I haven't played a bigger game for years
The last one was Assassins Creed: Odyssey and it wasn't that good. I mean the open world was spectacular and the graphics quite breath taking, but the gameplay way totally repetitive. I am not the first one to point that out, but it was so bad that I couldn't finish the game. Another factor was that I noticed half way through the game that speccing the warrior skill tree was way too overpowered. One time time I pulled like 20 or 30 NPCs from a town and I could defeat them by using 2 or 3 abilities. This was even possible on difficult, so it killed the fun of the game.
Getting older affects game impressions
Back as a teenager I was easily impressed by just about any game. But I guess everyone who plays for several decades notices that often it is not so much the games that change (although they definitely do as well), but rather oneself. I have often heard the expression "playing games feels like wasting time" and it's true. As an adult playing for half a day is often not a very wise decision. One could use the time more useful... Although everyone has to decide for themselves how to spend their free time, gaming often still plays an integral part of people's lives that have spent thousands of hours in their teens. As such, one has a very different experience to someone that might have just picked up a game or started playing video games. One has literally decades of experience and is comparing and judging current games through that filter.
Hogwarts Legacy
I have to admit, I am or rather was a huge Harry Potter fan. The books were absolutely fantastic and I was deeply captivated by them which almost no other story was able to. The movies were great, but they were already a lot more shallow and hallow. So what to expect of a game in that universe? Nostalgia of course!
And that's what the players get. The game itself is called Hogwarts Legacy, and it does not disappoint at what the name refers to. The castle is absolutely huge and it is tremendous fun to go about and explorer the whole thing. It is a lot of fun to revisit the scenes and places one has read in the books or seen in the movies. 10/10 for that.
The places outside are very good as well. You have Hogsmead as well as the Forbidden Forest right outside of Hogwarts. It is fantastic to pick up a broom and start flying over these nostalgic places. One bigger caveat for me was that the surrounding area itself is actually not that big. It feels rather limited as the entire map sits in a long stretched out valley. Flying towards the mountains means to encounter an invisible barrier which really sucks out the immersion of the game. Yet it is still not too small, so it's not the worst criticism.
Main Story
The main story is well made. It took me around 25 hours to complete which seems to be very average for today's games. You'll encounter many people (or ghosts) and will travel to most of the map (although the southern area is left largely unexplored). There are also many fun and versatile quests, but the story itself is nothing new. Everything builds up to the main boss fight. And the story that takes you there has been told a hundred times over. But still, it never felt boring and perhaps it brings me back to the point at the beginning - I have just played many games like this before. Perhaps I would look on it differently, had it been one of my first times playing a video game.
The main problems
The cons of the game are rather obvious to me. To put it simply, it is boring. There are no real choices to be made in the main story line as well as the side quests. It doesn't really matter what answer or question you choose from the dialogue options. It generally ends up being the same. Realizing this after just a few hours, I had a very hard time even listening to the things being said and I often skipped most parts to end it quickly and simply run to the next goal of the quest. Sure, I could have listened to the whole thing, but at then end the game didn't leave me a choice. So why bother?
This also brings me back to what I wrote before. My time is valuable, and I don't want to waste it on something that does not really matter (and I cannot affect). I probably wouldn't have felt this so strongly, would I be younger. But now this does not really cut it for me anymore.
The other issue I had with the game was that it was very easy to see the structure of the game. This is a general problem with games and also something that one easier identifies with more game experience. But I tend to enjoy the games that surprise me. If I can easily spot a pattern, then it becomes very dull very fast. What I mean is the structure of the quests, the things to do (like solving puzzles, capturing rare animals, bandit camps etc.) - it's all really just repetitive. Why bother going through all of this again and again?
Conclusion
Hogwarts Legacy received quite the hype when it first came out and I remember seeing mostly positive reviews (it's also one reason why I decided to play it). But the main thing that made it almost unplayable to me was the lack of immersion by not giving the player the freedom to choose. The world and the people in it had only little meaning to me and while I enjoyed visiting all of the beautifully constructed scenes and places, I never really had the feeling of getting lost in it like I did with the books or other games that put more emphasis on story telling. One of the most things I liked was combat; it is fast paced and fun. Perhaps getting everything right nowadays is to much to ask? Although I have more hopes for perhaps the biggest game of the year: Baldurs Gate III.
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