Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince Reviews
Reviews of Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince by users on TrueAchievements. Should you buy Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince? Find out here.
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24 2 9

Since I also made a review of the last Harry Potter game, I will try to judge this one.

The Graphics

Not a new benchmark for any system, but they get you in the right 'Hogwarts mood' for sure!

There is better lighting than in the last game.

Facial animations can look a bit weird.

Something ugly tho is when you look down from a high place (Stone Circle, Owlery), you see that there is only one line of trees in the forest; the rest looks like some kind of sludge.

Come on, a bit more effort would be nice!

Spells look ok.

But sometimes it can look a bit... dull (outside). Grass and trees don't look good; there isn't any rain/wind or even an bright sun.

A day/night cycle is also absent.

Sound

It's Harry Potter, so the music is instantly great. [king]

Voiceacting... Damn, what did they do? Snape is by far the most afwul sounding character. I think the 'voice-doubles' for the real actors did a much better job in OotP than this year.

Also; the lines from the students that just roam Hogwarts get repetitive really quickly. For some reason it seems they have LESS lines than in OotP.

Even the portraits sound a bit... off.

Gameplay

Well...They made improvements. They added new areas and new minigames...

So; the improvements:

Camera control, you can now freely control the camera by holding the RT button.

Duels are a bit more intuitive.

Night missions for some more variety.

The added areas are:

Quidditch gate

Training Grounds

The road from the main gates to Hagrid's hut

Slughorn's office

Astronomy Tower

New minigames

Potions making

Quidditch

Duelling

Well, that all sounds good, but:

There are less spells! (only 3)

There is no Myrtle's or Prefects Bathroom. You can't go beyond Hagrid's Hut anymore. No more Room of Requirement. There still are locked doors. etc.

You can't talk to random students anymore (not that they had much to tell, but I still liked it)

Ron and Hermione don't keep following you anymore. I actually miss that. It feels much more empty now.

No more Chess.

No more Exploding Snaps

No more Gobstones

There is no way of choosing your preferred language.

Much less objects to screw around with.

A lot of invisible walls.

No more Charms lessons.

Or teacher mini quests

No more Marauders Map. (there now is Nearly Headless Nick to guide you around, but no static map). I liked the Marauders map more.

Harry still controls clunky

Harry can't climb anymore

No references to previous books/games/movies

Quidditch is just a 'Fly through the hoops' mini-game

etc.

Discovery

There are less portrait shortcuts.

You don't even have to solve a riddle to get their password. They just give it to you.

The biggest part is collecting crests, wich is far less fun than the discovery system in the previous game.

There are 3 ways to get crests:

1. By collecting mini crests. You do that by casting 'Depulso' on a glowing object. Mini crests fall out, and you pick them up. At every ~1000 you will get a regular crest.

2. By getting them off walls. They are not very well hidden.

Even if you can't find it, just look for something you can pick up with Wingardium Leviosa; that means there is a crest nearby.

Pick up the object - throw it at the crest. (only a few you can get by doing something else)

3. And then there are the 'Lion quests' it doesn't even deserve the name quest tho. There is a student wich needs your help. That means either duelling a Slytherin or making them a potion.

So OotP had a more diverse and fun way of discovering everything.

This gets tedious very fast.

Story

VERY short. (4/5 hours) With afwul cutscenes.

And if you haven't read the book you will more than likely go 'W T F!' at some moments. It just isn't explained very well.

But; that's all I am going to say about it. Wouldn't want to spoil it for anyone.

Replayability

The story is +/- 4/5 hours. But after that you gan go and find every hidden crest (125) and go and play the mini games.

It depends on how much you like Harry Potter. I love it, so I am well over 10 hours play time now.

Most people won't get that far. It just isn't that interesting to do.

Conclusion

Well, there is much to complain about. They made a few improvements, but all in all the game is worse than te last one.

I am actually really angry now, because it had so much potential and a good basis to build upon, and THIS is wat we get?

A less fun game with less to do? It's worse in almost every department.

Let's end with the Achievements:

They are easy.

Just until the last few ones, wich can need a bid practise. But still very doable.

You have achievements for

Story

Finding crests

Minigames

The achievements aren't very creative, but they get the job done. Not bad. Not good.

So:

4/5 stars. Just because I love the franchise. But hey, I am the one reviewing it

See the summary for my advice.

4.0

9 1 5

Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince

If you played the last game in the series then playing HBP will come just as easy. If you are picking the game up for the first time then it will flow just the same after just a few minutes of playing the game. The opening moments of the game do a great job of walking you through the basics. Once you have them mastered, you are set for the rest of the game.

After playing OOTP and then coming to HBP I noticed a great change in graphics. Half Blood Prince steps it up a tad and brings us better eye candy (graphic wise).

Along with the graphics you are going to notice a big change in Hogwarts itself. The castle is pretty much the same, give or take some new portrait shortcuts. What has really changed since the previous game is the outside of Hogwarts. You'll see more in depth level design as you fall, it would seem, into the books and movies themselves.

Aside from the enhanced graphics and new design, the gameplay is overall the same. You are running around Hogwarts preforming miscellaneous tasks for friends, teachers, and yourself. The leveling feature makes its return but with a different style. Instead of "tidying up" Hogwarts, you are collecting Crests. Collect enough of these tedious things and you level up.

Flying, Potion Making, and Dueling make a appearance in the game as well. Doing these tasks will flow naturally after only one or two times of trying and will loose their fun quickly and instead turn into a chore working towards your achievements.

On that note the achievements in this game are very simple. On a scale of 1-10 the achievements stand at a 2. Perhaps even a 1 if you played the last game in the series.

In all, Harry Potter fan or not, this game is a rent. I say this because the story is extremely short and you can be done with it in a days time whether you are only playing for the story, or playing for the achievements.

Thank you all for reading. This has been my first review. It isn't as great as I'd hoped, but they will improve with time.

4.0