Okay so I wasn't exactly rushing out to buy this one when it launched, but a few months on and I saw it on sale.

You know what? This isn't half bad. Yes it's not running as well as I'd like on Steamdeck (which is more of a Me problem than anything), but 4-5 hours in and the game is doing a tremendous job of transporting me into the wizarding world.

Wandplay feels great, the cutscenes are beautifully animated and the music takes me right back to 2004 when I went to see Chamber of Secrets at the cinema.

Again. I'm only a few hours in, so maybe it completely falls on it's ass, but right now I'm super impressed with what I'm seeing.

update

Okay so I finished the game last night. And whilst I still really enjoyed the 30+ hours I spent with the game I did start to see some of the cracks towards the end, namely in side mission design. The in-Hogwarts lessons especially felt really underwhelming; almost exclusively just fetch quests that lacked verity.

Still. I enjoyed it significantly more than I thought I would, and the game does an absolutely incredible job of setting up it's world and making you feel right at home.