We Have To Talk About Harry Potter Hogwarts Mystery
Hey guys. Welcome to Tome Time Tea. Today I’m going to give my thoughts on the Harry Potter mobile game: Hogwarts Mystery.
As a lover of video games and Harry Potter, I was excited when the app was first announced, which is a combination of two things I love, so of course nothing could go wrong. Well, being hopeful just goes along with being a Hufflepuff right?
Let’s start off with the the storyline. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t really care. We get tossed into the game with a built in best friend and a tragic backstory. What happened to our precious brother? Heck if I know, I never finished the game. But in all honesty, this little bit of mystery was not enough to keep me engaged. Plus the brother was almost too central, it took up so much space there wasn’t much left in the narrative.
Since this is technically a video game we have to discuss the game play. What little there was of it. I would say 90% of the game was tapping on the screen, but that’s not even true. 90% of the game is waiting for the energy to refuel.
The tapping is sometimes interrupted with having to trace something on the screen, answering some random trivia, or some lack luster animation. What might be the most annoying part is when you are tapping away the little icon for buying more energy is right at the center of the screen. Prime clicking location. Which has of course lead to myself and others I know to spending all our diamonds on accident.
The only ‘interesting’ gameplay was the dueling. Even though it boiled down to a strange game of rock-paper-scissors. There are only a couple of duels per year so it barely even counts.
Let's talk about what makes up the game play: Waiting. My sister sent a screen shot that I think said it all. It was of her character getting choked out by a plant and she couldn’t do anything about it because she was out of energy. Nothing can convince me that isn’t a ploy to get people to spend money on the game. The game creators could at least try to make it look like they want to make a game and not a cash grab.
Part of the appeal of playing a video game is how your choices have the ability to change the story. It’s a narrative that you are able to exert some level of control over. Only your choices don’t have any impact on the story. No matter what the story is going to be the same. I guess you can get a different little bonus, which lets you give other answers that mean absolutely nothing. At first I wanted to try to level up and make sure I could answer questions in the way I wanted, but then I realized it just doesn’t matter. I clicked on a choice saying I didn’t want to deal with my brother issues, but that didn’t change the story line. I still ended up having to deal with my apparent brother's BS.
The only thing that you can decide is your house, which could have been cooler. Would a short 3-5 question personality quiz really have been that hard? Buzzfeed seems to be able to pump them out no problem. It seemed like they didn’t want people getting offended by whatever house they got put in. Like all the people who were disappointed by being put in Hufflepuff (I might have been one of them, but I have come to terms of my Hufflepuff-ness. I even made a video about it). Anyways, just picking my house gave me a much less magical experience than I was expecting.
On to the clothing ‘options.’ There really isn’t that many. Plus the fact that several of them are just a color variation. Overall, the personalization is pretty limited and a waste of money. Besides, did anyone really want to wear anything besides the Hogwarts uniform?
I can name several ways the game could have been improved. For one, there needed to be more actual game play. Choices need to mean something and have consequences. Have a sorting quiz. Don’t half-ass customization. Lastly, there cannot be that amount of waiting.
Those are my thoughts on Hogwarts Mystery. The real mystery is why a game that’s 90% waiting for energy to refill has such high ratings on the App Store. Did you play the game? How far did you get? How did you deal with the waiting?
Thanks guys. I’ll see you later.
