Recent reviews by Mc$core

TL;DR: This is a good game. Buy it when on sale, do not think about it too much and enjoy.

I read the Harry Potter books when I was young and enjoyed the setting. Having heard good things about Hogwarts: Legacy, I sure wanted to give it a try.

First of all: The graphics are beautiful. Over the course of an in-game year, there are seasons which is a nice touch. The architecture of the Hogwarts castle is beautiful. On many occasions, I could not get a good view of the nice scenery because the camera is fixed at hip height and seems to focus on the player character’s butt. You cannot adjust the position of the camera, but at least the field of view.

On the less positive side, first thing I noticed are the character’s faces. While they do not inherently suffer the Bethesda Botox Face syndrome, the animations feel odd. For a long time, I could not quite put my finger on it. While talking, the characters emote and their lips move, but it does not match perfectly. I suspect that the movements of the lips and the animation of the eyes was done separately. If I cover either part of the face while watching the dialogue scenes, it feels better to me.

Depending on your hardware, you might encounter loading screens. I found them to be reasonably placed at doors so it does not really take you out of the immersion. The loading screens do not show concept art, but screenshots rendered by the actual game. That might come across as lazy, but I am okay with it. Switching from in-doors to outdoors, the colour palette changes happen rather abruptly and intensely

The audio design is generally well done. Wandering around in Hogwarts, you can listen to the random chatter of fellow students. Sometimes, it adds to the atmosphere, sometimes it is humorous. On the less positive side, too many discoverables do have sound indicators. All the whispering, fluttering, dinging and ringing an become annoying.

There are many little interactions which have no purpose, but are fun. All the globes must be spun! All the cats must be pet until they glitch through the walls and/or legs!

The main quests are written okay and diverse. However, some quests, side-quests especially so, come down to a “follow-the-line” mechanic. The Merlin riddles are okay, others become a repetitive grind of fetch-quests. You have a mini-map, you have an actual line to follow, and there is a large map. The list of open quests is synchronized with the large map with a very handy look-up feature. From the list, you can find a quest location on the map. From the map, you can jump to the quest description.

MILD SPOILERS AHEAD

The game is solid, but morally it feels wonky at times. There seems to be a bit too much Witcher 3 in Hogwarts Legacy. Ihe introduction of the main character feels off. In Witcher, the main character is known to be an experienced and battle-hardened monster hunter. In Hogwarts Legacy, the player character is a random teenager without any particular back-story who just happens to be some kind of prodigy bestowed with an exotic kind of powerful magic. He also has some form of spidey-sense which makes him aware of incoming threads, which is never explained in-universe. In contrast, the original Harry Potter story was about a mistreated child next door who discovers his place in the world, slowly learning the art of spell-craft. I guess this happens so any player can identify with the player character.

The game mechanics start simple, with a small set of skills. They are gradually expanded upon as the story unfolds and the player character grows. This is well done. Combat consists of preparation, as well as countering spells by matching colour, and quick-time events. I am not a fan of the latter – especially since some come with an indicator and some do not. It probably is supposed to represent a stronger form of attack. To me, it just feels inconsistent.

Some people criticize that you settle for your favourite set of spells rather quickly and then never change. On the other hand, there are numerous discussions on which spell-set is the best one. So I regard this as one of the ways to personalize your particular game-play experience. As someone who likes the Splinter Cell series, I like that stealth approaches exist. However, some cut-scenes throw the player right into a fight where stealth is not an option, and crowd control becomes a relevant piece of the fight. I think it feels rewarding because it shows how entering a fight with preparation makes it significantly easier.

The animations, kinematics and sound design when using spells in a fight feels powerful and rewarding. Filling up that combo bar to slam an enemy to the ground never loses its charm.

I suspect the studio had the game mechanics lying around and just slapped the “Harry Potter” franchise onto it. They just seem not to integrate perfectly with the setting. Like the Harry Potter novels, the game has strong morals, but it draws some arbitrary lines: There are some people who are regarded as “poachers”. The player character may kill them at any time. Yes, kill them. The game could have easily said they are stunned, enchanted, petrified, banished or something, but no – enemies are killed and their dead bodies disintegrate instantly.

At some point, you may find a group of people who host… let’s say cockfights. They put some animals into captivity and watch them fight to the death for bloody entertainment. When I played through that quest, I wanted them dead. I thought “Okay game, you and your black-and-white morals can have it, let’s give them hell.” But they – of all the characters – get rescued by a cut-scene. The player character is teleported off-site and you may never encounter them again.

The game is very considerate, not only in-universe, but also to the player. There is a mode for certain types of color blindness. There also is a mode for players with arachnophobia. Personally, I like spiders and dislike the player character killing them all while they are invading the spider’s home. So I tried it and… holy Merlin. Allegedly, the spiders are replaced by something “less scary”. It is a set of abstract geometric shapes. They have very jerky animations, defying all laws of physics, making them look like from another world even more. I actually had to switch back do normal spider mode. In case anyone affected by arachnophobia reads this: Please let me know if that mode was helpful for you at all.

My biggest gripe regards the player character. In the intro, they are attacked by a dragon, witness death for the first time in their lives, then they escape just barely… and on the very next occasion, they appear at the school with an unhinged smile on their face stating “I am eager to start my first year at Hogwarts”. What the actual fudge? If that happened to a muggle child, they would be traumatized and not leave the bedroom for weeks. Apparently, wizard children are just built differently. There does seem to be some kind of psychological damage, though: The player character cannot say “no” to a quest. The most negative answer is a defensive "maybe I will look into that matter of yours later". Dude, just say “no”. Maybe that is how teens communicate nowadays. Commitment more scary than a dragon.

Another thing which bugs me is the “Room of Requirement”. I can see the appeal of giving the player character a home and the player an opportunity to decorate some place to their liking. But this room is brought into the game in a very pushy fashion. “Look, look, look, you can customize this.” It would be nice if the entire room customization and decoration was optional. There also is the “Undercroft”. I have no idea why the developers introduced two secret rooms with similar applications.

Equippable items can have their appearance copied over from one to another. I think this is a very nice feature since you can combine your preferred style with the most powerful items.

Thank you for reading this overly detailed review.

TL;DR: Buy when on sale for $5 .

I enjoyed “Portal”, “The Stanley Parable”, and “Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald”. “Superliminal” fits right in, but it feels like it tries to do something new while also being like all of the above and ultimately failing at doing anything concisely.

Superliminal is a decent game, but not worth $20. The puzzles are well done. The controls are actually amazing. The perspective tricks work incredibly intuitive. However, it is very short.

The amount of puzzles rapidly declines. In the second half of the game, the player is walking through corridors most of the time. It feels half game, half show of artistic level design. Well done, but also quite boring. “Antichamber” and “Manifold Garden”, while also being nice games, have similar issues. At one point “Superliminal” even resorts to jump scares to maintain tension.

Eventually, the game just ends. There is no final crescendo, no “ending”, just credits rolling. There is a voice-over of how to interpret of what you see. In my opinion there is a rule for jokes and games alike: If you need to explain it, you are not telling it well.

I recommend this game since I bought it at 50% of the regular price. It's just not worth the full price.
PROS: It is a solid HITMAN game. The levels are generally well done, detailed and offer many possible ways to approach the target. There is a Linux version and it runs perfectly fine. That’s actually the reason I bought it.
CONS: There is not much content. Each mission, I play two or three times. The first time, I explore the area and check possible ways of striking. Whenever I mess up, I reload. With the second play-through, I follow my favourite approach and I may refine it in a third attempt. While there might be many details to see and gimmicks to find, I do not see the thrill in playing the same mission over and over again. This leaves me with about 1$ per hour played, which – in my opinion – is not a good rate.
There also is not much of a story. It feels like the mission levels were designed in an onset of complete artistic freedom. The missions were then haphazardly connected by a quickly put together story, but who needs a story in a HITMAN game anyways?

Do not play this game. Don't even think about starting to play Robocraft. It is highly addictive and thus very dangerous.
I HAVEN'T SLEPT OR EATEN IN DAYS NOW BUT MY ROBOT FINALLY HAS A DECENT DESIGN MADE OF HIGH LEVEL COMPONENTS.

Now seriously: Although early access, it already works very well. The graphics look good even on older computers. It has Linux support. The "Free To Play" vs. "Play To Win" vs. "Pay To Win" issues are mostly resolved by a reasonable robot level system and matchmaking.
My personal regards go to the composer. I probably would not play Robocraft so extensively if it wasn't for the fitting background music, which adds immensely to the atmosphere.