Video Gamers Podcast - Hogwarts Legacy Review - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: February 27, 2023

Gaming wizards Michael, Josh and Paul are here with our full gaming breakdown of the hit release Hogwarts Legacy. Released to a lot of hype, we break down all the gaming elements of Hogwarts Legacy and tell you whether this is a video game made for gamers or if it’s better left for the Harry Potter fans. This is an episode you can’t afford to miss! Make sure to check out our Streamer of the Week: https://twitch.tv/beccaaplays Thanks to our LEGENDARY supporters: Toro, Scrump, Gaius, Remi, MarbleMadness, Dr. Catatonic, Blackstar (DQ), Glapsuidir, Phelps, Michele B, Redletter, Nevo, Waynerman, TFolls, AceofShame, Jake, RangerMiller, and Ad Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/multiplayerpodcast Join our Gaming Discord: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com/multiplayerpod/ Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/MultiplayerPod Subscribe to us on YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCU12YOMnAQwqFZEdfXv9c3Q Visit us on the web: multiplayerpodcast.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You hear that? Ugh, paid. And done. That's the sound of bills being paid on time. But with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card, paying your bills could sound like this. Yes! Earn rewards for paying your bill in full and on time each month.

Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. Flipendo. Confrigo. Crucio. Hello, fellow wizards and witches. Welcome to the Multiplayer Gaming Podcast. We are three dads who love gaming, and today will be a deep dive of the 2023

smashing success hogwarts legacy please hit the follow button so you get all our episodes rate us five stars and leave a written review also please go check out our patreon page you can sign up starting at five dollars a month and not only will you help fund the show, you'll also get two Squadcast episodes every single month. Go check it out at MultiplayerSquad.com. I am your host, Paul, and I'm going to introduce my co-hosts before they come up with another clever idea to get us killed, or worse, expelled. Coming up first, he's in Slytherin House, and he's been seen running an illegal dragon fighting ring for profit. It's Josh. I am not going to say the spell that everybody thought I was going to say because it's been overdone.

All I'm going to say is that I am the jerkiest wizard that has ever existed. You're not giving game pieces back to students around Hogwarts, things of that nature. I, there was one part of this game where I felt actually felt really bad about having to be a jerk. We'll cover that in the spoiler section, but man, that one was tough. Oh, how funny.

And joining me and Josh, he, I think is in Ravenclaw house with me. He's been spending most of his time in his vivarium where he's been helping Thestrals and unicorns get busy for his fantastic beast breeding business. It's Michael. Harry Potter, the boy who lived,

come to die. I give that a five. I give that a five out of 10, Michael. I could do the Avada Kedavra a little bit. It's more throaty. All right, that's a three out of ten. We're getting worse here.

We got to move on. Yeah, I guess. I guess. Varium, I spent way too much time in there. I got the most adorable Varium ever. I just got to say that. They're adorable. Little furry tribbles everywhere. Very nice.

All right, we've got so much to cover today with Hogwarts Legacy. But before we jump into the deep dive, Josh, we have a very special review to read on the show oh we've got this this may be simultaneously my favorite review and my least favorite review ever all right so hey we read reviews on the show guys we always say hey we you know we really like the five star reviews well this is a one star review and it comes in from the original sg boy from down under in australia that was terrible sorry australian people we love you um and it says rated one for being one of those toxic gamers and it says toxic for touting being angry when a game is delayed as a badge of pride or honor? Shame on you! Warped views like this is why we have current Chernobyl-esque radiation toxicity in the gaming culture.

Thanks, but no thanks for contributing to nonsense like developers getting death threats. Because views like that definitely spur that on. All right. So this review is very confusing because this literally accuses us of doing everything we stand against. We have covered news stories of death threats to developers over delays, and we've said, shame on you, gamers. Why do you do this? Josh, you've even said you're cured of getting angry about delays.

Yes! I don't know where this is coming from. I think maybe this guy clicked a random twig from a year and a half ago and maybe heard some rant about a game delay. But this review is hilarious because it could not be more different than what we do. I'm kind of sad. Am I toxic? I never thought of myself. Oh, for sure, Michael.

You are. I mean, you murder everything you whine all the time that's definitely you know you never see the bright side of games it's like um like that like like what was it like four four deep dives in paul actually quoted to me he's like you know michael i think you're just like how i am with movies you just like all games yeah yeah exactly uh positive takes on everything i don't i don't know what podcast uh the original how I am with movies. You just like all games. Yeah, exactly. Positive takes on everything. I don't know what podcast the original SG

Boy is listening to. It is apparently not our podcast, but they left a review on this podcast. But hey, like I always say, if you leave us a review, there's a good chance we're going to read it on the show. We definitely appreciate criticism. I mean, if you think, Josh, you're too old for this and your voice sucks, that's

constructive criticism. Okay. I'll get younger and I'll have a voice transplant. I get it. That's a good idea. We should do that. That's where the Patreon money goes. Can mine be less nasally? That'd be great. be great no no that's your calling card michael um but yeah anyway if you haven't left a review for the show we really do appreciate the reviews um you know five star helps the show because that helps other people realize that this is a pretty good podcast oh how funny and then also michael i think it's time for another streamer of the week oh streamer of the week. Oh, streamer of the week. We don't have a drop for that, right? Still.

So I just got to wait, wait, wait, wait, pause. Time out. Paul, before the next show, you and I have got to find a drop so that Michael will quit singing the intro to this segment. I don't think anything mentioned stream or streamer. I have no clue what the drop is going to be. We're just going to have to get something. I don't know. Just stream or streamer. I have no clue what the drop is going to be. We're just going to have to get something. I don't know.

Just get some generic robot voice. Just like, it'll just be Paul and I beatboxing instead of Michael. Yeah. Wait a minute. I was better than that. Oh man. All right.

We have a very special Twitch streamer today. And by special, it's because this is actually someone that i have been um subbing on twitch for the last 27 months so i give my hard-earned money to becca plays on twitch uh just like a lot of uh a lot of our folks do uh through patreon supporting us is you know just i i'm absolutely a huge fan she's probably my favorite streamer she makes everything about my work day better and so i've watched her play valorant overwatch 2 apex legends so games that just baffle me because i'm terrible at shooters which makes me think that she's always playing

god mode because she's incredible um but uh yeah and on top of that though she also does insanely good artwork so she'll do art streams sometimes uh but what makes her extra special is that her community may rival our community like really really strong, lots of people who are just very engaged, very happy to be around and helpful in a lot of ways. So go check her out. You don't have to know how to spell it because it's BeccaPlays with two A's in the middle. We'll leave the link in the description below.

But please go check her out and let her know that the Multiplayer Gaming Podcast sent you by. I love it. Go check it out. All right. Well, gents, Juan's at the ready. We've got dark wizards, animal poachers, and rebel goblins afoot. It's time to deep dive Hogwarts Legacy. All right. We always start these deep dives by reading a description of the game on Steam.

Here it is. Hogwarts Legacy is an immersive open-world action RPG. Now you can take control of the action and be at the center of your own adventure in the wizarding world. All right, so Hogwarts Legacy released on February 10th of this year. It has been selling like gangbusters. I read an article on Forbes this week that estimates the game is going to end up probably selling about 20 million copies by the end of the year, which would put it above the likes of Elden Ring. Complete success. I think we were all a little curious to see how it was going to perform and do commercially, and the answer ends up being quite well. And also, I want to let everyone know here up at the front that, as we always do with our deep dives, we will keep everything spoiler-free for now.

But we will give you guys a warning later when we're going to talk about some of the late game content. All right. I know that we have talked about this a little bit before on previous shows, but I have a feeling we're going to have some new listeners who maybe found us just by searching for Hogwarts Legacy. What is your guys' relationship to the books and the movies? It was, I think i had a date with

that's the that's the deepest the relationship when is i watched them each once yeah actually it sounds creepy i'd say watch them from afar um no no i just i i've yeah i've seen i've seen the movies each once and uh i made i made my children watch them because i said you will enjoy this you need a two hour babysitter watch this there you go what about you josh i've seen all of the movies once i've seen the first three probably two or three times um i like harry potter i like anything that's fantasy nature you know based uh i've seen the um crimes of wow what crimes of fantastic pets and where to find them fantastic beasts and where to find them

let's be honest they're pets right so it's like you know so that tells you right like I'm not a huge fan I like the setting I've seen the movies I enjoyed the movies a lot I've never read the books I will never read the books I've seen the movies that's good enough I like it I like the setting

and I'm interested in the world. How funny. Yeah, I absolutely adore Harry Potter. I worked at a movie theater when the first two came out, so I actually read the first book before the movie, and I thought it was fine. I loved the book. I thought the movie was very good. I didn't really ever care to see it again. And I watched the others once as they came out. And for me, it was once Order of the Phoenix came out in the movie theaters, where it had a little more of an adult dark tone, where Harry's actually trying to cast Crucio at Bellatrix and stuff. And then that really sucked me in. So I've read all the books except Order of the Phoenix. I have the movies on 4K Blu-ray. I've probably watched

them 20 times with my kids each. I could not wait for Hogwarts Legacy because of how much I love Harry Potter lore. And I'm really curious to get your guys' takes, especially Michael in a little bit, since he didn't have a whole lot of a relationship to Harry Potter IP. So let's kind of start at the very beginning, right? So you fire up Hogwarts Legacy for the first time. I want to talk about the opening 30 to 60 minutes of the game. You're basically introduced to the overall story and the mechanics. And booting this game up, I just went, the first hour was incredible. Dude, they get you invested right away. The cut scenes and what's happening. You go through Gringotts and it's like such a cool freaking sequence, man. You're on this like goblin roller coaster. You're going through Gringotts.

It's like you can look around. You're not just locked into the straight view. There's dialogue. There's voice acting. And I'm just going like the production value for this is through the roof. Is the whole game going to be this way? Or is it like, hey, we made a really good first hour, and then the rest of the game's kind of... Sorry, guys, we ran out of time. Yeah, right.

Yeah, I thought that the first 30 minutes of this game was so efficient to just set up everything for the entire game. We made so much fun of Forspoken for being six hours of tutorial. And the first 30 minutes of Hogwarts Legacy is just kind of like, okay, you get a cut scene, and now we've taken this port key, and we think we know where to go. Oh, there's a broken bridge. Well, hey, character, you can cast Reparo. Just go ahead and say Reparo, and then you just get to play the game. There's no giant tutorial screens you have to read through. You're not stuck in your boots of concrete not being able to move. They just tell you to cast a spell, and it's in your spell bar, and you just do it.

And you just get to run through this world. They immediately set you up with puzzles, combat, the characters. They also very quickly teach you that you are a special magic user because you get to sense a certain type of magic that not everybody does. And all of it just gets set up immediately. I thought this was one of the best tutorials in gaming ever, maybe in a very long time. I found it to suck me in almost immediately you do also find out pretty quickly that you are special because like nine people are like it's pretty rad we've got a first year student fifth year student here oh what's like four people are like oh a fifth year student like what's that mean well yeah that's a big deal because in harry potter world like you always start year one and

you don't want to get students too late so that's why it's like such a big deal. No one ever comes in as a fifth year. And for you to come in and to have all this talent is rather remarkable. But I think this game really stood apart because how many times have we made fun of The Witcher 3 or Mass Effect 1? These games that don't take off until hour five or six. Slow, slow burns. Yeah. Yeah. Very very slow this is zero to 60 immediately yeah i think that my take on it is that you know with harry potter before i literally started watching it because my favorite actor gary olben was in it and that was it there's no gary olben in this game by the way so i was already a little bit trepidatious about approaching it um but you know something that this you mentioned it just now now, Paul, about you find out very quickly that you are special.

I have been a sucker my entire life of watching films and reading novels for the chosen one trope. You are the chosen one. Luke Skywalker, things like that. Neo, where something sets you apart. And I found myself drawn in very quickly because of this it they nailed it it starts off like without getting into details it starts off with some pretty quick action and immediately like within the first like three or four minutes

you're looking at something nobody else can see and i'm like what's that about i need to know more and i'm like i'm sucked in already good old Socrates is going to have a great time in this world. Was that the name of your character? Yeah. My character's name was, I'm like, it's Teddy Socrates. I made him and I'm like,

that looks like Teddy Socrates. I'm going to call him that. It just popped in my head. And I'm like, that's a wizard name for sure. Oh, that's too funny. Yeah.

I named my character after me. So he ran around as Paul Lehman. Yeah. I just, I was grinning like an idiot the entire opening hours of this game going to pick out your wand and you get to create it and meeting characters whose last names you know so you get to meet ancestors of like the weasleys and the blacks and all that stuff was so cool so let's talk a little bit about the progression of the game

you do level up in hogwarts legacy you do earn xp um that that does matter in the game. You do level up in Hogwarts Legacy. You do earn XP. That does matter in the game, but I think primarily what you do by way of progression is learning new spells. And I thought that Hogwarts did that in a really neat way. Basically, you attend classes like potions or herbology or whatever, and your teachers have agreed to give you additional assignments to get you caught up. So they tell you, hey, go run off and do this or that and then come back to me and I'll teach you your next spell. And pretty soon before you know it, every, I don't know, 20 minutes or so, you're adding another spell to your arsenal. And I thought that that was really awesome to be able to discover these new schools of magic, be able to put them into practice. And the game really just feeds these to you basically every 20 to 40 minutes throughout

the entire game, pretty much, until you unlock all of them. How'd you guys feel about that system of progression? Guys, I felt like a student at Hogwarts. No joke. We were just talking about this on the Gaming Mechanics episode about immersive tutorials. This was an immersive progression, unlike really something that I'd felt and seen previously. Because like you said, you just go out, you learn things, you come back. And you could tell this was happening over a long period of time as well. So it didn't feel like it was like, hey, you're doing it right now. The seasons actually change in this game, which was really cool.

So it made it more realistic that I was learning these things over a year at school and i feel like that was appropriate like i would learn i would get caught up in my first year which is my fifth year really my first year um and it just it just it just made so much sense to me and it was so easy to follow along with this world literally feeling like i'm a student and just when i thought it was going to get annoying because you go to the classroom you got to sit there and you got to listen to oh no i'm going to go like i'm a student and just when i thought it was gonna get annoying because you go to the classroom you gotta sit there and you gotta listen to oh no i'm gonna go to i'm starting to dread like the classroom quests because i thought it was gonna be oh here's another long cut scene and then just when i thought it was gonna get annoying they moved to montages and it was like a 30 second montage and you're done and i've learned the spell and i'm good to go i get expelliarmus now you You don't got no wand anymore, buddy.

I really enjoyed the way that they did this. I think it was a very neat way to handle progression in the game without overloading you with stuff and not needing a necessarily dedicated tutorial, right? I love the fact that it's like, hey, do you want to learn this spell? Go to class. Do this mission or two. You're professors and it makes sense, right? I love the fact that it's like, hey, do you want to learn this spell? Go to class. Do this mission or two. You're professors. And it makes sense, right? Your professors give you these spells as a reward. And so it's like, hey, I need to know. Because again, you're a fifth-year student. They don't know everything about you. They're trying to make sure that you're prepared for this knowledge that you're going to get. And so they go, hey,

I need you to go do these two things and then come back to me and then I'll teach you this spell. Number one, the two things you have to go do, they're fine. Honestly, they're just little side quests. It's not go collect five wolf pelts and you're just like, oh, this sucks. But then you get back. And one of the things that I really enjoy, and this is such a stupid thing, is is that when they teach you the spell you actually have to draw the symbol for the spell right and it's kind of time-based because there's a little meter and it's like hey so you've got i felt like a wizard i felt like a wizard that's learning like the swooshy swoop thing with the wand you know and then you

and then you say the thing and it's different for every single spell that you learn. And I just thought that's such a neat little touch because I feel like I'm actually getting taught this by a professor at Hogwarts. So it just seems very authentic to me and how they go about easing you into this game. And it's really neat because you don't just learn spells from the teachers. You're also going to make friends in the world of hogwarts and some of them maybe dabble in the restricted section of the library or maybe they're teaching themselves some banned spells or some unforgivable curses and that's also really really exciting because that to me paralleled a lot of the harry potter lore where you're not just going to class you're

also getting into a little bit of trouble but But everybody's kind of okay with that. Everyone kind of understands the world of Harry Potter is morally gray. And so there are secret hidden rooms around Hogwarts that you're using to test these spells that you're not even supposed to know or use. And I thought that that always felt very exciting in this world. In addition to learning spells, you also unlock some progression for modes of transportation, like riding your broom. You can do some races and tests in order to level those up. And I think that's kind of a good transition to talking about the open world, because you're going to be traveling through not just Hogwarts and also Hogsmeade, but also the open world around it, like the forest um hogwarts in and of itself

is very big uh very windy very confusing to run around sometimes a marker looked very close to you and it turned out you had to run about 700 feet to get there yeah yeah it's like clearly this marker's right next to me next thing you know you got to run all the way outside to the next castle, take stairs and run back. And Hogsward, Hogsward, Hogwarts is enormous. Then you travel north to Hogsmeade and then you kind of start to realize how big the world really is

because you open up that map and realize how close those two are and how much area there is around it. So talking about some more of the open world activities, what were some of your guys' favorite or maybe least favorite things to do? The world. Yeah. Was that your least favorite or your favorite?

No, that's my favorite. I'll be honest, man. Dude, this is going to sound like the world's worst dad joke or worst pun ever, but I genuinely mean this, is that this Hogwarts and the world in Hogwarts Legacy are magical. And I don't mean that as a pun, even though that would make a great pun, but it is, I can't remember a game that combines a home base like Hogwarts and the size of Hogwarts, dude. It is massive. When you were running through the hallways and the stairways and you're exploring and you're finding these little secrets and there's these rooms and there's the different towers and branches. And I'm not a Hogwarts nerd, so I don't know all the different parts of the school and all that. But they could have

just made the entire game inside Hogwarts. Right. And I think it would have been plenty fine. Like, honestly, it's that big, it's that expansive. And then you,

you make your first trip to Hogsmeade. And this is not a spoiler because everybody knows we go to Hogsmeade. And it's, it's pretty early in the game. They talked about that. The release trailers are like, Hey, I loved every step, every step going. I'm like'm like i i'm not that

big of a harry potter nerd but i'm going to hogsmeade and i'm walking through this this world and i'm just looking around everywhere my family because like my daughter loves harry potter she's standing behind me and she's like this is so accurate like That's Hogsmeade. Dad, you're going to Hogsmeade. And I'm like, yeah, I know. You know what I mean? But it's just the open world is phenomenal in this game. As far as activities to do, I liked most of them, to be honest with you. You do these things called the Merlin Trials, which are little puzzles that I thought were really cool. There are dungeons that you can explore. I mean, they really cover the gamut. There's challenges when you get your broom and you're flying around on your broom. You can do broom challenges. You can help people. You can explore these little villages. There is no shortage of stuff to do

in this open world. Yeah. And that's the thing, too, is that this open world is very lush. I like that you see bigger open worlds out there. And this is a big open world. It's not small. You see bigger ones that have a lot of empty space. Bethesda does this a lot. You're walking, you're like, there's a giant camp way over there. And you don't see a lot between here and there. You can't go 100 steps without running into something, whether it's a Merlin puzzle, whether it's the balloon popping thing where you're flying around, or just a field guide page that's hanging out, or a little, what do you call little towns? They're called something. Hamlets. Hamlets.

Little hamlets all over the place. There is something to do almost everywhere. But a couple of things that I really, really liked were, I did love doing the Merlin sites at first, until I did all 94 of them, and realized that there... I did try to complete this game, by the way. Full disclosure, I have 59 hours in between three different saves, because I couldn't decide if I wanted to do Curses or not. But there's only eight different types of Merlin puzzles,

so that did kind of get a little bit old, but only because I was doing what people do when they make things old, is do all 94 of them. I found these hedge mazes, which I found delightful. I'm like, there's a hedge maze here. And there's a chest in the middle of it. You just walk through this archway, you're doing a hedge maze. And they were pretty simple, but I was in a hedge maze. It was super cool. And literally just flying from the north end to the south end, because the north end is more like what you would see in the highlands of Scotland and things like that. The south end, you're seeing the cliffs and whales

and stuff with just the dark sea and things. And it was a beautiful world to explore. There was always something to do. You fly over sometimes, and there's a picture of a butterfly on the map, and you're like, what is that? You go down there, and you're literally following these butterflies for 30 seconds. And lo and behold, it goes, and it gives you a treasure just because these butterflies are so kind. This world loves us. You know, we always say in order for an open world game to work, it has to feel lived in. You have to have a sense of culture and people and movement. And some games just feel very empty. It's my only real criticism of cyberpunk. There's a lot of people and movement. And some games just feel very empty. It's my only real criticism

of Cyberpunk. There's a lot of people walking around. They're not talking to each other. There's nothing going on. Red Dead, on the other hand, does it fantastically. Hogwarts feels like that. When you first run from Hogwarts to Hogsmeade, there are students all along the path talking about their classes talking about the teachers sharing gossip about other students it feels like you're living in the real world of harry potter yeah and even in hogsmeade all the people are running around and they're talking to one another you really get a sense of how the world works and each individual hamlet have local quests that relate to them so maybe a guy in hogsmeade gives you a quest to

deliver a couple potions to a Hamlet, and then you deliver the potions. Well, now they have their own stuff going on. They're going to give you side quests to go out and complete. I felt like this really hit the ball out of the park as far as open world mechanics go. And you said something, too, that I want to just make one line on this a little bit deeper is that they're talking to each other. They're talking, they talk about you. They do what Oblivion did. I'm walking by these students and this girl's like, that's the new fifth year student. I already fought a dragon. And then later on you go to another Hamlet and they're like, I really liked what you did for Jimmy. You really boosted his confidence. And it's just like, what? Like that happened happened. They're talking about me and I'm impacting this world. I love that.

I felt like the hero of Kvatch in the open world, which I haven't felt since that game. The other thing I loved too is that they did make a lot of promises about discovering puzzles and things inside Hogwarts. And nothing really highlights that they're there. But all of a sudden, you're just running on a bridge and you notice little brassieres that have numbers and you can flip them and you see maybe there's a way to solve a puzzle. All of a sudden, a hole opens in the floor with a ladder and you go get to loot some treasure.

Like there's stuff like that inside Hogwarts that I really found delightful because you might just turn a corner and find a puzzle and have to unlock something in the castle yeah i they did it they did a really good job with this world it actually caught me by surprise i thought i thought they were going to nail hogwarts because it's hogwarts legacy right you know what i mean and it's like oh they're going to put all their effort into making hogwarts cool all the Harry Potter nerds out there. And then they're not going to know what to do with this open world. And you're just going to fly around. It's going to be trees. It's going to be another Forspoken, right? Where it's just, hey, there's places you can go, but there's nothing in between. And that is. I love the fact that they progressively get you to go further and further in the open world to where at one point I didn't realize the world was as big as it actually was. Because later on in the game, you are going towards like almost to the coast, you know, or you are going to the coast. And that's a long way.

Like, you know, but this is probably the biggest testament. I used fast travel. You get Flue Flames, you can fast travel. More often than not, I would just fly to where I was going because it felt so good to just fly through this world. Yes. No, I was like, I'm like, Josh and Paul are going to be so frustrated with me because it's going to take me forever to finish this game. It's going to be last out of the moment because I'm like, going around Hogwarts, I'm like, I don't want to fast travel there. I want to learn how to go around Hogwarts. And that's just that. Literally, Hogwarts felt like. The castle feels, the school feels like its own open world because it's, I cannot stress, if you have not played

this game, how big it is. But yeah, completely. Like I wanted to fly. I wanted to use the different brooms. I would do broom cosmetics just to fly on a different broom. I never do that in a game. Oh yeah, I completely agree with you guys. I never used fast travel inside Hogwarts. I would sometimes, if I'm traveling back somewhere in the open world, I'd use the flu flames. And they were nice.

They were convenient to use. But honestly, as big as the world is, broom travel is rather fast, and you do unlock some other things later. I just loved using the broom. And as long as you fly close to the surface, kind of like the game Anthem, where you could fly really fast if you were over water,

as long as your broom is close to the ground, you can keep traveling very quick for as long as you want. All right, well, we are going to take a short break and we'll be right back with more multiplayer gaming podcasts all right fellas we are back i think our biggest concern leading into hogwarts legacy was the combat right i think we all thought it would have a lot of lore it would probably have a lot to do in the open world but how's the combat gonna work i think there were even some jokes made if the combat here is like the lego games then this game is not really going to appeal to us right well i mean i don't know about you guys i played on hard i put it on hard

immediately because i knew the game was going to be pretty easy and this game is no bloodborne or elden ring of course i'm not going to try to compare it to those. It is not a walk in the park. You have to heal a lot. You will die if you play on hard. And I was actually rather surprised by the depth and the difficulty of the combat. I was very pleasantly surprised. I loved the variety in the combat more so than I thought, because I think I criticized this in a Twig episode. It was like, oh, yeah, okay. Yeah. Earth, Air, Fire, Water. We get it. Because they were like, hey, there's the different... I forget what they're called again, but the different elements and so forth that you're using. The variety was great. And they used something that worked so well that we talked about in the first spoken review that didn't work, is that an enemy would put up a protective

barrier, for instance, and it would be purple, and you had to hit that enemy with the purple spell to break it, or you couldn't do any damage. Or the zombie, the fire zombie, Igni, Ignite, yeah. In fairy, Inferio. In the fairy, whatever. The zombies, you can't do damage to them unless you hit them with fire first. And it had a lot of that kind of stuff, where depending on what you're fighting you had to approach it differently and even though the combat was definitely a little too easy we probably all had to go up to hard mode and i would recommend anyone go up to hard mode because that's the baseline that's a normal mode

probably um but it it actually had a good bit of variety and challenge to where it kept it fresh and fun and again every time that you kind of got into a spot where you're like, okay, I kind of get it now, you learn a new spell to throw at him. And so it was really nice to have that. The only thing that I would say is I do wish I had a little bit more control over like what type of ancient power attack I was using because it was done randomly.

I was like, I didn't like the one where I was like slamming him against the ground because it looked too much like a dance. And I'm like, no, make that more violent. I'm like, wait, this is Harry Potter. It's for kids, nevermind. The other cool thing in here is it also incorporates dodging but also using protego as a shield around you and if you pressed and held it then you would also counter and cast stupefy

against an enemy and then there are some things that protego could not protect you against and you had to dodge and roll and when you started to put all this together and on hard it gives you much shorter reaction time to do all these things i actually found it to be rather delightful i never found the combat to be too challenging but it also wasn't incredibly easy as you got into the late game some of the fights i did feel got pretty long like there's every once in a while you'd get challenges in the bottom right. And one of them said, complete this fight within 15 minutes. And I was like, holy cow. As fun as the combat is, I don't want to just be rolling and casting spells for 15 minutes straight. But at the same time, I found a lot of the fights to be somewhat challenging. I really enjoyed the combat. I said before, if the combat in this game is too easy,

it's really going to ruin the game for me because I don't want Lego combat. That was a good analogy there. So I stole it from you, Paul. But I actually started on normal just because I wanted to see what the normal difficulty was, and it was way too easy. But when you move up to hard, this is not Elden Ring hard. This is just, hey, you actually have to pay attention. And the thing that I love about combat is that there are so many different systems that are all coming to play at one time. You mentioned Protego, so you can basically parry. It's kind of like a parry for most people in a game, right? Where, you know, hey, you get a little warning, you know, there's something coming and then you parry and you will block the spell.

And if you hold it down, you'll cast stupefy back at that person. That's a neat mechanic. There is the dodge mechanic, all Elden ring. Now I'll be honest, I'm pretty familiar with that. So I did a lot more dodging than I did Protego, but Protego is very rewarding in the sense that it's like, dude, I timed that and now that dude's stupefied. Oh man, now I just sang the Disturbed song in my head right there for a second. I was about to ask if we were going to do a drop with that. I was totally, oh, I'm so happy you said that. But then on top of that, you have your different magic schools.

And I can't remember. There is a term. What's the term, Paul? Like schools of magic? Maybe. I don't know. You have your yellow, your purples, your reds, those sorts of things. Same term I couldn't think of earlier. I think there's a term for it. But, you know, so then you have your different schools of magic that you're using, where you've got your fire spells and your control spells and your movement spells or whatever.

And sometimes the characters have shields and you have to break through those shields. So not only are you dodging and you're blocking and you're switching spells and you're casting spells, but then on top of that, the spells combo together, which is so cool. Leviosa dudes floating in the air crowd control

great i can go focus on this guy or i can zap this dude because now he's taking extra damage because he's just helpless floating in the air so that's cool because now i get a damage bonus to that guy or i can slam that dude down to the ground to get mega damage because now I've done this cool combo where I lifted him up and then I slammed him down. Yeah. And, dude, there's like six different systems that are all just doing this perfect ballet dance together. The combat was freaking great. And it felt so good. Yes.

Like, when you did, like, you're in a tough fight. And I would almost always do this in a boss fight i wanted to finish it off with a bang like i would save my my power because that's one thing i don't think we mentioned is is that you you also build up your uh your ancient power by combos yeah and um and so you build that up like if you hit the enemy 10 times in a row you get a little bit of ancient magic to fill your meter and then if you get enough you get to little bit of ancient magic to fill your meter. And then if you get enough, you get to cast an ancient magic spell, which is like your super move, right? Your ultimate.

And so I would always like, man, I loved it when I would get down there. I know that enemy's health bar is there and I'd hit that button and I'm like sitting there and I swear that I'm like doing wand movements with my hands in my living room of my house. Like just, like you felt good because the combat was engaging and deep.

And you could also put a preference in there. Like, Josh was talking about the levitate and then hold him there and do that damage. I love the freeze slice, man. I was the master. I'm just like, froze, slice, because it was quick, quick, quick, quick. Next guy.

I loved it. Well, and we haven't even mentioned what is the best part of combat, which is the dark arts. Oh, the unforgivable curses are so satisfying man they knew they knew i normally am a good guy in a game i went full evil as evil as i could go in hogwarts legacy because them curses they feel real good man they are so op compared to everything else first First of all, Dark Arts spells cut through any color barrier.

So guess what? You don't have to go hunt for that yellow spell. You can just hit them with Imperio or Crucio or Avada Kedavra. And I don't think this is a spoiler because you see it all very early in the game, but you do get a talent tree. And there are certain ways to add in more mechanics to combat where now when you curse enemies it puts a green x on them and now they're taking additional damage well they even shared in some of the early footage that you can throw curses on multiple enemies and now you

can have a talent where if you cast the kill curse it will kill everybody who's linked together that is currently cursed so now you start to do really goofy stuff where i'm throwing a curse on this guy and that guy and whoever i have under imperio anyone he hits gets a curse now i can cast avada kedavra and i've just killed seven dark wizards simultaneously and the game builds around that they never give you everyone at once there's always waves so you can't really cheese your way out of the fight but man the dark arts you gotta use it is every single time that i walked up to a little camp of trolls and of the goblins and there's a troll in the middle i mind controlled that troll and just sat back and laughed for a minute because the troll is just smashing all these little tiny goblins

and I was dying. Oh, yeah. I got to give them kudos, man, because I thought the combat was going to be a secondary point in this game and they wound up absolutely nailing it. I mean, they really did a phenomenal job on the combat in this game. And here's the beauty of it. I love difficult combat, but I get it. There are a lot of people out there where they don't want to struggle with combat. Hey, yeah, it's nice, but I don't want to put it to... On normal setting, combat is not hard. But you still get to feel like a wizard that's battling goblins and other creatures and dark wizards and stuff like that too. So they really hit that one out of the park.

I also have to mention one last thing about combat before moving on. I don't know about you guys. My character was equal parts ninja and wizard because this game also gives you stealth and you can run around and if you run, you can cast disillusionment or you can drink a potion to make you invisible. And then you can run up behind enemies and instead of can drink a potion to make you invisible and then you can run up behind enemies and instead of choking them out like you might in another game you can cast patrificus totalus and you petrify them and that is also hilarious because characters around

them might hear or figure something out and now they're hunting for you also i've talked about before how much i love blasting enemies off of high surfaces. Yes. You don't get to do it often, but there are a couple missions when you are able to push an enemy off ledges and they will die. And I find that always satisfying. The really... I got to give them kudos since you brought up the stealth, Paul.

Dude, how many games know that you're in stealth? And so you're creeping around, you're partially invisible because you've cast Disillusionment. And then when you cast a spell, your dude whispers it. He whispers it. The first time that happened, I was like, what? That's such a cool touch, man. So you're casting these spells and he's going, instead of like, Patrificus Totalus, it's like, Patrificus Totalus. And then the dude sits up like a board, falls over, like he's completely, like, dude, it's the little touches, man, that they really nailed. You almost heard the gong sound every time you cast that Patrificus Totalus.

It was like, gong! Because he looked like Wile E. Coyote when he runs into the pole. No, but then also, like, there they look like Wile E. Coyote when he runs into the pole. No, but then also like there was more stealth mechanics that made it even better. I hate stealth in games. I don't like stealth games. I just typically don't do it. I've been playing,

you know, I played a little bit of a playtale Requiem because the whole game is that way. And it's, it's based on it. And I wanted to see the story, but I don't like stealth. I love the stealth in this game,

partly because you could still do things like you could cast your, like what your your regular right click fire your what would you the regular wand fire against a wall and the bad guy would go investigate that so you could sneak up behind him like things like that that make it more fun to be in stealth just again the combat they just got it right i don't understand why they didn't show more of the combat because we were worried about it right and it turned out to be worry about nothing because they just didn't show us the full content of the combat it wasn't even a worry about nothing it was a highlight yeah yeah it was the fan the combat in this was fantastic another huge important part of the game on top of the combat and the open world and all this, at least to me, is your relationships with the other students. All right. Now, sometimes you would just be given a short quest from another

student. Hey, I want to brew this potion. Will you go steal this piece that I need? Or, hey, I need something that's down in a basement in Hogsmeade. Will you go break in and get it? Or I've lost my game pieces around Hogwarts, can you go hunt them down and bring them back to me? And those end rather quickly. But you do have a couple of core friends, kind of like your Ron and Hermione of the Harry Potter movies. And here you've got Sebastian, Poppy, and Natty. And you run missions for them over the course of the entire game. And as much as i enjoyed the main story which honestly we didn't even mention in the opening parts there's a goblin rebellion being run by this dude named ranrock he looks incredibly evil he's got red eyes and he's like the big bad that you're hunting down

and uh he's also maybe also hunting you but i found that while that story was interesting the real emotions of the game came out through the relationship quest lines with the other students i actually found those to be the biggest payoff at the end of the game is seeing where those quest lines went and i thought that was also handled with a lot of care i completely agree when we go into spoiler time like i've got it in bold so i can try to get this in before josh has a chance to speak i have to talk about sebastian like i love the character sebastian so fascinating boy yeah he's my boy but i think that i think that it's what i really liked about this game was unlike a lot of other open world games is that the side quests really kind of went hand in hand with the main quest line as well.

Like a lot of the big bads that you're working towards in the side quests are named NPCs that are players in Randrock's plan. And so you're kind of doing these things that you don't have to do to end the main story, but they enrich the main story. I really like that. I loved the side quests, to be honest. The relationship quests I thought were fantastic. I liked the fact that they had different flavors to me. Sebastian was my boy. Anytime Sebastian needed me, I'm there for you, Sebastian. It didn't matter what was going on. If he sent me an owl, I'm dropping everything, man. I'm going to help my boy. And it's that quest line.

And again, we should reiterate, these go through the whole game. So you really get invested in these characters at this point. And Sebastian's whole quest line, I thought was phenomenal. You know, and then you've got the one with Poppy. Poppy's quest line is a completely different flavor. Like that's what I loved about it, right? Is it's like, hey, I've got this serious nature thing going on with Sebastian and this progression of like him through the world.

And again, no spoilers right now. But then you've got this thing with Poppy where I'm like, I'm just getting to see the magic of this land. You know what I mean? Like this is crazy. That's a completely different theme. It's a different flavor. I love it you know so anytime she would send me an owl i'd be like oh i gotta go help poppy because i want to see what's gonna happen next you know i'll be honest what's really weird to me is i

i don't know if it's just that i focused on those two i did not follow through with the natty quest line at all oh hers had an incredible payoff. See, I might have to go back. I might go back and do that one because the other two were so good. But then I just I wanted to make sure that I beat the game in time for recording and stuff like that. So at some point, because there is a lot of content in this game, I had to just kind of say, hey, I'm just going to focus on this. so i did miss out on the natty quest line the good news is you can still finish all of those after you beat the game i do think it works best if you complete it along with the storyline but you can still do it once the whole game's over yeah all right so i know that we're kind of quickly running out of time here the game

does have a basic gear system i mean i don't know that there's much to say you equip things like robes neckwear headwear gloves it's the weakest system in the game to be honest like i know we've been saying how great a lot of things are if we were gonna say hey this is one thing where i felt like they ran out of time or just kind of cut corners the gear system is it you mean a bonus to offense or defense isn't terribly in depth along with one little trait yeah it's i i found it to be more of a nuisance because my character often looked like the biggest thumb like like i don't i don't even know what to say he's walking around at times looking like the mad hatter and at other times he looked like from eyes wide shut walking around with a white mask

and red robes like i was like what is going on here they do let you do some transmog stuff so at least you don't have to look that way but i just let my character roll whatever he's wearing that's what i'm gonna look like and he looked like a psychopath at times yeah couldn't do it couldn't do it i did uh i did a big ravenclaw collection like collection yeah this was a long this is probably like five hours of mine because i didn't do any i didn't do any youtube guides at all that's why like i'm 59 hours and they say oh you can do everything 100 in like 53 hours i'm like yeah if you watch youtube videos like you can't do this in 59 hours you can't do it in 70 hours but i had this robe i was real proud of and every time man i'm

trying like i have never been so proud of Ravenclaw. And I didn't know what that was before I started this game. All right. And then I think the last major mechanic that we haven't really covered yet is the room of requirement. Without going into all the details, basically, the game tells you you need a space where you can catch up on assignments and things of that nature. And the room of requirement is in the original story stuff that you probably know about so in the room of requirement you can grow herbs brew potions you

can add magic traits into your gear and probably most importantly you get your vivarium where you can go capture beasts in the open world bring them back put them in your vivarium that way you can breed them in your own puppy mill of sorts, I guess. Some people took issue with this. We're pulling them out of nature, and now we're literally breeding them and selling them. We rescued them from poachers, though. They were going to be killed. Yeah, but what did you do with your excess ones, Michael?

You sold them off, right? No, but I sold them to a rescue shelter that would find them better homes, in my mind. Sure. Whatever makes you feel better. You guys had a vivarium yeah well you get that and you get the extra swamp thing oh i didn't later i didn't have any of that stuff i had a tardis that kept my my animals inside of it yeah that's what i had because it was enormous on the inside you walked through this little door you're like i'm in a

tardis sorry i know what the vivarium is i had three of them yeah it's you basically you can put your beasts in there and then you have to feed them and groom them and then every 30 minutes i think it was they would give you a magical element to put magic into your gear the only thing i will say yeah those those huge bonuses huge bonuses the one thing i did love in there is you could add a toy box and just throw out a giant leather ball and everyone in your vivarium runs around basically playing soccer and it really was the cutest thing i've ever seen in a video game yeah i had one i had one vivarium that was i couldn't help it it was nothing but the little tribble things i i call them hufflepuffs but i know they're not hufflepuffs what are they called the little The little balls. The things with the big eyes? No, no.

Little tiny balls of fur. Literally, it's a tribble. It's a little tiny ball of fur. It's the first thing you get. Yeah. I can't remember what they're called. It starts with an S, I think. I don't remember.

I put the little ball out there. I've got, what? You get like 12 spots? I got 12 little furry Chia pets running around chasing this ball. I was dying. Oh, it's so funny. I love it. All right.

I think this is time where we're now going to open up for spoilers. So if you want to avoid all spoilers, go ahead and jump forward seven minutes and 36 seconds. All right. Do you guys want me to go first or do one of you want to go first? Michael is raising his hand. So let's let Michael go first. Go ahead, Michael. first or do one of you want to go first what do you guys are raising his hand so let's go good michael okay so one of my favorite things in any narrative is when you have a villain who thinks he's the hero and i already can tell you that josh and i have a completely different

outlook on sebastian because sebastian's story right his sister Anne was cursed long back in the day. He's trying to remove the curse. And to do that, he believes he has to gain an understanding of dark magic. And he learns unforgivables. And you as a character, actually, I'll let Josh go into this part, because he probably spent more time with the curses than I did or whatever. But the whole thing was, you end up doing some pretty bad stuff on accident or on purpose. And the thing about Sebastian is at what point do you say this has gone too far?

And as a character, for me, at that point was before I learned the death curse. I learned the two curses before that. I didn't learn about a cadaver. Shame on you. I couldn't get myself to do it as a lawful good character. I was like, okay, I've already learned these curses. Oh, but you have no problem casting Crucio on people, Michael? Well, right, but I didn't feel good about it.

I'm like, I don't know if this is right. So when I learned Crucio... That's the difference between me and you. I felt great every time. Well, and I did actually do a lot. That's why I have three different saves going, because one of them I learned that stuff, one of them I didn't. Michael prefers a nice slow death that he can enjoy, as to you know let me see the pain no that's bad um

anyway so when you first go into sebastian's storyline though he's got this friend his best friend is named ominous and you think ominous is this total jerk like he's trying to keep his friend from doing anything everything's got to be secret when really by the end of this quest i feel like ominous was more of a hero than seb Sebastian was because he's trying to keep his friend from getting himself killed or getting other people killed. I just thought that whole storyline with Sebastian, it really gave you the biggest choice in the game. Even aside from the end of the game, you get a choice at the end of the game. The choice in this one really is, do you want to back up Sebastian or do you want to kind of say, hey, buddy, you're not doing the right

thing? Because Sebastian, to me, is a villain who's doing things because he's trying to do good. But as he does good, he is doing very, very bad. I don't know what you guys think about that one. But that's the one thing I had to say about that. Because I love a villain that thinks they're doing the right thing. Like Nero from Star Trek 2009. Probably not the best example in the world, but he thinks he's doing a good thing. But he's not. He's doing a very right thing. Like Nero from Star Trek 2009. Probably not the best example in the world, but he thinks he's doing a good thing. But he's not. He's doing a very bad thing. Well, I mean, he killed his uncle. Sebastian goes a little too far.

But his uncle attacked him, didn't he? He's trying to save his sister, guys. Let me be the voice of reason for Sebastian and what he went through, guys. Okay? Because I supported Sebastian the entire game. It's just a brother trying to save his sister. You wanted the curses.

I don't want to get too bogged down in the spoiler stuff, because literally we could talk about this game for hours and hours and hours. The one spoiler that I have to bring up, because I played this game as an evil character, and I mentioned it at the very beginning of the show. Spoiler. You get a quest for your house elf that is taking care of the room of requirement. His name is Deke. And Deke says, hey, and his cute little house elf voice says,

I've got my buddy Tobbs that I've been with forever. And his master's a jerk. Can you please go check on Tobbs for me? His master sent him to get spider silk and I'm worried. And I went, sure, I'll'll do that and then you find out that tobs died by himself in this spider den in a horrible death and i was very sad legitimately i was wrecked i was sad like this quest got me and then when i got back you have to tell Deke what happened. And so I'm like, Deke, Tobbs is dead. And then Deke goes, oh no, I'm really sad. And then it gives me a dialogue option to say, sympathize with Deke or tell Deke to get over it. And I was like, guys, I'm playing an evil wizard. I can't do it. And then I went, I have to do it. And I made myself click the button that said, Deke, get over it.

And I felt the worst I have ever felt in a video game, guys. Oh, my goodness. I could imagine. Oh, I'm never doing it again. I'm calling it right now. I do not like being evil in video games, man. And while it was funny at times, I still still feel terrible i'm sorry deke i think that it's it the way it's described too because d uh tobs writes a letter and that's what you find two next to him and the

way it's body though yeah that's right but the way it's written is like the big spider was too much for tobs tobs can't breathe very well right now and it's like oh my goodness it is mortifying so the the last thing that i want to say in the spoiler territory is um this game did something with like like i hate button mashing like literally when you're supposed to like uh the end of what was it a way out like when you're crawling towards the gun whoever button matches fast enough this game did button mashing so perfect because you remember at the end of harry potter the the movies right harry potter when voldemort and harry have like their wands clashing with each other you know and

the two colors are coming together that happens at the end of one of the boss fights in this and i'm like that's exactly what I felt like Harry was doing if he had a controller in his hand, was just smashing the X button as fast as he can to beat Voldemort. So when I'm doing that, I'm like, I gotta beat this bad guy with my smashing this X button as fast as I can. And I'm like, holy cow. There was actually a click the button as fast as you can thing

in a game that actually made sense with the narrative. Yeah, it's rare to enjoy those quick time events like that i'm surprised you guys didn't bring up my favorite quest of the entire game when you drink the polyjuice potion and become headmaster black oh yes who is seven peg by the way yes and i legitimately laughed out loud multiple times as you are walking around pretending to be headmaster black who's very prickly and loves just insulting everybody and so you're just walking around basically roasting students like oh student you call those boots polished and just one of the students are like i'm so sorry and like they're all making comments to you

you call that a shine on those boots do better and you're just walking around and then you walk into the great hall and you order to change all the banners to whatever house you are so for me it was ravenclaw he goes change all the banners to ravenclaw i shall be taking no questions about this at this time or ever and then he just walks off and i'm like oh man this is hilarious attention students i hereby decree that the great hall be forthwith decorated in the elegant banners of ravenclaw i shall be taking no questions at this time or ever to me that was so great the mustache paste the boil cream like all the stuff that came out of that was truly funny and that feels like ages ago it's because yeah the game of the game a lot

happens in this game and it just i forgot about that until you just mentioned it because i feel like the quests the quests in the story in this game are really top-notch man like not all of them hit obviously but just overall, I never felt like I didn't care about what was happening. Yeah, I totally agree. Okay, so we are done with the spoiler section. So guys, overall, let's just kind of summarize our thoughts here.

Overall, what worked and what didn't? Open world, fantastic. We just gotta go take turns and say things? Oh, oh, combat was phenomenal. Yeah, I thought the sense of wonder and experiencing Hogwarts as a simulator, it really nailed all that. You feel like you're living the world of a Hogwarts student. And that's exactly what I was hoping for.

Exploration was great. For me, the only thing, there's two things that didn't work for me the gear system i was really disappointed in that i'm not gonna lie it's mostly cosmetic it was just a burden after a while dude because my inventory would get full they relied on the gear system for all rewards so like if i solved a puzzle or found some really off the beaten path thing or went into a dungeon and beat that and everything else. It was just like, oh, I got another house cloak. I got to destroy another cloak to make room for it. It almost became a burden for me at some point where gear in a game should be a lot of fun to acquire. This was almost like, oh man, not another thing I have to destroy or go sell.

The only other thing that I'll say that didn't work for me was that even though the game gave you dialogue choices, your choices do not matter in this game. Not until the very end of the relationship friend quest, especially in regards to the main story. It does not matter anything you say. None of it matters. One iota. It's just flavor dialogue.

It gives you the illusion of choice but you don't really have the main story does have a good and bad ending though yeah i mean sure but i'm saying the game gives you a ton of choices to make but none of those choices actually matter i mean i'm literally casting the killing curse on people and none of the professors are saying anything i'm fully decked out in dark arts clothing none of the professors are saying anything. I'm fully decked out in dark arts clothing. None of the professors are saying anything. For a game that did such a good job at that, it felt like this glaring blind spot to me.

I really thought, because I started using Crucio, right? A lot, because it was a lot of fun. Let's just be honest. That was so much fun to cast. The sound it made, the... You know know like this roar of like power uh wow that just sounded really bad um but uh yeah i i really thought that at the end like fig was gonna be like hey people are saying you're using these powers and it just

never happened that's what would take this game into upper echelon yeah is if they built in a witcher or mass effect kind of morality system that incorporated it more i think it would have taken it up a notch uh i totally agree with with those critiques also the day night cycle didn't work for me like having to go around and collect the demiguises at night seemed like more of a nuisance yeah the only time i would ever switch to night is when my character would say oh demiguise i've got you now and i'd be like all right i guess i gotta go tonight so that part i didn't care about and lock picking it really got old fast yeah the i love i love when games give you a little mini game for something but this one missed the mark after two times of talking yeah like the

first two times were challenging and then i'm like okay now i'm just getting through this as fast as i can uh one last thing about choice is also not really mattering your choice of house barely matters it switches one mission for how you meet jackdaw and it does change the cosmetics of your room because of where you're staying i do wish there was a little more built into that maybe where you get completely different quests like not just one but several that way you feel like your house matters a little bit more um but honestly the fact that we're complaining about those things kind of tells you overall yeah the game works pretty well we're not complaining just let me play the game like Forspoken I mean just let me play that's all I want to do I think that house pack would be an

excellent DLC which they're not going to do but that would be a great idea like add that in as a DLC like okay we got house missions now I can't believe we're not getting any DLC for this game it is so ripe you get more in this world i bet you were getting dlc they say but i do money talks man we're getting dlc for hogwarts that or hogwarts legacy too one or one or the other all right so time to bring back our newest segment we've only done this once before time for some hot takes ready or not that's hot yes mich Michael you want to hit us with your hot take yes now I don't think it's really a hot take like I thought it was a hot take until we talked about it for 20 minutes earlier in the episode but this in regards to design and I'll give more details on it is perhaps the most robust open

world I have ever seen and let me explain why I'm saying like in the design piece of it specifically, you can go into any building in this game, any building anywhere, you can go inside of it. That alone is rare. But when you go inside these buildings, there is not a single one that is a cookie cutter from another one. You go inside of every single house in every single hamlet, and it's got different pictures on the wall, different shoes, different coat hangers, different people doing different things. None of it's the same. I have never seen a game put that much effort into making sure that you can go anywhere in a game and make it not like Skyrim where you see one dungeon, you've seen

every single one of them. And so I think that as far as I think this is the most well-designed open world I have ever seen. My hot takes pretty close to yours, Michael, so I'll go next. I wrote down Hogwarts Legacy is the most fun RPG to come out since Dragon Age Inquisition. I think Dragon Age Inquisition is a far better game. It's longer, it's more complex, the combat's better, the morality system is far better. But this game feels like Dragon Age Inquisition Jr. It's got the same DNA at its core. You're even running around clearing astronomy, constellation things. All that is exactly in Dragon Age Inquisition. It's just a

little easier and it's a lot shorter. I found it to be utterly delightful. This is just a stripped back, completely fun, maxed out to the absolute far as you can go kind of RPG. Absolutely love it. What about you, Josh? Oh, man. My hot take's going to seem really weird now. So my hot take is that the world in Hogwarts Legacy is one of the most beautiful, finely crafted worlds that I have seen in a video game, guys. Yeah, I think that's totally true. this and this is my hot take because i felt like this was pretty bold to say especially for a guy that loves rpgs but michael touched on it nothing is reused dude dude this game has dungeons i don't even know how many dungeons it's got right you know how many dungeons were the same zero none of them they were all so unique dude like everything was like that. There was no reusing assets. Every house was different. Every dungeon was different. Everything was handcrafted. And I'll tell you what, guys, because I got to tell this story real quick, but I'll be fast. In the sequence where you get your

hippogriff, that's not a spoiler because they show it in the previews. You get a hippogriff and there's this whole quest in the sequence. Dude, I spent so much time just flying around because it plays this really nice music. It was one of the coolest, most magical moments, dude. I flew up over Hogwarts and sat there hovering and literally watched the sunset over Hogwarts. I have never done that in a video game. Because who does that? Guess what I did? because this game demanded it it was like i had to like experience that and like that just tells you that there's a magic here

that is hard to describe you have to experience it to really get it but it's funny that all three of us had almost the exact same hot take it should tell you a lot about what's going on. Yeah, I forgot that hippogriff. I felt triumphant. And the music did not hurt. It was very well done. The music in the whole game is really well done, where it's not the original Harry Potter themes, but it plays off it. It's very reminiscent of the original score.

And I think that also leads to a lot of credibility in the world and how it feels. It's automatically baked in because of the music. All right. Well, we've shared some of our thoughts. Josh, you've got a couple of community reviews to read. I do. We always pull some community reviews just so people that are listening aren't swayed by just our thoughts on a game.

I always... We like to let people know, hey, here's some of the negative things people have said about it. Here's some of the positive things people have said about it. They should just go by us. That's all you need. Yeah, I mean, let's be honest, you know,

but we like to give a broader perspective here. So, okay, so this first one is not recommended. This is 64 hours on record. And it says, first of all, I really liked the game up until the end. Finish the campaign and most of the other stuff. 97% completion. The soundtrack and feeling you get is very nice. The artwork is amazing. I have stuttering issues, but it was playable. It might be my PC. It's a little bit older. The thing that

actually made me sad is the feeling that none of my decisions mattered. Whatever I said, whenever I pushed for the dark side, in the end, I'm the hero. Neither the ending nor anything else apart from maybe learning the three unforgivables feels like it's up to your choice. Being rude to NPCs, extorting them, betraying quest givers, nothing happens. Apart from maybe a different voice line, but then everything is just back to normal. I literally chose to take the powers. I used all the unforgivable curses. Nobody cared.

I was still the hero. Yay? the powers i used all the unforgivable curses nobody cared i was still the hero yay to be fair the same thing happens in harry potter harry's running around using unforgivable curses and nobody really cares so that is somewhat baked into the ip of harry potter but i totally agree i i completely understand those criticisms to me it didn't pull down the whole game but it really would have been nice it was one of the few glaring issues yes you know i felt like so okay and this next one is recommended 110 hours on record finally something that isn't a half-baked live service micro transaction infested disaster at launch right you're right. How refreshing was it to play Hogwarts Legacy, guys? Did you guys get any bugs? The only bug I got was that my

house cape sometimes would flutter forward a little bit or something weird where it would clip through my character's legs. That's it! This game's done! The only thing that I had was twice. Two times only, I noticed that a dragonfly or a bee, a group of dragonflies or bees were just floating and they weren't flapping wings.

They were just kind of stuck in the environment for a second. That was it. You know how small of a bug that is? Yeah. Yeah. It ran rather well. It did. Yep.

And we played on different platforms, too. I was on PS5. You guys were on PC. We both had the same experience. Yeah. Yeah. This next one is not recommended. 24 hours on record.

This is just some stupid fan service game with uh half-baked rpg features it's nothing compared to the witcher 3 zelda breath of the wild skyrim or elden ring if you're looking for an rpg this ain't it if you want a movie where you control a witch with a great with great graphics then this is it it's boring with mundane repetitive combat and the map is small compared to the likes of other more ambitious role-playing games. This game is overhyped by Harry Potter fanboys who don't know a good game if it bit them in the butt. What game do they think they were buying? I don't know.

They don't claim to be The Witcher 3. No one said this game's The Witcher 3. I don't know who goes into it thinking that this is gonna be you know that i but you know hey this guy was disappointed that the the point of this one i think is that there are rpg elements but this is not what i would dictate as a hardcore rpg the system doesn't matter yeah exactly but i think maybe somebody thought this is harry potter rpg i don't know all right and then this last one is recommended 128 hours on record this is Harry Potter RPG. I don't know. All right. And then this last one is recommended 128 hours on record. This is easily one of the best games I have played in years. The attention to detail is immaculate and the sense of fun and progression is well-tuned.

The other thing is that not one of my many quests glitched, which is something familiar with this kind of game. Forget any controversy about the game. If you're enjoying, if you enjoy gaming and you want fantasy and a good storyline, then do yourself a favor and kind of game. Forget any controversy about the game. If you enjoy gaming and you want fantasy and a good storyline, then do yourself a favor and play this game. Agreed. Slash agree.

All right, guys. So that is what some of the reviews were, as we always do. We now play a little game where we try to guess the overall rating for Hogwarts Legacy. This is based on Steam reviews on the scale of 0 to 100. Paula, I think you're like the three-time champion right now, aren't you? Did I win this three times in a row? I think you did. Was that me? You're going first. You ain't winning this time, buddy. I'm on a streak. All right. So I think politics aside, controversy aside, this game I think would be in the high 90s. I have no doubt that there's some review bombing bringing it down a bit.

But you're talking over 10 million sales in the first week. I think it's going to be very positive. I'm going to say 93%. What about you, Michael? I am much higher. I don't think that there's enough people compared to... I don't think that... I think with how many people bought this game and played it and loved it, that it's going to... There's not enough review bombing that would really be capable of bringing it down too low, I think.

I want to say 97%. I know it's real high. My guess was 94%. And then when I looked up the actual rating, I got really happy because I was like, I'm finally going to beat Paul. Because it's dead on. And I freaking didn't do it because Paul guessed it exactly. It's 93% Paul. Oh, man.

Are we allowed to just say Paul can't play anymore, Michael? Is that a thing? Mercy rule? If I win 10 in a row, I can't play anymore. Well, we're complaining because he's too good. He's too good. Whatever, Paul. No, because my friends never told me that I wasn't allowed to I can't play anymore. Well, we're complaining because he's too good. He's too good. You know what? No, no, because my friends never told me that I wasn't allowed to play GoldenEye anymore.

So no, he can continue to play. Okay. All right, Paul. Not to get sidetracked, but I love that Michael revealed playing Rockets on License to Kill. I was going to troll Michael. No, I didn't. All his crazy modes in GoldenEye. We played Pistols License to Kill. play pistols license to kill that's what we played that's what we played and sometimes slappers only because it was hilarious slappers only was great

all right let's go ahead and move into our next segment but man i just i keep getting to lead these every time let's go ahead and hit that music hey there professor garlic i wish i were cross-eyed so i could see you twice i think you've used that one before paul did i use that one you need to let somebody else win sometimes because i i had a great one for you sure garlic are you sure i've said that oh i'm sure you have i think it was like three episodes ago but look i met my wife when i was 16 at least you picked my favorite professor paul all All right, fair enough. What was your line going to be, Josh? Oh, I'm not going to say now because it's...

Oh, you're going to save it? Well, I just don't know if it's appropriate for... Was Professor Garlick the herbology professor? Yeah, the one that looked about 18 years old. Right. When Josh... Josh might have made a comment about her early, and I was like... She's a professor at Hogwarts.

Get some Leonardo DiCaprio going on okay is she wait hold on are we gonna have a hogwarts professor as a smoke show 2023 nominee uh from josh probably he's shaking his head yes what nobody can see anything he's a fan what are you talking about all right so this segment is called make love marry or murder all three of us give this game our individual rating is this game marriage What are you talking about? All right. So this segment is called Make Love, Marry, or Murder. All three of us give this game our individual rating. Is this game marriage material? Is it make love, hit it, and quit it? Or is it murder material where you should not pick it up and we do not recommend playing it?

I think this one's going to be a triple marry. I'm just guessing. It's absolutely a marry for me. I think everyone should go out and play this game. I think it's got its flaws, but I think the things that it hits on well are incredibly well done. I feel like this game has all the charm of Breath of the Wild, but it has more challenging combat with a more interesting story. I feel like it's kind of that halfway point between a Zelda game and maybe something like a Dragon Age or a Mass Effect. It's kind of that halfway point between a zelda game and maybe something like a dragon age or a mass effect it's kind of like the midway between both this game did something that i

didn't think was possible i made you feel things i am it made me feel i am currently watching the harry potter movies again oh nice i am like this game took took something that I appreciated it because I love fantasy. I love stuff like that. I love wizards and witches and dragons and stuff like that. I just thought it's kids stuff. And by doing all these stupid field guide pages and learning about this world, I'm like, this is a really deep and robust universe that I want to learn more about. I kind of want to read the books now. I'm not even kidding. And for a video game to do

that, to make me really care about a villain that fails at taking over a high school, take that, Emperor Palpatine. The whole thing is is like that's incredible that this game did that the lore is so it's it's so rich and i had an absolute blast with it and i get that it doesn't have that rpg element that would have made this game like if it had that rpg element and your choices mattered you'd have a hard time getting me down from top two or three with this game if that was in there you'd have a hard time i would die on that hill but i would say that that this is a very high mary because this game is so rich i i never did not want to play this game at every moment i was like i can't wait to get done with what i'm doing with real life because i want to play this game right now and i love that what about you josh easy

easy mary for me. I'll be honest. This is one of the best games that I've played in a while. It caught me off guard. The beginning of the game really sucked me in. It never let up after that. And I was legitimately surprised. I mean, we talked about Hogwarts might flop, man. This game might not be that great.

And then it wound up being way better than I ever thought it would be, to be honest with you. It has very few flaws. And everything it does, it does really, really well, in my opinion, with a couple just stupid things that really don't matter, like the gear system. So for me, it was a absolute banger of a game, a huge pleasant surprise. I want to go back and play it. And that's like, I don't say this often, but like, this is one of those games where I actually told like my wife, like, I wish we didn't have to cover so many games for the podcast, because this is a game that I would literally just spend the next month or two

exploring and playing and having fun. And just, I don't need another game. I don't need to buy another game because I'm happy playing this one. And for most people that know how much I bounce around games, that is saying an awful lot. It's one of the biggest compliments I can give a game when it can hold my attention for that long. So easy Mary from me as well. You want to real quick, I'll just add on to that. Something that if you do, I did the math today and I'm like, this is disgusting math. I played this game for 10 days. I have 59 hours. That is 5.9 hours a day I played this game. Full-time job.

Legitimately. I'm half embarrassed, but so many nights I was up way too late and I was dragging at work the next day because of a video game. I don't think I've done that since EverQuest. Wow. I was shocked when you said, guys, I think I'm going to try to 100% this game before we record. And I was like, there's no way that's happening. I'm close. I'm real close.

Yeah. You're one step away from the finish line. I can't find one set of balloons. I'm so frustrated and i didn't start breeding the animals early enough so i have to go in and save because you have to breed all 12 the cool down timer on yeah reading i didn't because i didn't see that one all right well we have just one segment left let's go to the show we have an overall leaderboard which you can go see at our website which is multiplayerpodcast.com every game we've done a deep dive we decide to rank

against every other game that we've ever covered so if you want to see like what games we recommend or what we think we stack them all up against each other yes we are trying to compare apples to oranges that is part of the fun we do bake some things into our decision like price your bang for your buck how important it is to play the game things of that nature so to give you a couple of markers here on our leaderboard we've got some stuff like disco elysium at number five apex legends at number eight elden ring at 14 uh hollow knight at 27 rainbow six siege at 36 so on and so forth all the way down at the bottom we've got some things like uh the forest halo reach hood outlaws and legends overcooked to josh's personal favorite game of all time and uh now we got to decide where to put Hogwarts Legacy.

So being a triple Mary, we know it's going to be kind of near the top. Do you guys see it cracking the top 15 or top 10, or are we looking lower than that? I have a number in mind that is the perfect spot, in my opinion. Do we just let him say it? Well, you started talking to Michael,

so I wanted to hear what you say. Well, actually, it might it might be better if i do say this first because i have a really hard time with this one for one reason number seven on the leaderboard is rust right eight apex legends nine rocket lead 10 valheim 11 satisfactory 12 outriders david richardson 2 i have not played any of those games wow you were really missing out michael those i know great i i know but that's the hard part is because in my head i'm like this game has to be top 10 but i can't argue against any other reason why you know what i mean so that's why it's like it almost feels better that i said that

before you said your number what's your number my number is 15 on the dot i think it i think this game belongs one behind elden ring in my opinion. So you got it below satisfactory outriders DOS two and Elden ring, but above hearthstone call of duty war zone, grand theft auto online and halo infinite. Yeah. I mean, for me,

that's, I think that's exactly where I was going to suggest putting it other. Well, I was thinking more 13. I would actually have it jump Elden Ring and Divinity Original Sin 2. I would still keep it below Outriders. I love DOS 2 so much and I love Elden Ring so much. But that is how much this is saying because Hogwarts Legacy is really close to both of those games in my mind. It's just slightly below it is the issue for me. Then I think it's going to split and it's going to be at 14,

because Josh, you said 15. Paul, you said 13. I would rather play this 100 times out of 100 over Elden Ring. And so I think it's going to be at 14, because it's right in between yours. And I'm happy there. That's fine. See, this is where it's hard to be at 14 because it's right in between yours and i'm happy yeah that's fine see this is where it's hard to rank games because if you want really complex combat toss two is

100 for you if you want a 30 minute fight to make eight actions like that's what the game provides and it does it so incredibly well but to me that can sometimes feel a little bit like work hogwarts legacy is a far more casual game than DOS 2 or Elden Ring. So we're not necessarily saying that it's technically better, but maybe it's what we prefer. So, okay. So we'll split the difference. We'll put it in at 14, keeping it below Divinity Original Sin 2, but above Elden Ring.

That's high, high praise. That's very high praise. There's going to be a lot of people that are going to say you put it above Elden Ring. I think it deserves it. But here's the counterpoint to that. I put it below Elden Ring. But if you go on the internet right now, there is already talk about how this game is better than last year's Elden Ring or whenever. I think it was last year for Elden Ring, right?

Yeah. I got my ears right. Yeah. or whenever, I think it was last year for Elden Ring, right? Yeah, that was last year. I got my years right? Yeah, right. And so this debate is already being waged online on the internet right now about which game is better. And so that tells you that these two are very close together in the quality of game that they are. Now, they're two vastly different games.

Obviously, we get that. But what a surprise. All right, well, we'll lock that in on the leaderboard and any closing thoughts, anything we left out that we want to say on the deep dive. I think we did a pretty good job. This episode wasn't great. Personally. You.

Yeah. So much to cover. Open world games. This is going to be an hour and a half episode. I went, no way we can keep it to like an hour and five minutes. Yeah. And here we are.

A hundred and twenty two. And yeah, keep it to like an hour and five minutes yeah and here we are 122 minutes in and yeah an hour ago an hour ago josh sent a message that says pacing is fantastic so far yeah that's until we got to like some of the stories and combat and all that other stuff so it's just so much to tackle all right well i think that wraps everything up for this deep dive we do want to say thank you to everyone for listening to this episode we want to say it's just so much to tackle. All right. Well, I think that wraps everything up for this deep dive. We do want to say thank you to everyone for listening to this episode. We want to say thank you to all our Patreon supporters. As a reminder,

go check out our Patreon page at multiplayer squad.com. Also come hit us up on socials. You can find us everywhere at multiplayer pod. And in case you're new to the show, we always release episodes on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. And these kinds of deep dives we do every other Monday. So two weeks from today, In case you're new to the show, we always release episodes on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.

And these kinds of deep dives we do every other Monday. So two weeks from today, our next deep dive will be Atomic Heart, which we have all been playing here for the last couple days. We'll have a lot of thoughts on that one, so make sure to check that one out in two weeks. And we hope in the meantime that you'll come back on Thursday when we break down recent gaming news. And until next time happy gaming all right bye everybody