“I know that many of you may think that this seems rather pointless, seeing as how you can all probably guess what game will be where, and that I’ve gone over all that I needed to say in the reviews of each game. But I still wanted to voice my opinion on this, so here is my ‘Worst to Best Harry Potter Games’ list:
8: ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows-Part 1’. This game was doomed to fail. As we all know, ‘Deathly Hallows-Part 1’, while being a rather decent movie, nothing really happens in it, it was just a build up for ‘Part 2’. So how do you make a game based on nothing? You can’t! The game was just repetitive, bland and overall, boring! The idea to make this a shooting game should have had some potential, but it falls flat on its flank in its execution. You were just better off running through the whole game and not shoot at anything, and it would not affect you in the slightest. Little to no cover was given to you to hide from enemies, the graphics were horrendously bad, the controls were terrible, and the only thing this game made me feel like doing was just wishing the Unforgiveable Curses existed, so I could cast Imperius at it and tell it to go fuck itself! I know that this sort of language is inappropriate for a princess, but for something like this, it feels necessary. I’d give it a 1.5 out of 10
7: ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’. IT’S FUCKING TERRIBLE!! I won’t go into so much detail as to why I hate this game, just see my own review for that, but to put it simply; bad gameplay, repetitive, selfish in its collectables, annoying AI, and a poor representation of my favourite book. The reason why I don’t consider this the worst, is because it had a good strong story to work with, but they just missed the mark with it completely, and as much as I hate to admit it, but it did at least make you want to try and get all those shields just to finish it, even if it did drive me crazy to try and fail, which was something ‘Deathly Hallows-Part 1’ didn’t have. I’d give this one a 2 out of 10
6: ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows-Part 2’. Here is a game where there was potential, but it was wasted. This is where the shooting aspect made sense, but like the first part, it just got boring really quickly with its constant repetitive nature. The short amount of time it takes to finish the game is just insulting, and its way of telling the story through all of this is poor to say the least. As I said in the review, they should have just waited until both ‘Deathly Hallows’ movies were released, and then release it as one whole game. But, I will say this that the game is at least playable and easier to understand, but that is really the only compliment I can give it. This game also gets a 2 out of 10.
5: ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’. It’s quite a surprise that the least popular book and fans’ least popular movie didn’t have the least popular game. However, it does fall under the same problem as the last games; the graphics are not as good as what they could have been, your main focus of the game is just consisting of potions, duelling and Quidditch so there isn’t a variety of missions you can perform, and it is again, short. I like how they had brought Quidditch back into the games, but due to stiff controls, it isn’t as fun as it was before. Overall, it is a lacklustre game, nothing really special to say about it. I’d give this a 4 out of 10
4: ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’. This game was an attempt to try and bring the games, back to what they had used to be, exploration, learning spells and interacting with characters, and for the most part, it works. The graphics they used to design Hogwarts was, and still is, incredible to look at and to explore, and there are lots of replay value for all the mini-games that are scattered around the school. While the story isn’t as engaging as it was in the book, and the ending is really rushed, it’s an okay game if you are in the right mood for it. I’d say this is worth 5 out of 10.
3: ‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’. This game had tried to do what ‘Chamber of Secrets’ had done before it, and while it didn’t do everything right, like toning down on the stealth sections, and rushing the ending, I still consider this an enjoyable game nonetheless. The new variation of flying is a nice edition, by being able to fly Buckbeak around the grounds, the ability to play as all three of the main characters any time you wanted to helped in puzzle solving areas, the character designs are still really good, even better than the later games in some areas, the music was the best Jeremy Soule and composed, and it was quite chilling and scary to play sometimes. This game is deserving of a 6.5 out of 10.
2: ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’. It does make sense for the game that started the whole thing should be one of the best. While the graphics are not so good today what with the characters having no proper mouth movements at all, I think it’s fine by PlayStation 1 standards. Hogwarts seems to resemble more to what it looked like in the books, collecting the Bertie Botts Beans in different areas to achieve new abilities was a lot of fun, as well as searching for the Famous Witches and Wizards Cards. Spells are at their simplest in this one, but that isn’t really a problem for it, and it keeps you playing longer than the new games, by over half the time, so this is definitely a must for Potter fans. I would give this game a 7 out of 10.
1: ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets’. Don’t pretend you didn’t see this coming, every fan knows that this is the best ‘Harry Potter’ game, ever! This took everything that had made ‘Philosopher’s Stone’ work and improved on it. I just loved how this game opened up Hogwarts to you and the world you’re in, it felt like you were playing ‘Grand Theft Potter’, you could fly anywhere on your broomstick, there were a lot of collectibles to find and it had a lot of Zelda like elements to it for unlocking spells to go to different areas and simple RPG elements as well. This truly was a Harry Potter game done right, and for that, I think it deserves an 8.5 out of 10.
Well, there you have it my little ponies, all eight ‘Harry Potter’ games done and reviewed. I hope you have enjoyed it, just as much as I have enjoyed replaying them… well not all of them, and reliving one of the biggest and most popular franchises of all time. Thank you all for watching and I do hope to see you return someday."