Harry Potter: years 1-4 is the fourth film franchise to be turned into a lego video game. It encompasses, at its heart, the same mechanics as its predecessors; collecting studs, unlocking characters and making your way through the stories we all know and love. Being a veteran to the format already, the care and treatement Traveller's Tales have given to other titles, has always been impressive. But even so, there was a slight fear going into this game, being that Harry Potter is a series I hold dear. My apprehensions were proven to be unfounded; the game is beautiful and has been given a level of care and attention that clearly outs the makers as uber fans.
The gameplay and functions are simple. If you've played one of the past LEGO games (Star Wars, Batman or Indiana Jones) it is nigh-on identical in the way you approach the game. To those new to this format, it is easy to pick-up. You go through each of the Harry Potter films (1-4) using lego versions of the chacters, casting various spells to solve an assortment of puzzles that lie in your way. This on average takes around 9 hours, however, to acquire all the coins and studs (versus just running the narrative right through) would probably take a lot longer.
The spell system allows for greater in-depth gameplay allowing you to cast all the well-known spells from the series and adding some new ones of their own, while each character keeps its individual skills/personality from the books. For example, Harry can fly better than anyone else, Ron can utilise Scabbers and Hermione can solve riddles with her book knowledge. This small care and attention to the characters of the series, underlines how keyed in Traveller's Tales are, in terms of their understanding of the characters. The classic Harry Potter scores are also all in place, driving and leading the atmosphere, again adding great depth to the game.
Hogwarts itself is the main place of the gameplay, and taking the designs from the films, it feels very much like a real place, living, breathing, and although in brick form, it felt a far more solid Hogwarts, than that of the older Harry Potter video games. I don’t know whether it is the ability to use spells on your fellow students, or just the sheer amount of things to do around the castle, it just felt very much like a much more immersive experience.
The best factor about the game is the cut-scenes. Hilarious doesn't come close to describing them. Again, they show just how aware Traveller's Tales are, both of the world they've created and key moments that fans adore. The humour very clearly comes from a place of love.
On the whole, it's not a challenging game - but then it doesn't purport to be. Harry Potter Y1-4 does what it's supposed to do; it runs through the first four stories, allowing you to play different characters, using different spells along the way, providing great interactive environments and clips to keep you both entertained and informed. It certainly shouldn't be written off as 'just another piece of Potter merchandise'. Lego Harry Potter brings a freshness to the series and provides the opportunity to look back on the stories with great affection. Anybody who doesn't buy it, is frankly missing out on a lot of fun! More fool them!
Special mention: Thanks to my good friend, Tim, with whom I played this game for the first time, who provided a lot of feedback for this review.
The LEGO game, out now, can be ordered via the following links:
Amazon.com:
Amazon.co.uk:
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Review: LEGO Harry Potter Years 1-4 video game 
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