LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 First Look

by Greg Miller - IGN.com | 29 January 2010 12:00
 
Wands at the ready, first-year.
 
After seeing LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 in action for the first time, two things stand out to me. First, the game is really visually appealing. I know LEGO games have always used cute characters and bright colors as a whole, but this one has some great set pieces and detail. Diagon Alley is popping with color and twisted buildings; there are the familiar paintings on the walls of Hogwarts, but they've been LEGO-ized; and Hogwarts looks pretty slick as you run through its stone corridors and assemble LEGO suits of armor. Second, LEGO Harry Potter feels more like a traditional game than any of the LEGO games I've played before.
 
Now, that's not a subtle shot at the Star Wars, Batman, or Indiana Jones -- games that have paved the way for this title. It's just pointing out how much this format has evolved. Back when you'd put LEGO Star Wars in, you could just jump into whatever episode of the movie you wanted. Batman amended this a bit because it was an original story, but you still had the large overworld where you'd run around with little direction as to where things were and why they were there.
 

Click and watch Harry in all his glory. That isn't how it works in LEGO Potter; you're going to play through the events of Harry's first four years at Hogwarts, covering the events of Sorcerer's Stone, Chamber of Secrets, Prisoner of Azkaban, and Goblet of Fire. As you do, you're going to mature just like the young wizard. You'll need to go to classes to learn spells, those spells will get more and more powerful as you keep studying, and you'll gain access to otherwise inaccessible parts of Hogwarts as the years go by.
 
Basically, you're playing Harry's life... but it's all told via LEGO blocks.
 
The norms you'd expect from a LEGO game are all here. When the cutscene of Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall and Hagrid dropping Harry on the doorstep of the Dursleys plays, the characters stick with LEGO tradition and don't speak outside of grunts and groans. There were plenty of jokes as Dumbledore stopped to talk to a cat that he thought was McGonagall only to have the shapeshifting teacher walk up next to him.
 
The uber-secret red bricks are back and hidden around the levels and when you find them here, you have to get them to the Owl Post. Once the owls fly the goods back to Diagon Alley, you can return and buy them with the studs you're earning. Stud-packed Gold Bricks are here, too, but to get them, you'll have to pull off little tasks throughout the world and unlock quarters to the Hogwarts crest. Assemble an entire crest, and you'll get the goods.
 

Look at those skills!

What do these tasks entail? Well, during my hands-off preview, Harry and Hagrid stopped in Diagon Alley to hit up the bank and buy some school supplies. While running around collecting studs and working on co-op platforms that used Hagrid's magic to lift picnic tables carrying Harry into the sky, the duo came across a cauldron in the middle of the street. Now, you'll be able to make potions in these pots, but seeing as how Harry's been raised as a Muggle, he has no idea how to make anything. You run around picking up spiders and other ingredients before tossing them into the bubbling stew, and when the stuff's all in there, the pot erupts and hurls green goo all over the street. Switch back to Hagrid, and you can use the little bit of magic he knows to assemble a walking broom contraption that Harry can ride. Clean up the gunk, and you get your first puzzle piece. There are going to be oodles of little tasks to do like the goo clean-up. At one point, a student was sleeping in the Gryffindor common room, Harry waved his wand at him, and the couch ate the snoozing student before spitting him back out like a compacted cube of trash. This was an example of a "student in peril." These events are all over the school, and Harry can earn studs by saving the day. With the couch kid, Potter waved his wand and restored him to glory. When Harry came across some kids zapping a first-year in the courtyard, he defended the little one and the bullies ran off.
 

Look at how young they were!

Making the most of your magic is what this game is all about. Harry can lift things with Leviosa (there's a mini-game where you pick up, spin, and hurl gnomes all over the Weasely lawn) and freeze baddies with an immobilize spell (key to getting by the pixies in Hogwarts). These charms (and a whole bunch more) will always be with Harry after he's learned them. That is, rather than have to find a special suit or something in a level to get past a section a la Batman, Harry has all of his spells with him. You come to something that needs to be levitated, bring up your spell wheel with the click of a button, choose Levisoa, and aim at your target with the scar icon on the screen. It seems like it'll be a breeze, and eventually, you'll have the power to run around turning other kids into frogs and rats.
 
Take that, Luna!
 
Outside of general charms classes and such, each year will consist of six touchstone missions you'll recognize right away. Advancing from our trip down Diagon Alley, my demo jumped to Hermione crying in the bathroom. A Mountain Troll appeared from a stall, walked to the sink, washed his hands, and then roared at the little lady. Harry and Ron showed up, and the fight was on.
 
At another point, we relived Harry and company learning to use their broomsticks. Yes, you'll fly in Harry Potter, and it seems pretty solid. The camera stays anchored in one spot and pans to follow the action. You'll move Harry left and right, and if you want to ascend, you'll hit the jump button, but gravity will be pulling you back down if you don't keep hitting it. This wasn't the breakneck speed you see in the movies -- of course this was his first lesson, so who knows -- but it seemed like a welcome change of LEGO pace to me.
 
Here is as good a point as any to tell you that like the LEGO game that came before Harry Potter, you'll still be able to switch around onscreen characters at will. Thing is, these wizards all have different talents and magic. Young Harry's pretty weak in terms of spells and such, Hermione isn't the best broom rider (she'll spin around in a circle during that first lesson if you take control of her), and Hagrid's umbrella can only do so much. Luckily, there are more than 100 characters unlock and play as – villains included – so it should be interesting to see who rounds out the roster and just how powerful they are.
 
Although Warner Brothers and Traveller's Tales weren't willing to confirm who those bad guys would be, I did get to see Harry begin reading Tom Riddle's diary and get put into a flashback. Here, Riddle's talking to Dumbledore and Harry's listening in. Everything happening in the flashback has a grainy filter on it so that you know it's the memory while Harry is in the LEGO trademark popping Technicolor to signify he's from the present. In this throwback level, Harry has to work with Tom to finish the tasks at hand and advance the story.
 
Of course, LEGO Harry Potter supports local co-op play so you can have a friend drop in and out of you game at will; the game uses the new split-screen option from LEGO Indy so that players can run around on their own and not get in each other's way like when they shared one screen. If you're playing on the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360, online co-op is supported as well, but this feature isn't in the other versions of the game. A nice addition to this iteration of the LEGO franchise is that Traveller's Tales has the soundtrack from the Harry Potter movies on hand, so expect to have the full Hogwarts experience even on the audio level.
 

If it's shiny, you want it.

I played a bit of LEGO Batman, but never went nuts for it like I did LEGO Star Wars. Meanwhile, I kind of avoided LEGO Indy because I wasn't that into the Harrison Ford franchise. However, I like Harry Potter quite a bit, and this game seems to have it down pat. The humor is there as the Sorting Hat puts kids in the houses they need to be, the ability to have all of your spells with you sounds great, and the game really looks slick and colorful. Fans will have to wait until May to get their hands on Hogwarts, but LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 looks like it might be worth the wait.
 
Supplied by IGN.com