History of Harry Potter in Games (Topic)

Not long ago, the boy who survived celebrated his 39th birthday. This is a great occasion to remember the magical Harry Potter games that many of us played as children on PC, PS2 and handheld consoles. The Harry Potter games have a rather long and long history, so we will recall the highlights of the appearance of this great wizard in games. Let's turn the flywheel of time and start.

PC and PlayStation movie adaptations

Most likely, you are familiar with the Harry Potter games that came out directly to each film. Often, such projects remain unremarkable and of low quality, as they try to gain success only due to the name of the brand. Sometimes the creators put effort into development, and games based on Harry Potter are not alien to at least the first two.

The first game about the Philosopher's Stone was pretty good, but we remember it, of course, for the bastard pirate translation and crooked faces from the PS1 version. And it's rather strange that the game was released for both the first and the second curling iron, but with a difference of several years, which was significantly reflected in the quality.

Everything looked great in the PC version. Horgwarts was, though small, but for that tube, with living students, secrets, beans and cards, which are a pleasure to look for. For the most part, we attended lessons, and after that we passed tests, after which you were once again convinced that Hogwarts hates its students and fully wishes them death. There was even Quidditch in the game. True, it was crooked, but it was there.

The console version was a little more filling, with story missions and additional buns like talking with pictures. For some reason, the PS2 version came out after the "Chamber of Secrets", but it smoothed out all the roughness of the previous game and expanded everything to the maximum.

The second game of the "Chamber of Secrets" on PC was not much different from "Philosopher's Stone", but this time EA were able to make it more colorful, with an expanded plot, which was reduced not only to lessons, but also to missions in the very Hogwarts. And the school of magic itself has grown in size, new locations have appeared, secrets that can only be discovered with the help of new spells, whose number has also increased. Even a dueling club appeared where you could pump your skills, and Quidditch was no longer forced torture. It is because of such things that the game today looks as nastalgic and lamp-like as possible, forcing serotonin in your brain to be released just at the thought of it.

The same can be said about the PS1 version of the second game, but it had the same problems as the first game: poor game design, crooked polygonal faces, floating graphics. But it has a lot of its own pleasant little things that were not in the PC version. This is a journey through the Weasley house, and a quest with flying gunpowder, and Hogwarts, which has been transformed for the better.

The PS2 version of the game turned out to be probably the most polished and complete, as, among other games, it was more of a book adaptation than a movie. The game was juicier and with a normal camera.

I will say about the subsequent games in general, since it was from the "Prisoner of Azkaban" that they turned into those very typical games based on films. The third game was indistinct and short, the fourth so generally turned out to be a cooperative monster that just begged for death, it was so bad.

Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince have become the strangest games in the entire series. In the fifth game, EA made the right decision by completely recreating Hargwarts in its scale with secrets, a bunch of NPCs, landscapes outside the castle and various mini-quests.

But apart from this, the game could not offer anything. Potter was chased back and forth like an errand boy, spiced up with crooked mouse-casting mechanics. The sixth game felt like a DLC for the fifth, it is not clear why it grew into a separate project and was generally unremarkable. And in the end, the seventh part - these two games are simply miserable and that says it all.

Appearance on handheld consoles

All the time, in parallel with the versions for PC and consoles, Harry Potter games were released for handheld consoles, primarily for the Game Boy Advance and PSP. Often they varied greatly in quality, since they were developed by different studios and lost in everything to their older brothers from PC and PS. But there have been exceptions. For example, "Prisoner of Azkaban" for the GBA was much better than the same game on PS2, which was noted by various critics of the time. Even Game Informer gave it an 8/10. Therefore, this is a controversial case, and often Harry Potter games are bad for the GBA, but if you dig, you can find nuggets.

Lego Harry Potter

Lego games usually make funny and successful film adaptations where others fail and fail. And Lego Harry Potter was no exception. The level-based mission structure has been preserved from previous Lego games. In addition to Hogwarts, locations such as Diagon Alley and Hogsmeath were available. The castle is fun to explore, with all of its hidden secrets and collectibles scattered throughout its many halls. Add to that an extensive list of playable characters and functional spells that unlock as you progress, plus a wacky sense of humor. The Lego Harry Potter games are some of the brightest of all.

Harry Potter Kinekt

After obtaining the rights to create a game for this franchise, Microsoft decided to experiment with the Xbox Kinect. They did not become too smart, and the game consisted entirely of a set of the most iconic moments from the entire series of Potter films that you had to recreate in reality. It often boiled down to jumping, bending over, or waving your arms. The game did not have enough stars from the sky, and besides, it was buggy. It's hard to imagine who will play it today [it's hard to imagine who will play Kinekt today], so let's call it a product of our time.

Wonderbook: Book of Spells

We wrote about the presentation of this monster in our material about the worst moments from the history of E3. It was an augmented reality game. She used the PS3's PlayStation Eye and Move controllers, as well as a real physical book, to make it look like a lot of magical things were happening on the screen. Unfortunately, the Book of Spells (and its successor, the Book of Potions) served as technical demonstrations rather than real games. This thing is suitable for very ardent fans of Potter games, but definitely not for an ordinary gamer.

Quiditch Championship

I would also like to highlight the game Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup. It was a separate sports game from EA, but only in the Harry Potter setting. Overall, it was not bad. We finally got a more or less adequate Quidditch, where we could play not only for the Seeker [by the way, the gameplay for the Seeker was probably the least interesting], but also for the rest of the team. It all started with the championship at Hogwarts, and then went to the international level, where we played for many of the teams that were previously mentioned in the book. And it was even entertaining, because each team has its own combos of attacks, passes and tactics, which added variety. It got boring over time though.

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

Recently, Harry Potter games have been released only on mobile platforms. And Hogwarts Mystery is a great example of how not to make a game. After all, behind the promise that we can create our own interesting story, where many of the actors from the original film are present, there was a gameplay darkened by donation, permeating every aspect of it. Appearances can be deceiving and this game fully confirms this saying.

Harry Potter: Wizards Unite

The most recent Harry Potter game came out earlier this summer. Wizards Unite was developed by Niantic, known for Pokemon GO. Wizards Unite has a similar structure. Players venture out into the real world using their phones' GPS to find magical beasts, or death eaters. They can walk through greenhouses and fortresses to make potions and fight. While the game is clearly a derivative of Pokemon GO and echoes many of its ideas, it provides Harry Potter fans with a fun experience and an opportunity to get together and have fun.

You can read more about this game in our review at Harry Potter Wizards Unite.

The Topic of Article: History of Harry Potter in Games.
Author: Jake Pinkman