As the legend of the Boy Who Lived draws to a conclusion, fans of the colossal franchise might be heading towards theatres and bookstores to make sure that they don’t miss out on anything. And after being done with all that stuff, those who’d be moaning saying, ‘it’s all over,’ have something more to smile about. The final game in the series is warming up in the franchise’s stock. If excitement and expectations are to be calculated, this game scores massively over all the previous ones. But will it live up to them? We got a chance to find out with an early PS3 copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. Let us try to break it down for you so that you won’t be in a spot while deciding on whether or not to purchase the title which launched yesterday along with the movie.
The story picks up from where the not so appreciated Deathly Hallows Part 1 game left off. Harry and his friends must seek and destroy the remaining Horcruxes in order to obliterate the devilry of You-know-who. Situations in the game are linear but happening at different locations giving us the opportunity to play as different characters – Ron, Hermione, Neville, McGonagall, Seamus, Ginny and Molly Weasley, along with Harry of course. This game doesn’t bore you with any annoying side missions which we think is a nice exclusion. You can collect trophies all through the game while finding hidden orbs helps you unlock various music tracks which can be listened to when in the main menu. The Challenge mode is a nice inclusion where in you can compete with friends to set the best scores in certain chapters of the game.
Coming towards the graphics, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 presents mediocre visuals reminiscent of the kind we used to get on our obsolete PS2 systems. Character faces however, are well modeled. Among them Voldemort is our favorite being the only one whose face matches with his film avatar. Akin to the earlier version this part doesn’t have any UI with only the occasional prompts to press certain buttons. Environments look like they’ve been worked upon to stand true to the dark theme of the franchise but somehow fail to impress. Music in the game is engaging and so are the SFX especially during boss fights. One thing that could have provided huge relief to gamers is subtitles as during crunch situations the sound effects go so loud that the dialogues between characters become inaudible putting those who haven’t read the book or watched the movie in a ‘what’s going on?’ situation.
If you’re looking for superior gameplay than the earlier versions, this one does provide better adventures than its predecessor. A total of six spells are available to cast on the seemingly endless death eaters and snatchers. These spells include Stupefy, Expelliarmus, Expulso, Impedimenta, Confringo and Petrificus Totalus, the latter two being the most useful. Environments provide plenty of covers and can be used to regain health. The auto-aim feature is a huge solace while fighting Voldemort’s monotonous and continual army which seems to have been put in only to increase the length of the game. Such situations made us wish we had some grenades at our disposal. During some points in the game Harry is moving along with Ron and Hermione which is perturbing as they are too slow. At such times, even the sprint feature proves to be of no use as your faithful allies choose to maintain their lost-in-their-own-world-speed no matter what.
Characters in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 can’t jump, but the slick Apparate feature more than makes up for that, especially during boss battles. Talking about bosses, they are the only fights which provide some thrills which are usually absent in the rest of the game. Through the course, Harry and friends have to defeat Snape, Draco Malfoy, Bellatrix Lestrange and finally You-know-who. We have to admit the concluding battle did have us hooked on to our screen. Cutscenes are well placed in the game, giving away story elements from time to time. Being the final game in the franchise and with so much hype surrounding it, we sure were expecting to get to perform more tasks like flying the broom and flying the dragon. But alas! It all happens during cutscenes. The game ends after Harry defeats by-now-you-definitely-know-who and once the credits stop rolling a flash-forward of 19 years takes us to platform 9 ¾ where Harry, Ginny, Hermione and Ron are waving goodbye to their children as they leave for Hogwarts. At which point we couldn’t stop ourselves from ROTL, looking at Harry’s pot-belly.
Final Word: The game is too short considering it took us just hours to complete it. The gameplay does get you involved every now and then and has its fair share of thrills packed into it. Being the last game in the franchise, Pottermaniacs are sure to get a kick out of this. Others can give it a miss.
Graphics: 7/10
Sounds: 8.5/10
Environments: 7.5/10
Gameplay: 7.5/10
Replay Value: 5/10
Overall (not an average): 6.5/10