Harry Potter, how many games did you play?
The magical world is once again approaching our lives.
On April 8, the third part of "Where Are Fantastic Beasts" will be released in China. The film tells the adventure story of the fantasy zoologist Newt Scarmander who was fired by Hogwarts before Harry Potter was born. Judging from the trailer, the third part still has the magical animals Newt encountered, and there are also the big dramas that many people are interested in when GGAD meets again after breaking up many years.
NetEase mobile game "Harry Potter: Magic Awakening" is also promoting the movie: The inspiration for the April turntable suit is the dress of Credent and Nagini in the previous movie.
When Harry Potter: Magic Awakening was first launched, a large number of Harry fans happily downloaded the game, some of which stayed in this Cyber Hogwarts to attend classes, duels, and break into the Forbidden Forest, while some were already disappointed with the magical world and became "dropped students".
However, the demo video of the console game "Hogwarts: Legacy" developed by Warner's studio Avalanche Software just released in March has rekindled hope for some Harry fans, hoping to explore the magical world in which they did not receive letters from the owls back then from the open world design.
Before Harry Potter: Magic Awakening and Hogwarts: Legacy, there were actually many games created based on the "Harry Potter" IP, but most of them were relatively old, and domestic players were not familiar with them, and the development of IP was not very comprehensive.
Take on the craze of "Where Are We at Fantastic Beasts 3", before returning to that magical world, we can first take a look at the games that once brought us into this magic school, and also based on these adapted games to see if the original IP has greater room for development.
The 21-year history of "Harry Potter" game
2001 was a crucial year for the IP "Harry Potter" - this year, the movie "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" produced by Warner was released, becoming a new beginning for many Muggles around the world to understand the magic world after the original work.
In the same year, the first two games in the "Harry Potter" series were quietly launched, and the game companies behind them, EA and LEGO, became the companies that later "longest love" for this IP.
EA released its first work "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" in 2001, with the same name as the movie. The plot is limited by space and is a condensed version of the movie, but the restoration is not bad. Amid the craze of movies and originals, the PC version of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" sold 860,000 copies in two months after it was released in North America.
In addition to the PC version, "Magic Stone" also logs on to the console PS1 and two handheld consoles.Taiwan GBC and GBA. However, the "Sorceress" on these platforms is different from the PC version. The GBA version is more inclined to solve puzzles, while the GBC version is a 2D pixel-style ARPG. Later, "The Sorcerer's Stone" launched a remake with a different plot from the previous work, but perhaps because the game development and production were relatively hasty, its reputation was not as good as the 2001 version of "The Sorcerer's Stone".
Overall, the "Harry Potter" series produced by EA is obviously more focused on promoting the film, but the release time of each film is chosen the year when the movie was released. It is more like a case of "film and game linkage" than developing the original work. Among them, the fourth game found the dubbing of the movie actors, and the fifth game also obtained the music authorization of the movie. It will explore it inside the game later, and can also unlock some Easter eggs of the actors chatting about the game.
Photo source B station UP host: Tick Vision
I don't know if it is too close to the movie. Some shortcomings criticized by the public in the later stages of the movie, such as the insufficient presentation of the magic atmosphere, are also "faithfully" reflected in the last two works of EA's "Harry Potter" series: The combat system of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part 1)" has completely become an FPS shooting game, and the sense of blowing spells is more like a gunfight. The game only scored 2.5 points in IGN, and was nicknamed "Harry Potter and AK47" by many players.
It is worth mentioning that the fifth "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix", which may be the closest to the current prospects of Harry Potter games by Harry Potter.
Because the point-to-point mission mode of the previous work "Gou Flame" has been mixed among players, EA abandoned the changes from the previous work in "The Order of the Phoenix" and instead adopted the open world gameplay. The Hogwarts Castle in the game has a high degree of restoration, and some classic scenes such as the Owl Tower, the Hagrid House and even the Slytherin Chamber are all presented in the game. You can figure out most of the structure of Hogwarts Castle through this game, and you can even use the floating spell to manipulate teaching tools to hit Professor McGonagall in the head, and she will deduct points from Gryffindor (Snape ecstasy).
Lego's "Harry Potter" series dates back to 2001's "Lego Creator: Harry Potter" and 2002's "The Creator: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets". In 2010, the "Harry Potter" game, which is most well-known to the public, was released. The first one spans four academic years from "The Sorcerer's Stone" to "Gop of Fire". The plot of the last three academic years was included in the 2011 sequel "Lego Harry Potter: Years 5-7". The characters in the game performed very "Lego" and had a good reputation. The sequel even scored 80 points (out of 100 points) on Metacritic.
On the other hand, with the iteration of game consoles, the "Harry Potter" game has also added new settings and gameplay. For example, EA's "Orth of the Phoenix" has landed on the Nintendo Wii, and players have to go through the Wii'sThe remote control uses the corresponding gesture to cast the correct spell. Sony released the PS3 limited Book of Curse and Book of Potions in 2012 and 2013, which requires the use of PS3's peripheral hardware to break the "dimensional wall", experience casting curse and boiling potions.
In addition to the console game, the "Harry Potter" mobile game series, before NetEase's "Magic Awakening" was released in 2018, should be the most famous one. The plot evaluation is pretty good, the operation is relatively simple, but the degree of freedom is not high, and the modeling is a bit too rough...
How much can the magic world show in the game?
Looking at the entire seven original novels, J.K. Rowling created a magical world belonging to wizards. It has a fixed battle mode (wizarding a wand), sect settings (four major academies), racial settings, and the confrontation between good and evil, which has already supported enough skeletons for the construction of the game worldview.
After the basic worldview is formed, what remains is the part that needs to be polished by the game manufacturer.
From the timeline, the game between EA and LEGO has chosen the most basic role-playing type, and the player plays Harry Potter himself and has walked through the original plot of seven novels.
This mode can arouse the feelings of players, but it will be useless if you use it too much - the novel has been completed for a long time, and many readers are familiar with the original plot. If there are puzzle elements in the game settings, it is difficult to play its original role, such as Snape's logical reasoning questions for protecting the level of Magic Stone, Harry fans can directly lock it according to the plot in the novel - the smallest bottle must contain the correct potion that can pass the black flame.
The danger is in front of you, the safety is in the back, and there are two of us who can help you.
Drink them down, one leads you forward, and the other sends you back to where you were.
The two contained nettle wine, and three were murderers, waiting in line.
Please choose unless you are vain and delay here forever.
Most of the games launched after the movie are completed have set the timeline to an era where they can play freely. Players no longer have to play the protagonist trio, but have their own story.
We talked about the timelines of "Hogwarts: Legacy" and "Harry Potter: Magic Awakening" in the previous article. In fact, "Harry Potter: The Mystery of Hogwarts" also shifted the timeline back to the time before Harry entered school. In the game, you can be friends with Ron's elder brother Bill Weasley, and you can also meet Professor Snape who will hardly appear in the subsequent plot (he will be sarcastic to you in Potion Class).
There are 13 courses in Hogwarts in the original novel, but the main line of Rowling's writing is still Harry's adventure, and he will not portray the course in detail (the black magic defense has relatively more course content.The game can only be adapted appropriately according to the original description.
In "Magic Awakening", the magic class is a classic paragraph that reproduces the original work, floating curse and fighting monsters in the women's bathroom, magic history and muggle research are knowledge questions and answers, and the crystal ball divination in the divination class is a drawing of you and I guess. As for the arithmetic divination and ancient magic texts that Harry has no electives and rarely mentioned in the original work, they generally do not appear in adapted games.
In EA's "Harry Potter" game, the daily course is spell learning and training, and the basic method is to run a maze. At the beginning of "The Prisoner of Azkaban", players want to find the crazily escaped, and even walk the maze in the carriage of the Hogwarts train, and finally run into the dementor. The horror atmosphere is well rendered.
Hogwarts' campus life is actually suitable for some details in the game. For example, in the novel "The Order of the Phoenix" writes that when Weasley Gemini left Hogwarts on a broom, the students racked their brains to cause trouble for Umbridge and opposed her dictatorship. In EA's Order of the Phoenix game, this plot also sets tasks for the players who play Harry. The original work, Fred and George, turned the entire corridor into a swamp, and Harry will also engage in some pranks such as letting plants cover the entire courtyard.
As for the Quidditch game, which accounts for a large proportion of Harry's extracurricular life, it is a part that is not easy to restore. Quidditch in "Magic Awakening" has been simplified. The player's perspective is the chaser who is responsible for scoring goals, and the game mode is also close to parkour. However, in fact, the Quidditch team has a diverse staffing configuration in the original work. EA once released a game called "Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup" in 2003. Players can freely choose the role they play in the team, and there is also a multi-player battle mode.
Niantic Labs, the producer of Pokémon GO, once made an AR mobile game "Harry Potter: The Wizards League". After the timeline is set in "Deathly Hallows", players must work with the protagonist trio entering the Ministry of Magic to maintain "International Secretariat Law" to solve the magic phenomena that appear in the Muggle world. The gameplay is similar to "Pokémon GO", and players need to go out from their home life to explore the surrounding communities.
This game has been closed at the beginning of this year, but for Pokémon GO's game mode, it may be more suitable to link with the movie "Where Are the Fantastic Beasts" than the plot events, and find the sniffing, Moon Mad Beast or Tree Guarding Root near your home.
However, for IP games, the original world view may still be the core of the charm of the game. As long as the magic world still exists in one mobile phone and console, it will be difficult for players to resist Hogwarts' attraction.
I hope that the future Harry Potter game can realize the player's outlook and fully present the wonder of this world - this may also be what every Harry fan expects and can find in the game.
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