Fans of the famous J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series should be hyped that the mobile game has officially been released. Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery is brought to us by Jam City and Portkey Games. Now we can all live out the dream of being a wizard and learn spells and solve mysteries.
The premise is simple; in this RPG, players get to choose their path. Either by becoming a witch or a wizard. Of course, comes the sorting of the house you are going to and from there come the classes and shenanigans. Set in a time frame between the birth of Harry Potter and his initial enrollment at Hogwarts, students learn their basic spells and see teachers that most of us have seen already like Snape. Soon after your initial acceptance to Hogwarts, you immediately meet a friend that guides you through the simple tutorial. While you gather books and supplies and get comfortable, it is mentioned that you have a brother Jacob that has been missing after getting kicked out of Hogwarts for trying to open the “Cursed Vaults.” This seems to be the main mystery here but, a Slytherin student Marula starts to sabotage your daily classroom progress. Eventually spells become available where you can duel her and try to finish the matter yourself.
The game has an “energy” system where players can use up energy to complete tasks but may have to wait a set amount of time before gaining more energy. Along with this is the ability to collect coins and gems for bonus material such as clothing. Getting around the game is a simple because it is just a tap on the screen to the area of your choice. Interestingly, this game features an emotional system too. Depending on responses to characters around you, players build courage, confident, bravery, empathy and knowledge. When these meters fill up more dialogue options will open and will also change interactions with students and staff.
From the beginning I was impressed with the quality of this mobile game. For anyone expecting a low-quality castle or low-quality backgrounds, they are very wrong. This is like watching the original movies again for the first time. It’s fascinating to feel like you’re watching a movie from your phone when you’re taking part in the game. The game isn’t hyper-realistic, but it still has a great graphics quality. Sadly though, there is one thing that bothers me about this Hogwarts Mystery so far.
Originally when chatter came out, people were very hopeful for a Pokemon Go type game. It’s unclear what type of feature people were expecting but Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery is not a Pokemon Go type game. There is still hope that such a popular story could be made in to an interactive mobile game but sadly, not yet. Other than this issue, I am not too fond of all the talking, but we all began this journey by reading the books. There seems to be a balance issue between reading and playing.
I like this game because of the amazing visuals, the unique adventure of creating your own character, for the ability to choose your own dialogue and the fact we are on an adventure that isn’t directly related to Harry Potter. There is really very little to complain about. No bugs have been found and the game is progressive enough to keep me interested.
7/10
Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery is available on iOS and Google Play
