[Basic Introduction]
Harry Potter is an incredible popular fantasy series novel originally created by J.K. Rowling, and the Harry Potter phenomenon has also led to a cross-platform action adventure game published by Electronic Arts coming before gamers. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone lets you play as this young wizard who has lost his parents and is constantly in trouble, as he embarks on his first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. As Harry, you will challenge higher levels in these mysterious subjects, collect as much magical candy as you can find, and thwart the plot of the evil Voldemort, who killed your parents.
The first PC adventure game of Harry Potter seems somewhat lacking in momentum.
Like most games, Harry can learn various different spells, including Flipendo which prevents confusion and the levitation spell Wingardium Leviosa. Learning these spells requires being in a specific classroom where a mysterious symbol will appear in the air, and you need to repeat this symbol with steady gestures within the specified time. The spells Harry learns can be used in challenging areas, where you need to jump across a series of platforms, activate various mechanisms and buttons using these spells, just like the name of the game suggests. The puzzles that block progress and the arrangement of platforms have a high degree of repetition and seem overly simple most of the time, even allowing players who are not good at solving puzzles to completely overcome obstacles using the auto-jump feature. As the game progresses, you need to collect Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans in all their colorful varieties, which you can use to exchange for various magical cards. These exchanged cards are arranged against backgrounds featuring historically famous wizards, and collecting all the hidden cards is quite challenging.
In addition, Harry must face the challenge of Quidditch, a strange sport that combines elements of football and basketball, played while riding brooms in mid-air. In the game, Harry plays the role of the seeker, chasing after the Golden Snitch, and victory is achieved when capturing a ball with incredible agility. There are several different positions in Quidditch, including goalkeeper, defender, and attacker. In this event, you can only observe the match from Harry's perspective, and each match appears almost impossible to lose. The opposing seeker never chases after the snitch, and other players seem to merely fill numbers, making winning matches almost effortless. Although the instruction manual indicates that different control methods can be used, you are still forced to use the very clumsy keyboard controls rather than the better mouse control method. Players who are obsessed with wizard sports will be pleased to discover that once the matches appear in the game's story mode, you can start a Quidditch tournament game to play anytime, adding some replay value to this adventure game that lasts only six to seven hours.
Despite the game's main focus being on these slightly less stimulating gameplay elements, the developers found some space to compensate with some key interesting interludes. In one mission area, Harry puts on an inherited invisibility cloak before embarking on a theft mission, similar to Metal Gear Solid, your goal is to predict the movements of Mr. Peeves and his cat Mrs. Norris to safely bypass them. Harry also duels with enemies in round table meetings, although it is quite simple, it is quite fun to play, though it feels somewhat disconnected from the rest of the game. The lack of the ability to save multiple game progress points is somewhat unsatisfactory because many interesting scenes in the game, especially encounters with some bosses, are definitely worth replaying.
In terms of graphics, the developers did a great job utilizing the Unreal engine to recreate the visual effects from the recent blockbuster movie adaptation. The explorable castle areas are very satisfying, with many matching incredible details such as wandering ghosts, moving armors, and of course, the students. The relatively small number of usable materials in the game means that after the first challenge zone, the game begins to look highly repetitive. Incredible cutscenes are recreated using captivating special effects, and due to effective handling of lighting and shadows, the eerie parts of the game are excellently produced.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone also borrows some characters from the movie to balance the character types, such as the various professors you encounter, and also uses cartoon versions of the main characters and some other major designs. The opening introduction that takes up a large part of the game uses a static scene of a parchment with an outline to set the atmosphere, and in the PlayStation and Game Boy versions of the game, you will find the same artistic approach used. Due to issues with the original material, these narrative short films appear extremely rough and do not provide sufficient information. Overall, the storyline is not presented in any engaging way, but rather as a makeshift effort to connect two scenes.
On the other hand, the hypnotic storytelling style is perfectly expressed, as many voice actors seem to bring the characters of Hogwarts to life. If you haven't seen the movie, you will certainly be satisfied with the voice acting of your beloved characters. The game features a large amount of different dialogues, including the slightly humorous chatter of children in the hallways. Unfortunately, the recordings of magical spells have only a few variations, and hearing Harry repeat the same "Flipendo" spell thousands of times can become annoying, inevitably breaking some of the positive impressions made by the sound aspect.
The music score may be the highlight of this game.
On the other hand, the music is consistently very satisfying throughout. The magical music composed by Jeremy Soule deserves praise, and at certain moments, it is absolutely a highlight. When pesky gnomes appear around the corner and steal your beans, the originally cheerful tune immediately turns into a signal sound indicating the appearance of these annoying creatures. The music does an excellent job conveying the atmosphere of specific parts of the game, whether it's the tense mood during thievery or the exciting feeling during heated Quidditch matches. Since this music often repeats, there isn't enough variation in such a short game to keep the music fresh throughout.
Finally, the appeal of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone doesn't match its literary counterpart, possibly only suitable for children. For today's PC gamers with more gaming experience, the extremely brief storyline, overly simplified platform jumping scenes, and repetitive gameplay of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone fail to leave a deep impression. Moreover, although children transitioning from purely educational PC games to purely entertainment games may enjoy Harry's first PC adventure game, older players immersed in Rowling's first novel will prefer to read the trilogy or watch the movie again.
[System Requirements]
Minimum System Requirements:
Operating System: WINDOWS98/ME/XP
CPU: PII266 or equivalent processor
Memory: 64 MB RAM
Graphics Card: 3D accelerator card DirectX v8.0 8MB VRAM
Hard Drive Space: 500MB hard drive space
Other: Keyboard, Mouse, Sound Card