Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery logo

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

Free phone games are primarily designed to grab your attention. It is not to quickly close the application and go in search of something else. And in order to achieve this, different manufacturers use different methods. In card games, the user can get free sets of cards, and in other cases they may offer different rarities. But in the case of Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery, such is not even out of the question.

Even after an hour of play, the user continues to watch with interest everything that is going on. It is a beautiful game with a lot of interesting things. But the peculiarity is that the software does not try to please and does not pry into the wallet, does not spread that for a donation you can achieve more and so on. But as time goes on, things change.

Gameplay

Here the players have to manage a new student of Hogwarts, which the user creates himself in a special editor. Which is pretty good. And at any time there is an opportunity to change the appearance, and after gaining new levels additional features will be unlocked. Of course, it’s not without voluntary cash investment, but only then can you get interesting things, so sometimes it’s still worth thinking about the investment. Otherwise, you have to spend a lot of time to get something new and really useful.

Even with the title in mind, it’s worth saying straight away that Harry won’t be here, as he won’t appear at Hogwarts until a few years later, a sort of backstory.  There aren’t many characters known from childhood either, but still some are present. And you’ll have to go to them for lessons, visit halls and rooms, learn spells and use them if the situation calls for it.

In fact, the gameplay can be described as primitive, so it quickly becomes a chore.  For example, in order to learn a certain spell, you have to go through several stages, and here you can choose the object yourself.  There are occasional mini-games, but they are very simple. And it must be said that the story missions are often based on the same action, meaning it’s not interesting and fast-paced.

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery mobile game

More on the money

Of course, any company is interested in generating revenue, even in the case of a free-to-play game. Well, if it’s a universe that’s recognisable and loved by many, there’s room for manoeuvre. And Hogwarts Mystery often resorts to trivial threats to lose all progress in a couple of hours if you don’t pay for something. So there are some time limits, eats a certain amount of energy and so on.

But there’s also often a request to pay for missions. And in fact, when the first year could be completed in an evening, it stretches for a week And the whole point is that if you do not pay, it is worth waiting between missions first 3 hours, and then 8.

Of course, you could say that for this kind of product there’s nothing special about it, and there’s no point in criticising the developer. Adventure and the opportunity to become an apprentice at Hogwarts were promised, and the player gets it. So it’s not bad, but the extortion is over the top.

But it’s definitely a plus that there’s a new development in the universe. Maybe someday there will be a full-fledged RPG game where everything will be thought out in detail. But now it has not come to this. Also on the plus side is the stable running time. But even with this in mind, you can’t spend much time in the game.