Hogwarts Legacy – PlayStation 4

Love This Game!
If you’re a Harry Potter fan you’ll love this. Playing this makes you feel like you’re actually a student at Hogwarts! You get to choose your house. Most quests are the same no matter what House you select, with one exception. Huffelpuff house gets you an exclusive quest that the other Houses don’t get. It’s small, but nice. This was my favorite game of 2023. I played 98 hours of it and got Platinum trophy. Works well on PS4 slim. The only negative is that when you open a door there is sometimes a semi-long loading before you can actually enter it. It’s a small negative. 10/10.

Very complex yet fun game
I think it is very important to watch YouTube videos for beginners to make sure you get started on a good path in the very beginning. Certain decisions that you make at the very beginning of the game will a difference in what and who you will encounter in the game. It takes many hours to learn and develop skills to fight different enemies and open specific tasks. There is a lot to learn playing this game yet it is very fun and exciting. Extreme details in graphics and hidden objectives that aren’t mentioned anywhere in the game make this game unique. I can’t imagine trying to play the initial game without using the story mode. Highly recommend if you are a Harry Potter series fan.

Not quite as good as on PS5 but…
My wife and I got to preview this game on a relative’s PS5 and we both played it to get our characters up to 8th level. It was a very enjoyable game and a great take on Hogwarts and the Wizarding World so we pre-ordered as soon as we learned that it was to be released on the PlayStation 4 despite some concerns on whether the PS4 would be able to handle the game and the intense graphics.With each of us having now played it on the PS4 and done a lot of exploring in the (relatively) open world, we love it, finding it to be an interesting story so far and a lot of fun after the initial lengthy download (see 5/16 update for more on that). My take, being the one who had the concerns about the PS5 versus PS4 and being a bit more critical, is that the overall graphics are quite good, offering splendid vistas and remarkable detail that does a great job of giving the player the big picture and a very nice immersive experience.However, being an older and not-quite-as-powerful console, the PS4 version falls down a little bit in two aspects, the first of which is the tiny details such as characters’ hairs. You’ll see a stray hair or two in the PS4 version (and a great job with the three-day growth of razor stubble), but it has to cut corners a bit, with the manes of individual hairs bristling under movement in the PS5 version becoming more like mats in the PS4 game. They even pixilate briefly at times when moving in close, losing their cohesiveness but that’s usually very brief and might even occur in the PS5, though neither of us ever noticed it. That said, while the PS4 graphics aren’t quite as good as on the PS5, they should be close enough for most players.The other and much more important issue with the PS4 version of the game is that the loading times are significantly longer when starting the game, when moving into or out of cut scenes, or when moving to new areas. Be prepared for a bit of wait but know that the wait, if you can’t or don’t wish to upgrade from the PS4 to the 5, will be well worth your time and you’ll have an enjoyable experience overall.In the end, the PS4 version of Hogwarts Legacy isn’t quite as good as the PS5 version but the tradeoffs are small enough for it to be a solid 4* experience to the PS5’s 5* show. Highly recommended for those who have the PS4, but if you have both, spend the extra few dollars and get the PS5 version for the faster loading times and consider the improvements in graphics as a bonus.5/16/23 UPDATE: There have been several questions and review comments about requiring the internet for this game. Yes, you must have the internet to download the bulk of the game code (a lengthy process required to continue past the initial opening/tutorial) and for any updates, but day-to-day play does NOT require an internet connection. We confirmed this on a just-concluded trip where we played our originally up-to-date game daily without an internet connection, doing both autosaves and manual saves as needed throughout our game play. All of our effort was saved and ready for ongoing play when we returned home and reconnected to the net.7/4/23 UPDATE: I’m now about 75 percent complete on the main quest (playing on Normal mode) and still really having fun with Hogwarts Legacy, exploring the castle and surrounding area and doing many side quests and trials (my wife is really enjoying it, too, on Easy mode). The game is very engaging, touching on so many parts of Wizarding World lore and giving WW fans one nice surprise after another. The graphics have been consistently excellent, with the minor flaws mentioned earlier being easily ignored. The controls may be a bit difficult to master at first, but continued practice helps, and being consistent with where you assign your spells makes the frequent combats easier. Once you obtain multiple spell wheels, writing down the spells by assigned position and wheel (and keeping them handy for ready reference during play) may also help.My initial concerns about the PS4’s ability to handle the game continue to be unfounded and any game updates since the initial major download have been very minor. The PS4 has worked well so far, with only a couple of crashes (no more frequently than other games in my experience), and the only complaint remains, as before, the loading times between scenes, areas, and so forth. If one is prepared to do something else for a couple of minutes to avoid the loading frustration, most players, and especially Wizarding World fans, will really enjoy this game.