling. When you use our Service, you consent to the recording of your interactions with us.

-Social Media Information: Information about your social media engagement and interaction with social media sites.

-we may collect chats, comments, posts, customer service communications. We may also collect data that could be considered biometric

-Usage and Viewing Information: Films, TV shows, and videos that you view (including title and genre, watchlists you compile, and searches you conduct), webpages, apps, and ads you see and interact with, as well as the accounts you link together

WTF!? your insane!

Games should not have data collection launchers. If they do, and offer an opt-out, they shouldn't make it where you have to ENTER YOUR EMAIL to opt out on a website. And then the game launcher doesn't let you continue, even though you did what they said to opt out.