Mark puts on his robe and wizard hat…
Harry Potter has been something of a poisoned chalice for games publisher EA. On one hand, the books and films have a huge fan base which the games appeal to – on the other, Potter is so well-loved that it’s exposed the Harry Potter games to extra pressure. On top of that, EA want to deliver the most diverse Potter game experience possible, but the books and films leave little room for creative elaboration.
Add another contradiction for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix; released on June 29th, it’s ironic the game has hit shop shelves before the film. This leaves Potter fans with an unusual decision; should they forego the game for the time being so they don’t spoil the movie of a book they’ve read anyway?
Personal decision
That’s going to be a personal decision for Potter followers – but one thing’s for sure, game-loving Harry Potter fans are going to want to play Order of the Phoenix at some point; it’s simply the best Potter game yet.
The story will be well known for avid Harry Potter readers, but Order of the Phoenix’s videogame adaptation is not without its own magical charm. With Voldermort stirring and new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Umbridge, seemingly not very competent, it falls to Harry to search the halls of Hogwarts, amass a group of kids known as Dumbledore’s Army and teach them these essential spells.
Search the halls of Hogwarts, amass a group of kids known as Dumbledore’s Army and teach them essential spells.
Spellbindingly brilliant
And that’s where you come in. Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix sees players guiding Harry, followed by Ron and Hermione, around a spellbindingly brilliant recreation of Hogwarts to lead fellow students to the room of requirement – but that’s not so simple.
Finding characters is easy – clicking on a character on the map sees footprints on the floor lead you to their location – but they’ll almost always have a reason they can’t follow Harry, and so you’ll have to go exploring the school more to meet their criteria before they’ll come with you. Order of the Phoenix thus develops into a series of fetch quests.
Develops or degenerates… that’s a matter of opinion. At its height, this latest Harry Potter owes a lot to open-ended free-roamer Canis Canem Edit, but boasts design drawbacks not present in Rockstar’s school-based romp. Notably, exploring Hogwarts is a real pleasure, with not a loading screen in sight and all the film’s spectacular scenery, but when the puzzle missions – themselves not really related to the film’s plot – start to repeat, it can grate. The fifth time you enter a room and realise you’ll have to, once again, move furniture/pour potion, you’ll wish EA had been more inventive.
Visuals, dialogue, music, animation and the sheer sense of scale and detail that’s gone into recreating Harry’s world are all rather special.
Spellcasting is a saving grace
Thankfully, Order of the Phoenix’s spellcasting is a saving grace – especially on Wii, where the remote literally becomes Harry’s wand, which makes puzzle solving less of a chore. Casting the likes of Wingardium Leviosa to levitate objects, Reparo to repair broken statues, and Depulso or Accio to send objects flying down or towards you respectively, all feel natural, with the remote usually interpreting movements correctly. Other formats obviously don’t boast this motion-sensing sophistication, though analogue control (or PS3’s tilt sensitivity) are amicable compromises.
It’s a shame, then, that attack spells aren’t a focal point. Battles in Order of the Phoenix are infrequent, and rarely as convincing or epic as their movie counterparts. Likewise, playing as Sirius Black, Dumbledore and co. is also a bit of a red herring, as you’ll control them for around ten minutes of the game’s eight hour playtime. Yet everything else about The Order of the Phoenix positively screams production values – visuals, dialogue, music, animation (aside from some slowdown on PS2) and the sheer sense of scale and detail that’s gone into recreating Harry’s world are all rather special.
One for the Harry Potter fans
Ultimately, Order of the Phoenix is one for the Harry Potter fans. It’s not breaking new gameplay ground for adventure games, but presents the most polished Potter experience yet, and delivers an enjoyable romp that bucks the industry’s trend for lazy movie licenses.
GAME's Verdict
- Faithful and spectacular recreation of Hogwarts which Potter fans will adore exploring
- Intuitive motion-mimicking spellcasting
- Stellar production values and real Harry Potter movie feel
- Illusion of open-endedness gives way to a series of oft-repetitive fetch quests
- Infrequent fighting and imprecise combat mechanics
- You'll play as other Harry Potter characters for a misleadingly small fraction of the game's 8 hour duration
Review by: Mark Scott
Version Tested: Wii
Review Published: 05.07.07