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Yes. Especially if you like Harry Potter universe. Worth playing

When this game was announced, I was immediately excited. I am a big fan of the Harry Potter franchise, and although I'm aware this takes place in a completely different time, and is more-so a spinoff / extended universe / lore game, it still had my attention. The game was delayed a few times, but I'm okay with that if it means a more polished product. I pre-ordered it and played it for the 72 hours early access for deluxe edition pre-order buyers. I am not finished with the game after ~25 hours (I am about 55% total completion as of writing this review), but I am definitely enjoying my time and have little to no complaints. Also, figured I would mention that I am very experienced with this style of game, and have likely completed a lot more than the average person may have in those hours. I am focusing side / exploration missions first, story after.

Very Fun (and functional) Combat System
I absolutely love the combat in this game. It is intense, and there is so much going on but it doesn't overwhelm you or require you to be an expert at games. There are 'ultimates' (in a sense, they aren't actually called that in-game), and you can even interact with the environment and control some of the environment while battling enemies as well, to keep you entertained.

Free-Roam Open World Exploration
The exploration is reminiscent to that of the first 3 Harry Potter games on PC, allowing you to walk all through the castle (which is absolutely gigantic, by the way), as well as outside of Hogwarts grounds, up in the mountains and hills. Outside, you can also fly around on your broom (after a certain point early in the game), making it that much better.

Lots of Items to Collect, Side Missions to Complete, Etc.
There are lots of missions and collectables and things to unlock throughout the game. This is nothing new per se, as it is just like the Far Cry games, however I am a completionist, and love to try and finish every single thing. Some of the more mundane collectables are also useful because they can unlock extra outfit overrides and outfit perks after collecting certain amounts of them.

Entertaining Story
By all means, the story isn't a crazy, 'new' story. It follows a certain trope (that trope being you are the one person who has a special power within them that they didn't know about making them one of the most powerful wizards, yadda yadda) but it isn't annoying or horribly boring like Borderlands 3 was (for me). So it's good, but it's nothing we haven't really seen before.

Character Progression System
There are levels, skills (referred to as 'talents'), perks and stats for your clothing pieces (same idea as Cyberpunk), upgrades to the broom, upgrades to clothing, clothing rarities / qualities, etc.

Very Nice Graphics
The graphics are great! It's not groundbreaking, but definitely great to look at, inside the castle especially. It is all I ever wanted when I was a kid, but unfortunately that was not possible back then.

Some Replayability Attempts
Choosing your own House at Hogwarts does have some effect on your gameplay. Many missions and side missions are different, each house has their own common room, and things can play out slightly differently. It's no 'Detroit Become Human', but there was at least some attempt, which I like to see.

Some Cool Customization For Nerds
Choosing your wand length, wood, inner core, your house, patronus, and all that was cool to do. Even though it doesn't really affect anything, your wand you don't really often see up close, it's still fun for those who are very into the franchise.


Repetitive Side / Exploration Missions (Subjective)
As mentioned before, lots of the side missions and exploration tasks can get repetitive in nature, though they are all physically different, the idea is the same. Doesn't bother me, but could bother some. If you've played Far Cry, it's the same deal.

Sub-Par Mouth Animations
For me, I couldn't care less about this. However, I can't deny it; the mouth animations when someone is speaking is definitely a few years behind.

Miscellaneous (Minor) Bugs
You may not experience any, however I have experienced things such as falling through the world randomly, and almost getting stuck in certain areas in the highlands while trying to get into areas on my broom, but it's mostly my fault because I was trying to cheese the game. I have not encountered any softlock issues, any horrible game-breaking bugs, just some minor issues, none of which directly affected me really at all.

A Few Dumb Design Issues
As an example, in shops, where you can sell your clothing pieces (basically your armour), if you have like 20 pieces you want to sell, you can't select all, or even just click once to sell an item. They have a preventative measure in place so that you don't accidentally sell something you want to keep (because you can't buy things back), meaning I have to hold left-click on each item (could be upwards of 30 items if I have a full inventory) for about 1.5s. Not that big of a deal, but if they allowed you to buy-back or even do a sell-all or multi-select, it'd be a lot better. Another example is the character creation screen. Who in the world thought that a slider (with no images for reference) for hair colour was a good idea?! You can't simply pick a color, or have a gradient bar to see what colour you're selecting. You have to sit there and scroll through a slider bar with about 25 different colours and just try to remember which one you liked most. You can see the preview on your character but good luck remember what specific selection on the line was the one you wanted. There are a few other small issues like that, mostly based on preference and my playstyle, but in my own opinion I think there are a few overlooked UI / developer choice issues that could be made a lot better. I will say though, none of these issues really affect the game long-run, just nitpicks.

Do I recommend it? Yes! It is fun, entertaining, though nothing groundbreaking. It is a HUGE win for Harry Potter fans, as they haven't had a game in like 10 years and the last 3 entries were horrendously bad. I am a huge fan of the first 3 games, as I grew up with those, and this is like a modern take on them, and I could not be happier. The game isn't as demanding as some in terms of computer power, which is another bonus.

Since I first found the trailer for this game, I was really excited. It seemed like a clone of Visage. And, although a clone of a pre-existing game doesn't sound great, it's actually a positive factor because of how much I loved Visage. Regardless, this game is different & unique, but keeps similar aspects that make Visage so pressure-inducing.

There is no combat in the game, and you CAN die at points, but it is not overly annoying and does not require you to run & hide all the time like games such as Outlast or Amnesia.

The graphics really seal the deal for me. I love realistic horror games, as it makes things so much creepier. Walking through a hallway is something that at certain points of the game I find myself questioning if I really want to, even though I know I have to in order to proceed. If the game can make me too unsure of walking forward, you know it does well by making the player fear the unknown.

I feel the game took heavy inspiration from (obviously) Visage, as well as an old favourite Half-Life 2 mod called 'Nightmare House' and it's sequel, 'Nightmare House 2'. In fact, the voice actor for a few characters in NH2 actually voices a character in this game, and I feel that was definitely done on purpose. Kudos for that.

General pros and cons:
Pros:
- Great graphics
- No bugs (at least I never encountered any)
- Enough achievements that it makes you want to try and get them all
- Not overly difficult but not too easy
- Fun puzzle-solving, with a fair amount of hints to help you out if necessary
- Great atmosphere
- Randomized codes / combos for certain puzzles (each playthrough will have different combos)
- Certain tasks can be done in different orders (the game is linear but not EVERY step is required to be done in a certain order)

Cons:
- Not THAT long (but it's still a solid length, don't get me wrong)
- Classic Amnesia physics doors (this is subjective, but I hate the click & drag doors with the softened sensitivity, it's hard to explain, but sometimes the doors [depending on where they are grabbed from] have reversed controls, as in I can pull a door towards me to open it by moving my mouse down and the door moves forward and closes)
- Relatively heavy character head-bob / wobble (after an hour or so you get very used to it and can ignore it, but it would still maybe be nice to have an option for it to either be on or off or at least be able to adjust how extreme it is. If you stand still, it's like a sniper scope in COD when you run out of breath from holding it)
- In general, there's limited options (There is only 2 audio options, 1 slider and 1 to mute your character from speaking the lines so you only read the subtitles, etc.)
- (DEBATABLE) Price [The price for me is no issue, and I don't regret buying it at said price, but for some, for a first-time game from a new company, it can maybe scare a few away. However, the team that made this game appears to be incredibly small and they did an absolute amazing job, so I am more than happy to give them all the money for this game, as I want them to make more

Overall, the game is fun, always keeps you on your feet / the edge of your seat, looks and feels great, runs great, has an intriguing story that I actually cared to follow and remember details about, and definitely made me yell and jump on a multitude of occasions. Props to Bloodious Games; I look forward to seeing what else you will create, as I will likely be buying it.

9/10

7/14/2022 edit: As of 7/12/2022, the developers have added an 'accessibility' tab in the options, allowing users to customize intensity of the head bob, arm sway & camera shakes, as well the ability to turn on a 'reduced camera motion' option and customize the UI AIM transparency. This knocks off 2 of my 5 previously listed cons, and the other 3 are debatable or extremely subjective anyhow. Loving to see that this game is being treated well already. Great work guys!

10/10. User 'OGChroma' sucks ♥♥♥♥ at this game and I like laughing at his failure

Not much to say here, this is a necessary component to play most VR games on Steam. That being said, I've only ever had one issue. When I want to stream my VR game in Discord, often times the game process is taken over by the SteamVR process in which the only thing my friends see in Discord is a box with text from SteamVR which says what game I'm playing.

Not really an issue from Valve though so once again I can't complain. It wasn't developed to be streamed on Discord, but it is a minor annoyance at times.

Pavlov is a must-have for anyone with a VR headset. For me, it's loads of fun even just sitting in the shooting range shooting and reloading random weapons over and over. The workshop allows for awesome new maps and remakes / ports of famous maps from other games such as various COD zombies maps. Playing with friends only makes it more fun. Worth the full price easily, but it seems to go on sale often enough to easily be able to pick it up at 25 or 50 percent off during one of the seasonal sales.

Bioshock is such a unique game both in concept and design. From making important personal and moral decisions, having some awesome weaponry and other 'methods of attack *wink wink*', it makes for a fun experience. The remaster is obviously the way to go for current years. So much fun.

As of 2020, the dedicated servers for this game are gone, meaning all matches are now P2P, which is nowhere near as good. ANYWAY, this is conceptually the same game as Dead By Daylight, except ONLY Jason from F13. Lots of fun, if people play properly (which they usually do). It certainly has lost it's hype over the years though.

ME: Catalyst is more advanced than the first. There are more things to do while free-roaming, more climbing abilities, and the fighting is much more different, with more mechanics and NO ability to use guns like the first one. At first, I was worried by this, but I now realize how much better it is without the guns, it makes it much more strategic and forces you to use your surroundings to fight better. It keeps the minimalist (yet high quality) style, and is beautiful to look at.

Think I got this game for free. Thanks for the trading cards. That's a W in my books.