Tons of spoilers or course.

I will say I am both a gamer and a fan of HP (books, movies, video games, and quidditch table top game) and have been doing both since I was little. RPGs, Action, and Adventure games are my fav. I will say I was so excited and anctipating this game all the way from the initial leaks. First, I will say that Avalanche did amazing work and should be commended for their work and detail in building Hogwarts. It was a great environment and truly made me feel special going through those halls.

That being said, everything outside of Hogwarts starts to quickly lose its appeal as it's all basically copy and pasted aspects throughout the whole map. And it's frustrating because some of the stuff is so good.

The set pieces for the camps and stuff were great. All of the large goblin mines/camps (especially the one at the south end of the map before you go to the coast was amazing and very detailed). However, the lack of amount of enemies made them all so meh. Even at the biggest or medium camps you get maybe 6-8 enemies. But because the camp is so wide its so easy to take them out. Doesn't help that the attack patterns aren't varied and not so many enemy types. After awhile it basically is a 4-5 combo move or so and rush in and out and grab the collection chest.

The southern coast section gets introduced much too late in the game. Sure, you can travel there whenever, but given no radiant quests or other epic things there's really no incentive. But I loved the whole region and how packed it was with things to do. But so late in the game. I basically zoomed through it all because I just wanted to finish the side stuff before the last few quests stemming from that area.

Some of the puzzles for the vault were fun (the walking under the archway, chess, the weird box that moved the floor) but they were all mostly empty. Which made it so cringe that the MC would constantly say that he looks like it might be in trouble or danger if he's unprepared. Like, not really. You're there for 3 seconds. Less vaults or maybe unique enemies with different attack patterns would be a cool touch, even if it was just one enemy per vault.

Thr room of requirement felt so unnecessarily limited. Amount of potions, herbology plants, and beasts seemed so small compared to the effort they made you go through for the quests and lessons. Don't get why they didn't let us have 99 of each potion like every other RPG does. And being limited to 12 beasts per vivarium makes breeding kind of meh after awhile even though I did enjoy the interactions.

The talent points and categories should have been more expanded. I think it would be cool to maybe have some options to imbue plants with different element attacks or even more variety like what Skyrim provides even for pure mage characters.

Enemy types are quite limited. I get they were trying to be lore faithful, but I wouldn't have minded if they made up their own enemies. Heck, I remember Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for the Gameboy color having slugs, rats, and other typical RPG enemies. Would have loved to have seen that, even if not true to lore.

Finally, Avalanche in the future don't make it necessary to do playthroughs (even if short) of all four houses to get a platinum trophy when there is no variety in the quests for the houses. I wouldn't be mad at all if it was reach a certain point as each house member, but also getting to experience House unique quests. Could be a way to interact with the common rooms more often and people in your house. By the time I got to the House Cup ceremony and my house members were celebrating around me, I was like who are these people? Why y'all close?

At the end of the day HL reminds me so much of 2018 God of War. A great foundation, but some limits that bring it down (although GoW was still leagues better). I do hope Avalanche learns from Santa Monica and builds and branches from the solid foundation that they have for their next game.

Def a 7.5-8/10 range.

P.S. Fix all your bugs and glitches Avalanche! I swear the further I gamed the more the game lagged, stuttered, visual glitches, random crashes, missing progress, etc. Heck, the field guide patch came out last week and I still csnt get the collectors trophy cuz my accio field guide page is still glitches in the Bell Tower Wing.

P.P.S whoever did the storyline and set pieces for the ps5 exclusive quest with the shop and mannequin.... Make them all do more work on other stuff! Best quest. Period.