Right, as a lifelong gamer and newbie game developer, this is my first review ever. I felt compelled to write this, not because it's a good or bad game, but because my feelings are so mixed. I first bought this game on Xbox and I played it all the way through. I've completed all of the story lines, side quests and challenges. If you're playing this game on a console or the PC version without mods, let me just say this: the highs are highs and the lows are lows. Experiencing Hogwarts for the first time on this game truly has you in awe. The problem is that towards the second half of the game, you barely spend any time there. To that end, the map is way bigger than I think anyone anticipated. For people who really love to explore, this is something that you'd enjoy. Personally though, I would've enjoyed having a smaller map with a few big cities as opposed to just Hogsmead. Some of the towns, though they are unique in nature, start to feel a bit copy and pasted with how equally small they all are. Other than that - the quest lines, graphics and mechanics are overall nothing short of awesome. HOWEVER, the game play itself starts to fall off right around the time you begin to learn unforgivable curses. I found that even on hard mode, enemies were still too easy to defeat. I personally dislike the fact that "dark wizards" don't use unforgivable curses against you. I also dislike that if you do use an unforgivable curse or respond negatively to quests, there's no negative impact or outcome. It's almost kind of like, aside from a cool lock screen animation, what's the point in even using these curses? This is where mods come in. The problem is that you can only use mods on PC; but thankfully, the game does have a built-in mod manager for PC players. It should also be noted that it's relatively easy to request custom mods from creators because they've made the Hogwarts Legacy Creator Kit in Unreal Engine completely free for anyone to download and use; and as a developer myself, that alone speaks volume about how much the developers want this community to have the experience they desire. But to answer the overarching question of "do you recommend this game," my answer is yes and no. If you are a potterhead like I am and are considering buying it on the console, then you'll enjoy it through and through. If you are not though, you're likely to lose interest half-way through; but if you are able to run this on a PC, I ***highly*** recommend doing so with mods that fix the aforementioned issues. Below is my recommendation for mods and why you'd want them based on your gameplay style: [*] Enhanced NPC Schedule is simply a MUST for everyone. It populates Hogwarts with more students that run on a much better in-game schedule that is aligned with classes. So for example, if a class ends, you can see a visible group of students that look like they just got out of class. This is in opposition to just seeing random NPCs in random places. My guess is the reason why this wasn't a thing on the original game is due to limitations on console performance capabilities; because more NPCs, the higher requirement for processing power. But I mean if you have a desktop in general, this won't be an issue. I just think they kept the requirements as minimal as possible so that it made it more accessible to a bigger player base. [*] Azkaban, Enemies Enhanced, and Enemies Balance are going to be fantastic for those who enjoy a challenging PVP style like I do. Spells enhanced is an honorable mention here, too. [*] The Azkaban mod works similar to GTA in the sense of if you do something bad (e.g., use an unforgivable curse in front of a good witch or wizard), you get reported and the authorities chase after you. In this case, aurors spawn all around you and you have to fight your way out. If you get caught, the mod will provide you with options: go to Azkaban where you can attempt to fight your way out, or you can skip that and still respawn from the last check point. [*] The Enemies Enhanced allows enemies to also use unforgivable curses; and yes that includes the killing curse, so there's a very real possibility that you can be one-shot by a dark witch or wizard. [*] The Enemies Balanced mod makes so the enemy NPCs scale better in terms of gameplay difficulty. If this is your first time playing this game, I would hold off on enabling that until you've found your groove. [*] Spells Enhanced is a mod that provides you with custom spells. Personally, if it were my first time playing this game, I wouldn't enable this mod until at least the second half of the game. The reason why is because some of those spells are immediately available to you, which makes a lot of the quests easier to complete because you have more spells than you're supposed to. It could also make learning the basic mechanics of the game a tad more confusing than it needs to be. [*] Auto-season, Hogwarts Express Train Plus, House Points, Sleep Mod are strongly recommended for players who desire an immersive experience, with the Curfew mod being an honorable mention. [*] The game doesn't cycle through seasons (e.g., winter, fall, spring, summer) on it's own. It only changes after completing a major quest-line. The auto-season mod makes it so it naturally changes with the in-game clock. The Hogwarts Express train is also pretty rare to see in the original game, but the Hogwarts Express Train Plus mod makes it run on a more frequent schedule. I personally don't know why either of these weren't already a thing, but I don't have to understand I suppose. [*] The house point mod is pretty much what you'd expect it to be, it allows for the player to collect house points to win the house cup at the end of each season (so it pairs very well with the auto-season mod). If you complete the weekly quests assigned to you, you gain points. If you respond kindly to relationship (side) quests that take place with other students, you gain points. If you respond negatively to to a student, you lose points (ah finally, a consequence for your actions). [*] The sleep mod doesn't necessarily require you to sleep at night, but it does make it difficult for you to play the game if you don't. For example, if you don't sleep, you can't sprint. The reason why I like both the house point and sleep mod is because it gives you a reason to continuously go back to Hogwarts on a regular schedule in the second half of the game, in opposition to you're just a random student roaming around in the woods for however long doing whatever; but if that's your preference of game-play, then I'd just suggest only sticking with the auto-season mod. [*] The curfew mod is an honorable mention because you don't really need it per-say if you have the sleep mod since it basically forces you to sleep at night anyways, BUT the curfew mod itself does make it so if a prefect or professor catches you out of bed at night on school grounds, you'll be sent back to your dormitory with a consequence of paying an in-game fee. The mod does have it's own hotkey menu that can be used to disable it in-game; so if anything it's worth downloading, even if you end up disabling it later. [*] For those who enjoy sandbox building gameplays, get these: [*] Bigger Vivarium - increases creature capacity [*] Rescue Animals - rescue non-magical creatures [*] Unlock All Conjurations - unlocks all build items [*] Remove Conjure Budget - removes moonstones as a budget requirement [*] Conjuration Everywhere - allows room of requirement item conjuration [*] Remove Conjure Placement Restrictions - allows for items to be stacked on one another, similar to a bb.moveobjects on The Sims. Honorable mentions: Floo Companions, Emote with Any NPC, Character Editor, Cheat Plus, Alohormora Autosolve and Instant Silent Bigger Revelio.
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