Not brilliant, but not bad either.
The game isn’t the most difficult in the world. If you want to just go through the game without bothering about side-quests etc, this is easy to do. However, it can be tricky to find every mushroom that needs stunning, every dark detector to be shut down etc. These little quests make you search each level thoroughly and you will most likely need a few attempts at each level to find everything. One disappointment was that you cannot explore Hogwarts. You can only visit certain levels but you can’t just wander in between.
Hmmm, the controls. They were obviously designed for consoles or at least PCs with gamepads. And you can’t configure them which is quite a big drawback. And NO MOUSE. However, the controls are easy to master fairly quickly and I was firing off jinxes and charms like a machine-gunner with Parkinsons. The movement controls (arrow keys) are simple but also console-oriented. It can be a bit frustrating to turn your character to face an object you want to cast at, but I found that I quickly got used to it. There’s no denying it though, mouse-look would have been better.
The camera is downright annoying as you have no control over it and just have to hope that it sorts itself out. You often can’t see what’s ahead until you have run headlong into it and sometimes some creatures are just off screen and you can’t cast at them until you move in certain directions.
I like the beans and wizard-card systems. As you earn beans, some of them charge your Magicos Extremos meter which, when full, can be unleashed to perform powerful magic for a short while. Some restore stamina as well. Also, the beans can then be traded for cards which have various rewards e.g. levelling up stamina or jinx power. You can then equip your characters with 3 cards before a level. This is useful if you have played a level before and want to give players an advantage against salamanders or a more powerful Accio spell.
The levels are nicely done. Often they are big and have several different areas. Sometimes, you may find you need to unlock another area and spell before you can go back and explore part of a preceding level. Then of course, you have the Triwizard challenges. These are not really difficult and are a bit short. But they do bring the whole concept to life and what has been done on them does look and feel nice (I felt the adrenaline when being chased by the Hungarian Horntail).
The spells are cool as well. 2 main types – jinx and charm. One of the things I love about this game over the previous ones is when you are battling creatures, you can use combos of spells. For example, you can just stun a Dugbog repeatedly with the Orchideous hex to turn it into a bunch of flowers, or you can raise it with the Wingardium Leviosa charm and sling it into orbit, or you can cast Wingardium Leviosa and then fire jinxes at it (e.g. Avifors) to turn it into a flock of birds. Cool. But you don’t get to choose your spells. If you press the charm/jinx button, the game automatically selects which charm/jinx you use.
Graphics
It’s a good thing the graphics are an improvement on the last game. However it is all NON-CUSTOMISABLE. You cannot change detail levels, resolution, even brightness or contrast. This is a big, BIG drawback. EA really fell flat on its arse on that one.
The creatures look great, I especially loved the flame effects of the Amazonian Salamanders and the Blast-Ended Skrewt.
The characters look like their film counterparts and are an improvement over the last game. They’re all quite stylishly dressed as well!
The levels have nice detail. Hogwarts (what you see of it) looks lovely, the Forbidden Forest is appropriately spooky.
The spell effects are excellent. I especially loved Aqua Eructo and some jinxes like Lapifors and Orbis. It is also cool to see the explosions.
Sound
For the most part the music is quite nice and fits the game well. The voice actors sound like their film counterparts although their dialogue can be a bit annoying. The noises made by spells and explosions is also very good. I especially loved the Magicos Extremos noise when you first activate it.
However, all you can tweak is whether or not you can turn subtitle on/off. EA what were you thinking?!
Value
If you just go through the game with straightforward completion in mind, it shouldn’t take more than a 3-4 hours. But if like me you want to complete every little subquest as well, it may take you closer to 8 hours (especially if you want Gold in all of Moody’s challenges – or is it that I’m just crap?). Most people will probably not want to replay this game, but I think I would enjoy playing it again…but only once. Until a couple of years time when the next one is about to come out and I want to compare the games.
Overall
The game is more of an action genre than the previous puzzle instalments. There are still plenty of areas for improvement. Did EA have to stick to the films? There is so much in the book they could have added. I would like to explore Hogwarts and it is quite easy. I mean, come on EA let us know you are considering us adults. Perhaps adding difficulty levels would help broaden the appeal?
My biggest gripe is that you cannot adjust ANYTHING. It really makes me feel like the PC version was just an afterthought.
However, I would recommend this game as it is a lot of fun to play and it does help you experience the magic. It is, after all, the closest most of us will get to being at Hogwarts (sigh).