Harry Potter and the First Impression

Unfortunately there is no way to un-see what has been seen. If there were, you could be introduced to this game properly. Instead of "LEGO are making a new game, it's Harry Potter...." it would be "There's a new Harry Potter game. It's LEGO!" It's all about the focus.

You see, the LEGO bit should be an added bonus, a final sheen of awesome on a great game. However that game is LEGO  Harry Potter: Years 1-4 from TT Games. Now, this reviewer loves the Harry Potter universe and welcomes a chance to be Snape with the Potter-slapping that will inevitably follow. But as a personal opinion, Harry Potter video games tend to be just this side of disappointing, for more than technical reasons.

The first books of the series are a fair mix of fantasy and boarding school nostalgia - of the St. Clare's variety more than the St. Trinian's - which doesn't lend well to action games that require defined mission objectives. And there's the first concern: this generation of LEGO games' basic layout is "X areas of Y levels." It worked well for LEGO Batman: The Videogame with villain campaigns, but there were a few awkwardly paced sections in LEGO Star Wars and LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures. Books 1 to 3 have most of the action occurring in the last week of term, which doesn't bode well for pacing in this game. Book 4 is much better distributed thanks to the Triwizard Cup.

The second major concern? Character variety. Previous games had grapplers, jumpers, Force/magic users, Ewoks/children, and so on. Harry Potter has mostly just wizards with a few magical creatures thrown in now and again, which raises the question of how TT Games will keep a decent range of diverse character abilities. Will we finally get to see many of the creatures that were only mentioned in passing and completely ignored in the movies? Several do pop up in the trailers. Even so there remains nagging thoughts that there will be a distinctly wand-wavey magic bent which could harm one of the most charming points of the LEGO games: building things out of LEGO.

Wingardium leviosa and accio will definitely help things along, but will transmogrification come into play? If Hermione can turn a puffskein into a teapot, then why would she need to spend time putting blocks together instead of just zapping them? Although for characters like Neville and Ron, the former is probably more canonically accurate.

There is some hope on the horizon. According to the official release "gamers will have the opportunity to attend lessons, cast spells, mix potions, fly on broomsticks and complete tasks to earn house points. Throughout the game, players will also have the freedom to explore iconic settings from the wizarding world including Hogwarts castle, Diagon Alley, the Forbidden Forest and the village of Hogsmeade!" This implies a fairly large change to the normal LEGO experience, where the free area was mostly about grabbing a few extra studs, buying upgrades and the occasional diversion - like creating Sith Wookies. Expanding the world beyond a few rooms and the levels themselves will definitely give more depth to the game if done correctly; perhaps this will be what saves the plot from uncomfortable distortion?

Optimistically speaking and based on the in-game clips featured in the trailers, TT Games have taken these problems into consideration. It is obvious that the humour of both series is plentiful, that the people are as LEGO-fully blocky as could be wished, and that the scenery is beautifully detailed. Somehow several scenes look more impressive than in the movies. If nothing else, the Year 2 trailer is worth watching to see the Whomping Willow deliver a smack down on a certain Ford Anglia.

Quote taken from offical press release from Renegade PR.