Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

"A Solid Spell cast by EA, but ultimately it only gets and A on the O.W.L.s."

Well, here's the thing. Harry Potter has recently become one of my favorite series of books, and I'm all jazzed up for the upcoming film upon which this game is based. So a week and a half ago, I'm in my hyped up state, and I catch a video review of this game for the Wii online, and I go, "Hey, that looks well, perfect!". So I wait a few days, eventually break down to my geekiness and go out and pick it up for my newest Nintendo console; the Wii. And though I can't say I'm totally disappointed, I definitely can't say I had a hell of a time either. And a big part of that is due to both some shoddily designed portions of the game and surprisingly, the controls.

I mean think about it. You have a universe where all of the characters wield wands for a game where the controller IS a wand. It should work perfectly, right? And for the most part, it works like one of Flitwick's Charms. Whenever you actually have the time to cast spells that is. In combat however, you don't, and that's where the biggest flaws that come into the game become immensely apparent.

When you're sitting there trying to gesture specific spells in order to gain some sort of tactical advantage, and doing it quickly, the game doesn't register the spells very well, and you'll probably misfire. Then while you're firing the wrong spell, you correct yourself to do it properly, and you do this time, but now you don't have the time to cast Protego on yourself (or clumsily try to dodge out of the way with Harry's old man running speed), and boom you're hit by the enemy, and then knocked to the ground where you get nailed by spell after spell and lose the combat.

And so you go, whoa, I lost the fight, so does that mean I get a chance to retry the fight so I can maybe, learn from my mistakes and get better at the combat spells. Oh, no wait, I can't? Because after every fight the story continues onwards no matter the result? Well then I guess I better try to remember what I learned even though there are huge gaps in time between a lot of the fights, or no, wait I'll find a random Slytherin to fight to hone my battle skills. Oh wait, there AREN'T any random fights? There are only about 8 battles in the game, including the final boss battle, and in about half of them you get a gang of AI help so that you win no matter what and don't have to learn to fight properly? So there's almost no chance to learn how to get my bearings by the time the final, horribly designed story sequence starts, the sequence where whether you win or lose, you win, so that there is absolutely no sense of accomplishment? AGGH!

It's funny, this is the story where Harry and his crew are supposed to learn how to fight, spending months learning combat spells, and in the game they give you almost no time to practice or prepare for combat. It is seriously the worst part of the game. A game (as I just mentioned) about a story about preparing for combat. The irony tastes terrible in my mouth even as I type this.

And honestly, if the combat was the only problem with the game, it really wouldn't be that bad, but there are some other major glaring flaws. The big one for me is the final big story level in the game, the point of the climax. In the book (and I'm assuming the film) Harry and his friends enter a trap filled location, get involved in an exciting chase, fight off easily half a dozen if not more opponents, and not one, but two very dramatic and impressive battles with opponents that would make good video game boss material all before an even more dramatic battle between the big baddie, Voldemort and Dumbledore.

The game's version of this: Big decent cut scene, run a few feet, and get into a fight where you get too much help, some kind crappy cut scenes, one of the few fair fights in the game, watch the character you were just playing die even if you win the fight, crappy cut-scenes, fight in a decent battle but with totally different tactics, OCCLUMENCY!, more OK cut scenes, no credits and boom! Back at Hogwarts like nothing happened!

You don't actually DO most of it, you just watch cut scene after cut scene. This is a prime example of really poor design. Which is odd, because almost all of the stuff at school that isn't combat, is done rather well. There are tons of things to do, most of the puzzles that are present are pretty well thought out and they fit the world well. Hogwarts is rather pretty to look at, and you won't get bored quickly. But even here there are issues, mainly to do with the game camera and targeting the correct object of your spells quickly.

And there are other issues, actual bugs that show up since they were rushing to push this game out for release. An example: there are four games of Gobstones in the game that you can play and win to unlock a specific trophy. I've played and beaten three of these four games, and not one of them has registered as being completed. Luckily, I've only run into one crash so far (in about 20 hours of playtime) and one game breaking glitch that caused me to reset. But my roomates who've been playing seperately also ran into a few of these bugs too.

And you might be sitting there thinking, "Wow, after so much negativity how can you be giving the game such a high score?". Well I'll tell you nosy. It's because this game is a major step in the right direction. Taking Hogwarts and allowing the player to roam around and play within its halls works really well for the most part and allows the pace and feel of the books to come to life. The world itself really is the best part of the game, and works well. In fact, if the next movie is similar to the book at all, the game will work really well since that story consist almost entirely of wandering around Hogwarts and looking into bowls. And somehow, I don't think EA can screw up bowl-watching.

So, to summarize:
Hogwarts, about half the gameplay, and immersion are REALLY GOOD.
Camera, targeting and cut-scenes and a third of the gameplay are REALLY MEDIOCRE.
Combat and final level are UGLIER THAN THE VOLDEMORT BABY from the Goblet of Fire!

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 07/03/07