No, I still haven't finished The Legend of Dragoon, and it's quickly becoming my white whale. But I have been making progress, and think I'll be finishing it up this week, if everything goes as planned. But I've been playing League of Legends again (big trouble for my 50 games in 2018 quest), and got distracted by the game I'm reviewing here, so I've been trying to dedicate a mere 1/2 hour a day to The Legend of Dragoon, with mixed results. But I'm farther today than I was last Tuesday, and will likely be farther next Tuesday than I am today, so that's good.
The Lego games have always been a treat for me ever since I discovered them through the magnificent Lego Batman. I've since played through several of them with my son, and they really scratch an old itch for me, true couch coop that's engaging for people of a wide variety of ages. The basic premise of the Lego games, at least in the modern era of Lego games (post Lego Star Wars), is that you play as Lego-ized characters from different movie/comic book universes, and recreate scenes from the movies or experience new adventures in the universe from the perspective of little Legos. Each different type of character has a different set of skills, and you always play as at least two characters, switching between the two as you need. The missions are primarily about puzzle solving, though there is definitely an amusing combat system involved in between puzzles.
Lego Harry Potter: Years 5-7 is the second of the Lego Harry Potter games, and I started with it for the most base, treacherous, and immature of reasons: trophies. I had recently begun playing through Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4 with my wife, but her appetite for video games is less than mine, and I really wanted more Lego games. So I moved on to the second game, saving the first for our collective marital playthrough. I also selfishly refused to play with anyone else, as many of the trophies require having one player only, which is probably my biggest gripe with the game. I'm not quite done with 100% of the game, but finished the campaign and have gotten almost 95% of the stuff in the game, so I feel pretty confident about my ability to review it.
The game succeeds marvelously in the same way as all of the games from the run from Lego Batman to Lego Marvel Superheroes, in that it creates a hilarious, childlike, and reverent homage to the universe which it is mimicking. What's more, the actual gameplay makes it fun and rewarding to play with more than one person, and even simple enough for a child to pick up and play. Lego Batman and Lego Marvel Superheroes in particular were delights to play with my son, as they create simple enough puzzles that he can solve, while also having an adult there to help out with the more challenging parts of the game.
The humor of the game and it's delightful and obvious love of the source material was definitely the high point for me. For example, there is a scene featuring *spoiler alert* Harry trying to get Snape's memories while he's dying. In the book and movie, these memories are poetically depicted as silver tears coming from Snape's eyes as he recalls the pain and anguish of his greatest mistakes. In the more kid friendly Lego version, Harry tries to get the memories by putting onions under Snape's nose to make him cry! *end spoiler*
There's another point in the game that clearly shows the developers' love of the source material. In one mission, there's a little puppet show of Harry fighting Voldemort, a clear tip of the hat to the immensely popular Youtube series Potter Puppet Pals.
The game features tons of content and will definitely keep the Harry Potter fan busy for a long time. You have the whole of Hogwarts castle to explore, as well as lots of missions in various places from the books including the Burrow, the Ministry of Magic, Platform 9 3/4, 4 Privet Drive, and 12 Grimmauld Place. There are 24 missions to play, and boatloads of collectibles to get, with most of them being walled off for a second playthrough, once you've acquired more magic spells and characters with unique abilities. There are over 200 characters in the game, including some VERY deep cuts from the books.
The game has a delightful soundtrack taken from the movies, and has most of the best tracks from said movies, even the down soundtracks from 5 and 6.
The controls are good and gameplay is fun, although the hitbox mechanics in combat are pretty unclear. The system in which you duel is fantastic, though, and was a ton of fun.
The game, like all Lego games, is regrettably buggy. There are some times in which you will simply be stuck in a mission due to a bug, and need to restart. It's not the worst game in the series in this regard (that would go to Lego Batman 2, of the ones I've played), but it caught me several times.
The boss fights are also pretty disappointing, and a wide berth from the fantastic fights in Lego Batman and Lego Marvel Superheroes. Pretty much every fight comes down to fighting little minions, dodging flying debris from a boss, and throwing the last shot of debris back at him. It was fun once, but after you've done it 20 times it's quite dry.
My biggest complaint, as referenced earlier, was with the trophy system. There are probably 10 trophies in the game which require you to play a single player campaign, which completely moves the player away from the most delightful aspect of the game, true coop! Some single player requirements make sense, like making a trophy that requires you to throw 10 touchdowns in Madden, but making you play against AI, rather than against your friend intentionally letting you score. But I just can't see any practical justification for it in this game, as it just really ruins one of the best parts of the game. But if you don't care about trophies, it won't impact you at all.
Lego Harry Potter: Years 5-7 is a delightful love letter to the Harry Potter series that can be enjoyed by fans of all ages. I'd highly recommend it, warts and all. I'll give it a 8.8/10.
My next game, after The Legend of Dragoon, or maybe concurrent with it when I get bored, is an all-time classic which I've never touched before...
-TRO
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