LEGO Harry Potter Collection a Nostalgic Trip

The grunting is back, and the voices are gone, but that’s perfectly fine with us! LEGO Harry Potter Collection recently launched on the PS4 and we are loving our time with it so far. While some will argue that this is purely a money grab, I have a different take on it which I will outline below.

If you haven’t played the original two Harry Potter titles recently, the graphical changes probably won’t hit you over the head. Let’s face it – LEGO games have always looked relatively good, and since the majority of the the environments you play in are made of LEGO blocks, there is definitely a ceiling to what “remastered” really means.

That being said, LEGO Harry Potter looks fantastic on the PS4. Characters and environments are very well detailed, and all of the subtle things you think you would see in Hogwarts should you visit it now are there. From the moving paintings and stair cases, to the banners hanging from the walls, no detail was over looked when it was originally released, and nothing was overlooked today.

Audibly, Travlers Tales has obviously maintained the grunting and miming of the original run of LEGO games; I was a huge fan of adding voice actors to the LEGO franchise, but going back to see how it was done was equally as exciting. Many jokes come across a lot better in these older titles as the grunts and mimes enhance what you see visually on the screen. It would have been cool to get new voice overs done – which really would have turned this into a remastered collection – but it really isn’t build as a remastered; its a collection, and one I’m glad I own.

Some of the old problems from the original Harry Potter games are still evident here, especially the annoying camera. Far too often during my adventure, I had to fight the camera within levels trying to get it to sit where I wanted it to. Often, I failed in this endeavor and completed some tasks ‘blind.’

A few new issues are evident in this new release as well, which is unfortunate. However, I never felt any of these issues negatively affected by experience for long, and many can easily be fixed with future updates and patches. Missing UI and is a huge problem, especially when you cannot see how many studs you have collected, or how which spell you are using.

Outside of the glitches Travellers Tales fixed for this release – notably the problem with missing ingredients for potions – the mapping of the controls over to the PS4 controller seems to be done fairly well. A new gimmick has also been added to light up the light bar at the top of the controller to correspond to which spell you are using. After a while, the novelty wore off, but it is nice to see the developers have fun with the new controller mapping.

Talking to the detractors…

Listen, I understand that many people are scoring this game incredibly low and calling it a money grab. For this reason, we aren’t scoring it, but rather, recommending it, and here is why.

LEGO Harry Potter Collection is an outstanding nostalgic journey for those who played the games many years ago, and is an excellent experience for those that haven’t had the chance. Trust me, a collection is much cheaper to purchase than an old Xbox 360 or PS3. If you love Harry Potter, give this a go. Granted, it’s not perfect, but it is still a lot of fun!

We definitely RECOMMEND the LEGO Harry Potter Collection on the PS4.