LEGO and Harry Potter is a match made in heaven, and this is quite clear once you start playing. Sitting here pondering what I wanted to say in this review, I realised I was grinning just thinking about my experiences with it. In an increasingly cynical world of blood and guts, it’s lovely to come across a game that’s just plain happy. Everything about LEGO Harry Potter oozes positivity.
At its heart, LEGO Harry Potter is quite a typical LEGO game. The entire premise is a wonderful amalgamation of the land of LEGO and Harry Potter. You spend much of your time wandering around a Hogwarts constructed out of LEGO. Hogwarts itself is tremendous. It’s huge and incredibly intricately designed. It’s not hard to spend hours just wandering around taking in all the sights, especially if you’re a Harry Potter fan. Fortunately it’s not bewilderingly huge as the friendly house ghosts are always there to guide you to the next stage of the game. The seamless nature of transfering from Hogwarts to the next level is tremendous, ensuring no chance of a detracted experience as is sometimes the case with a more hub based game.
As expected from the series, you can’t die in LEGO Harry Potter. For the younger gamer this is particularly useful as there’s less frustration to be had as it doesn’t matter how many times it takes to get past a particularly stubborn sequence. The difficulty level is pitched ideally anyhow with there rarely being any awkward moments. Everything about LEGO Harry Potter is consistently laid out in a way that it’s clear where to go next and what needs doing. Unlike previous LEGO titles, there’s less combat on the whole besides a few memorable boss segments. Instead the focus is clearly on simple puzzles and exploration.
Instead of switching between characters to use each LEGO person’s special skill, for the most part powers are acquired through spell acquisition. After all Harry is a practicing wizard so it makes sense that as he grows up, he must learn new spells from his teachers. It’s a simple matter of tapping one button to switch from spell to spell with the ever popular Wingardium Leviosa providing the focus to most puzzle solutions. Learning to create potions is also rather handy with acquiring each ingredient becoming a puzzle in itself. None of this is overly challenging though, while also not being boring for more experienced gamers.
While rushing through the four years worth of Harry Potter’s life might not take a very long time, actually 100%ing everything on offer can take a good 30-35 hours. Even by LEGO game standards, there’s a hell of a lot to do here if you want to eke everything possible out of it. There are 160 characters to collect and unlock, 50 pupils to rescue from minor perils, gold bricks to collect, secret sandbox-esque levels to complete and Hogwart crests to collect. That’s not forgetting the various cheats which can be unlocked and True Wizard status to achieve on every level. As has been the case with previous LEGO titles, backtracking is often needed to do this as certain powers unlock later on in the game. It’s far from dull though, instead it’s immensely satisfying watching that completion percentage gradually increase.
Besides that, the addition of a level editor and split screen co-operative mode are both useful. It’s a shame though that there’s no way of sharing levels with other player and the co-operative mode is still only local rather than online. These are relatively minor quibbles though.
The storytelling might not be quite as strong as the likes of LEGO Indiana Jones and Star Wars, however this is perhaps more of a testament to the focus on dialogue in the books and films than anything. It makes it harder to translate to silent LEGO figures. The humour remains though and it’s hard not to quietly chuckle at various entertaining moments throughout the tales.
The height of the LEGO series of games has been a long time coming but finally it’s been reached. The AI has been improved hugely compared to previous installments and the entire experience has been refined perfectly. Most importantly, it’ll keep you smiling throughout, never once infuriating or boring you. It’s enjoyable enough that you won’t even have to feel obliged to tell people that you bought it for your kids or nieces/nephews, you can proudly admit you bought it for you. After all, it’s an excellent specimen of a game that deserves a place in everyone’s collection.
VideogameUK verdict: 9/10
