Highlights

  • Hogwarts Legacy wowed fans but has flaws, like repetitive combat and lackluster open-world outside Hogwarts.
  • Combat in Hogwarts Legacy lacks depth, relying on basic spells with minimal strategic variety.
  • Hogwarts Legacy 2 could boost gameplay with small changes to basic spell combos for a better combat experience.

Avalanche Software's Hogwarts Legacy was one of 2023's biggest releases, nailing several key aspects of the Harry Potter fantasy. The idea of a Harry Potter RPG, where players can create their own Hogwarts character, is rife with potential, so much so that it's a bit surprising it took this long for a game like Hogwarts Legacy to come out, as it seems like a winning formula for a video game.

How well Hogwarts Legacy realizes its inherent potential is a matter of debate, though. Of course, its commercial and cultural success cannot be denied, but stripping away the Harry Potter veneer and examining the game's core elements reveals a few major weaknesses, like a lack of overall player choice and consequence, questionable narrative decisions, and a fairly uninspired open-world outside Hogwarts itself. In terms of gameplay, combat could use a bit of a punch-up in the sequel, as it suffers from issues like repetitiveness and poor balancing. These issues could be tricky to remedy in Hogwarts Legacy 2, but doing so would lead to a far better combat experience overall. At the same time, relatively simple changes could have a fundamentally positive impact.

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Small Tweaks Could Make a Big Impact On Hogwarts Legacy 2's Combat

Hogwarts Legacy's Combat Lacks Depth

Even on higher difficulties, Hogwarts Legacy's combat is rather straightforward and can be mastered quickly. The game's combat framework is built around a few core mechanics: a basic cast, a block/counter ability, and a variety of specialized spells that are on cooldown timers and broken up into different categories. Admittedly, this framework can make for enjoyable fights, and there's a great deal of novelty in chaining together different spells for maximum effectiveness.

The issue is that these combat staples can get old pretty quickly, as the game never demands or rewards varied approaches and there are few meaningful differences between spells of the same category. Confringo and Bombarda, for instance, have some differences on paper, but in actual combat encounters, they essentially do the same thing. This issue gets exacerbated when Hogwarts Legacy introduces Unforgivable Curses, which can trivialize combat and further lessen the importance of spell variety. The end result is combat that often revolves around spamming a basic attack while waiting for the more powerful spells to recharge. Then, it matters little which powerful spell is actually used, as so many of them are almost functionally identical.

In all fairness, Hogwarts Legacy has the best combat out of any Harry Potter game to date, and its issues of repetitiveness and redundancy may not bother every player.

Basic Spell Combos Could Be Hogwarts Legacy 2's Secret Weapon

Despite arguable shortcomings, Hogwarts Legacy's approach to spells was one of its biggest selling points and certainly a big hit with many players. Moreover, eliminating overlap and dramatically differentiating spells could prove difficult in a sequel, as spells are bound by their lore; Flipendo and Depulso, for example, will probably always have to be rather similar in practice.

Assuming that Hogwarts Legacy 2 takes the same approach to spellcasting, it can shake up its combat by fleshing out the basic cast ability. In Hogwarts Legacy, the basic cast is a standard, all-purpose DPS option, but it is a filler spell, only capable of dealing small amounts of damage while waiting for more powerful spells to cool down. This is a missed opportunity, as players will wind up spending a great deal of time using this basic attack. If the sequel could deepen the basic cast, even with a change as small as a chargeable heavy attack or varied basic cast combos, then it could wind up having a disproportionately large, positive impact on Hogwarts Legacy 2's gameplay.