If some big franchises are just a flash in the pan, Harry Potter continues its momentum with books and films that never cease to fascinate the crowds. Difficult to say the same thing about the video game adaptations whose achievements change according to the episodes. If the wizard of Hogwarts has not yet finished with Voldemort in the Deathly Hallows or The Half-Blood Prince, the meetings with the one-whose-we-must-not-pronounce-the-name intensify and our young guy discovers more and more the mysterious secret that binds him more than ever to the formidable wizard. But before this discovery, Harry has a lot to do. First, he has to deal with the jeers resulting from his use of magic in the presence of a Muggle. The case was revealed by the Daily Prophet always ready to put a spoke in the wheels of the sorcerer's apprentice and his Hogwarts academy led by Dumbledore. If only Harry's misadventures stopped there... Like every new year, Hogwarts welcomes a new teacher and in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix you will meet Dolores Umbridge, Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, who beneath her air of an innocent old maid turns out to be a collaborator of Fudge and whose sole purpose is to slow down the progress of wizards while discrediting Dumbledore. Here is in a few words the introduction of this new game / film / book and in order not to spoil the story, we will stop there to discover what the Electronic Arts game is hiding from us.
my beloved wizard
With a few exceptions, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix takes place at Hogwarts, the home of new wizards. Having understood Professor Umbridge's game, Harry accompanied by Ron and Hermione decides to recruit several of their comrades in order to dismiss the teacher. And it's odd jobs in odd jobs that you will manage to assemble Dumbledore's Army ready to do the four hundred blows in the school. Gryffindor obliges, the other houses of Hogwarts and especially Slytherin led by Drago Malvoy will do everything possible to prevent our magician friends from achieving their ends. But that's without counting on the courage and determination of our trio. As the storyline progresses, Harry will discover (or at least review) a few handy spells that all work through manipulations of the right analog stick. Wingardio Leviosa, Accio, Repulso, Reparo, Reducto, Incendio – for defensive spells – and Stupéfix, Rictusempra, Expelliarmus, Protego, Levicorpus and Pretificus Totalus for duels, all these terms are known to all fans of the series and it will take know them by heart to unearth all the secrets of Hogwarts. The old building is full of mysteries linked or not to the main plot and you will have to search all the rooms in order to flush out even a few experience points allowing your magic to gain in power. Returning objects, repairing vases, cleaning up the Gryffindor headquarters, setting the table in the common room or talking to gargoyles, we are not at the end of our surprises, so much so that we lose often the thread of history to discover with some meticulousness Electronic Arts has recreated each piece of the institute. Fortunately for us, Harry is equipped with the Marauder, this famous map that allows you to easily find your way around Hogwarts by solemnly swearing that our intentions are laudable.
blood of blunders
By opening the associated menu, you will discover many game areas to visit and you can choose to indicate such and such a place to get there more easily by following the footprints on the ground, or on the contrary select a character to advance faster in the game. the story. Only, if this map makes it easier to orient yourself, it is quite unreadable and above all lacks seriousness when you are on a mission. For example, when it comes to flushing out an object in a specific room, the Marauder is of no use to you since it indicates the NPC who entrusted you with this task and not the objective itself. Another concern and not the least, especially for young players who tend to skip the dialogues, the Marauder does not give us any information on the objectives to be achieved. In this case, you have to "have fun" scrupulously visiting each room to find the end of the story. A navigation not so pleasant as that in the end which goes hand in hand with a playability without finesse. Selecting an interactive object becomes mission impossible due to not being able to position the camera as we see fit. Certainly the B button allows you to reframe the angle of view behind Harry or to switch to subjective view if it is held longer. But this technique, practical for flushing out puzzles, only works half the time depending on whether you are outside, in a narrow hallway, near a wall, in short everywhere. Truly annoying. These flaws don't stop there and it's hard not to mention Hermione or Ron who constantly block your way because they're on your side. Impossible to turn around on a staircase, you have to climb all the steps to be able to go back the other way. And as for running, again, Harry Potter ceases all activity for unknown reasons while nothing hinders our running. As for the management of magic, if the manipulations are more than childish, the rotations lack flexibility and the slightest degree too much and you make a Wingardium Leviosa rather than a Reparo.
The bonfire of vanities
Of course, from a gameplay point of view, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix lacks both precision and dynamism. It must be admitted that unless you are a fan – and not a Muggle – of Hogwarts, you get bored very quickly in the game of Electronic Arts. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is essentially based on exploration, bringing such an object to such a person, discovering the passwords for each portrait or participating in a lesson with a teacher. In short, to make kilometers to win the legs of it history to accentuate an already very feeble lifespan. However, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix also offers a few duels against charismatic characters from the game but we can count them on the fingers of one hand and their interest is only very limited because they boil down to casting spells faster than his opponent or to execute defensive spells without great difficulty. Besides, there is no game over in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix or at least I haven't seen one. A far too easy game that ends in a few hours unless you stuff yourself with annoying mini-games such as chess, bavboules or explosive cards. There's nothing to whip a spade about. But these little challenges remind us that Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is faithful to the work of Joanne Kathleen Rowling with its own vocabulary, every detail of each room and the presence of the characters of the novel. But the fidelity does not stop in such a good way because Electronic Arts has offered the voices and official music of the film in addition to having modeled the faces of the actors. The main characters were treated to a goldsmith's work at this level, which is not the case for all Hogwarts students who all look alike and who, in the worst case, have a girl's voice so that they have all the male attributes and vice versa. I want to understand that they change but still! As for the graphics engine, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix offers shimmering decors but regularly plunged into blur with very ugly textures and runny colors. The situation gets worse when you leave the school grounds to go say hello to Hagrid, retrieve a lazy owl from the aviary or simply smooch Cho in the Room of Requirement. A jagged achievement that will not satisfy lovers of polished HD.
