Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

"My Favourite GB RPG"

This by far is my favourite Role Playing Game for Game Boy. It has stunning gameplay, excellent GameBoy graphics and the battle system is great. When I first got it I thought it would be like the PC version for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. But it is not at all.

First off, yes, the Story Line does follow the book and the movie. Now I'll go into the details of the game.

The form of playing is you gain experience by winning battles. You level up when you reach a certain amount of experience. Your stats go up with the levels that you gain. You are also able to equip special items with your characters to make their stats go up. You also learn stronger spells as the game progresses. Each magic attack costs a certain amount of Magic Points and your Magic Points increase as your levels do. You also have Hit Points that decrease when you get attacked and when they are depleted for each character you return to the Hospital.

The battle system is quite the best I have seen for GameBoy. You can battle with up to 3 characters in your party and up to 3 opponents at one time. Your spells range from hitting 1 to 3 opponents to petrifying and poisoning your opponents. Each character has their own special attack. For Harry Potter it is Card Attack; you use the special cards that you collect in Chocolate Frogs and attack your opponent or use some type of potency item. Hermione Granger's special attack is a ''Stat Raiser'', it ups the stats of your characters. Ron Weasley's special Attack is Scabber's Attack; Ron uses scabbers to lower the stats of your enemies or attack one to three opponents. Specials are usually only able to be used once in each battle.

The sound is very good quality. And the variety isn't to bad either. So it is not that easy for someone to be annoyed by the sound. And if you are annoyed, then that is why the sound control was invented. The music in the background is quite similar to the music in the movies, but instead it is synthesized; And the music does change throughout each section.

The graphics are slightly 3 dimensional. You can walk up and down, side to side and diagonally. The graphics are excellent quality for GameBoy and their is much background scenery and detailed shades in the objects.

I love this game because it has the ability to unlock secret items. When you get certain cards you unlock certain items and certain Mini-Games. You can also unlock Mini-Games during the Story Mode. The Mini-Games make the game much more enjoyable.

I recommend this game to people who love Harry Potter and who love RPG's. I also recommend you to buy, not rent this game because it can take up to 30 hrs to unlock and beat everything in the story mode.

Sound: 8.5/10
Graphics: 10/10
Game Play: 10/10
Battle System: 10/10
Enjoyment: 10/10

Overall: 10/10

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 03/13/03, Updated 03/13/03