Recent reviews by ThisShitIsDope

If you grew up waiting in line for midnight at a Barnes & Noble so you could get the new Harry Potter book, this game is an easy 10/10. Running around a fully realized Hogwarts free to do what I wish and be what I wish is something I had literal dreams about as a kid. But, doing my best to step outside my bias and be a little more objective, I still think this is at least an 8/10 on merits even outside of the IP.

It's simple & light-hearted enough that a middle schooler could enjoy it, but complex and engaging enough to keep an adult's interest. This means it would be the PERFECT game for a parent and child to take turns playing or experiencing together, ditto two significant others where one partner is much more of a gamer than the other. There's so game here to experience. And above all, it's fun. Zipping around on a broom feels spontaneous and satisfying. Combat stays interesting for the most part with varying spell/gear/potion/talent/etc. mechanics making for fairly different playstyles. Controls are tight and responsive.

Only cons of note from my experience are:
1. The open world portion of the game is a tiny bit too large & a tiny bit too hollow to be perfect. As other reviewers have noted, more development time probably could have been better spent on things to do in and around the castle than on more Merlin Trials. But I believe this to be a hugely overstated issue that does not severely tarnish the overall experience, and considering it's the developer's first ever published game (wow), I'm willing to cut them some slack.
2. I have a 4070 Ti, and even I struggled to run this game totally smoothly at all times. Make sure your rig is up to snuff, or be prepared to be grateful if you can get 60 FPS on low settings.

Much better than it has any right to be. Deceptively simple. Goes from absurdly easy at the low end, to frustratingly difficult by the end. My advice: DON'T FORGET TO CHECK OUT THE HOLO HOUSE. Fishing and hiring workers is an easy way to get an absurd amount of money quickly, and food you make can be a game changer. This game comfortably slots into my top 3 for the bullet heaven genre.

So. Much. fun.

This game is stupidly addictive. I have thousands of hours in Diablo II, Path of Exile, etc. and somehow this bite-sized version of them hooks me in just as hard as they do at their best. Deceptively simple, intuitively complex. Great progression in that there's always another goal that has me about to dive back in for another run before I remember I had just done what was supposed to be the "last run."

All other games and obligations are slowly discarded, forgotten by the wayside as you realize you have to power up enough to make it to the end.

This is THE ARPG dynasty after Diablo II. Consistently updated. 1000 times yes

The only shooter that matters

Made by the same people as the original Rollercoaster Tycoon. Feels literally just like playing an updated version of RCT, and I mean that in the best way. Access to other users' created rides, scenery, etc, makes building any park you want super convenient. Overall an amazing game. Also worth mentioning that Frontier's tech support responded quickly to my emails when I stopped being able to run the game for a while and seemed genuinely concerned about helping me get it working again.