Hogwarts Legacy

This is the same case when you really don’t want to write a negative review of the game... but there’s no other way. And even, maybe, I’m writing all this now, in the depths of my soul, hoping that someone will read this and convince me, saying: “Friend, you’re wrong, and now I’ll explain to you why...”. After all, the game mostly received positive ratings from players: the graphics, mechanics, and the transfer of the magical spirit of the GP universe are praised. I also went through all these stages of admiration, but... I went through it very quickly. And then the game began to bring more disappointments than delights.

I want to tell you about my internal “dialogue with the developers”, about the discussion that started in my head during the game. About a “dispute” that I did not want to have at all, but continuing the gameplay, the game forced me to continue this “dialogue”.

At first, everything was great! A great game, fraught with a lot of interesting and intriguing things. My expectations were huge (by the way, maybe this is my fault; unjustified expectations are always very sad).

- Thank you for playing our game! Don’t pay attention to optimization - well, yes, there are problems, sometimes even serious ones, we will fix this later with patches.

- Uh...well, okay. Seems playable. It’s not entirely comfortable at times, but so be it, it’s tolerable :) I continue! Moreover, the process has already drawn out: an intriguing plot, a beautiful picture, and such a big Hogwarts, uhh! I want to explore every corner of it!

And it would be better if I didn’t leave the castle... but, of course, at a certain moment, the game forces you to leave the school walls, promising you a lot of interesting things outside of it:

- Look, friend what a big map this is! And besides Hogsmeade, there are other residential areas that are waiting for you to explore!

- Yeah..but, except for Hogsmeade, all the other zones seem to be the same, or something, and there’s nothing special to do there...

- Why is there nothing? Tons of NPCs are waiting for you to complete their side quests!

- But they are all the same type and not interesting. They don't add anything to the story...

- Forget it, you don't like the sides, let's go explore the game world! Look, there are a huge number of caves on the map! And at the end of each of them, a reward chest awaits you!

- Super! But..why is there nothing valuable in these chests?

- How is this? We made hundreds of types of clothes, look how beautiful they are ^____^

- Yes, there are beautiful clothes... but why should I clear the cave for the sake of beautiful clothes, which, according to stats, are 7 levels lower than my character? =/

- And what about the appearance of the magic wand? We made them too! Choose which stick you like best!

- Well... this one. But what does this give me? I still don’t see the wand... well, it flashes occasionally in cut scenes, but...

- There’s no time to think about it, we have another surprise for you! The whole map is simply littered with Merlin's riddles! There are sooooo many of them here. Yes, there are only 5-7 unique pieces, but nevertheless: you simply have to solve them all!

- So what? What will I get at the end?

- Yes, listen, it’s just supposed to be interesting! Well, if you don't want to spend a lot of time on this, keep a broom - with it you can quickly fly from one puzzle to another. By the way, you will find many other brooms in the store!

- Are they different from each other in any way?

- No, but you can improve your broom!

- Oooh, some interesting system for crafting and customizing various stats?

- No, just fly through the checkpoints within a given time and get a small increase in the speed of your broom :)

- Um...

- Oh, look! These are magical creatures! They will help you improve your gear. But, to do this, you first need to catch them, take them to the rescue room, and then you need to feed them and play with them.

- Cool. Interesting. Once. Well, two, to consolidate...But after that it starts to get boring...

- Just wait, look what else you can: now you can breed creatures in order to...well, to get more creatures. And when the baby is born, you can feed him and play with him! Or sell it in a store for coins.

- But why do I need coins? I don’t use stores at all..what’s the point of them? I find all my gear in the open world.

- But you can buy useful things to decorate your rescue room! By the way, why is it so poorly furnished? Are you not interested in her at all?

- Yes, damn it, I don’t play the Sims... especially since here this mechanic is inconvenient and simply uninteresting. This kind of thing bothered me even in the fourth Fallout... In order to cope with quests, studying spells is enough for me...

- By the way, have you noticed how characters constantly tell you about the dangers of studying forbidden spells? Have we really caught up with horror?

- Mm, but I learned all the forbidden spells, and nothing terrible happened - I’m still a good-natured person who helps everyone and whom everyone loves. Although I resolve all issues with the help of Crucio and Avada Kedavra... And even companions do nothing for me...

- Oooh, it’s good that you mentioned companions! Tell me, is it cool that you don’t have to constantly complete quests alone? Your school friends help you do some assignments.

- Well, how they help...I do everything myself, they just follow along and sometimes say something...

And, in fact, I could continue to describe this "dialogue". But I understand perfectly well what kind of cotton wool he has already turned into.

Alas, over time Hogwarts Legacy turned into exactly the same cotton wool for me... a game from which I expected a repeat of the delight of the first Fable, multiplied by at least 2, but what I got... was like a stump of something... something that should have been wonderful. I got the feeling that at the planning stage everything was conceived much better, but 70% of the ideas did not complete the implementation stage.

Passed. And he scored. There is no desire to return to this magical world, replay it, or look for something new. I won't find it.

A passable thing came out. And this wouldn't be bad if the game wasn't called what it is called.

PS Forgive me, those who had to read this. Personal cry from the heart.