So I Really Have to Save Draco Malfoy?
Thankfully you won't have to eat any Bertie Bott's Jelly Beans in LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7.
Published: December 5, 2011
I’ll be the first to admit that I was one of those rabid fan girls that had to preorder all the Harry Potter books (dusters being professionally covered). I was the one that you saw sitting outside in the cold dressed like Beatrix waiting for the midnight movie viewing. So when Scott came home from the office and mentioned they recently received a copy of LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7 it was destiny; or everyone already had their fair share of LEGO gaming experience courtesy of Traveller’s Tales.
The game picked up perfectly from where LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 had left off which left me in a bit of a bind. It had been awhile since I had played the last game so I had a bit of trouble relearning the controls and it wasn’t until the year six that I remembered what Hedwig was used for or that Lumos was used on plants. The instructional pamphlet that was a total of two pages not helping the situation at all, so I did what I do best and winged it.
The gameplay is more memorable than some of the other LEGO games adding in puzzles to the mix of destroying and collecting Lego pieces in this family-friendly rendition of Harry Potter. The cut scenes can be summed up in one word: adorable. Traveller’s Tales has a lot of experience with children’s games and did a good job of getting the point across without any voice acting. The music set the scene and even the inaudible mumbles got the point across. The closest thing to a violent death is a Lego head popping off its body which most kids I know would find hilarious. Even the dark and somber scenes still have an upbeat atmosphere. The slapstick humor will bring a smile to parents and children alike; I even found myself giggling at some parts and I’m not much of a slapstick humor type of girl.
The gameplay consists of puzzle-solving depending on the character’s abilities and each character has different ones. For instance, Hermoine can have her cat, Crookshank, dig up or fit into tunnels to retrieve items. A cute detail they put into the game is Pigwidgeon, Ron’s replacement pet after Scabber’s turned out to be Peter Pettigrew and was turned over to the Dementors. Although Ron’s new pet is an owl he is clumsy, can barely fly, and hops around as means of getting anywhere. Pigwedgeon is practically useless in the game but he provides some good entertainment when the player first brings him out in desperate attempt to solve one of the animal related puzzles. Remus Lupin’s character can change into this not-so-scary, quite adorable werewolf and aid the characters in spots that needed to be dug up or objects that can only be opened by strong characters.
Hogsmead is the center of the story and traveling to Diagon Alley where all the shops are is where characters, spells and blocks can be bought. These items will have to be unlocked in the gameplay and then later on bought. As I said before there are a lot of different puzzles to solve depending on the characters abilities. Some of these abilities the player will not unlock until later in the playthrough and other puzzles like those needing dark magic will have to be solved in a second playthrough of the area.
The game picked up perfectly from where LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 had left off which left me in a bit of a bind. It had been awhile since I had played the last game so I had a bit of trouble relearning the controls and it wasn’t until the year six that I remembered what Hedwig was used for or that Lumos was used on plants. The instructional pamphlet that was a total of two pages not helping the situation at all, so I did what I do best and winged it.
The gameplay is more memorable than some of the other LEGO games adding in puzzles to the mix of destroying and collecting Lego pieces in this family-friendly rendition of Harry Potter. The cut scenes can be summed up in one word: adorable. Traveller’s Tales has a lot of experience with children’s games and did a good job of getting the point across without any voice acting. The music set the scene and even the inaudible mumbles got the point across. The closest thing to a violent death is a Lego head popping off its body which most kids I know would find hilarious. Even the dark and somber scenes still have an upbeat atmosphere. The slapstick humor will bring a smile to parents and children alike; I even found myself giggling at some parts and I’m not much of a slapstick humor type of girl.
The gameplay consists of puzzle-solving depending on the character’s abilities and each character has different ones. For instance, Hermoine can have her cat, Crookshank, dig up or fit into tunnels to retrieve items. A cute detail they put into the game is Pigwidgeon, Ron’s replacement pet after Scabber’s turned out to be Peter Pettigrew and was turned over to the Dementors. Although Ron’s new pet is an owl he is clumsy, can barely fly, and hops around as means of getting anywhere. Pigwedgeon is practically useless in the game but he provides some good entertainment when the player first brings him out in desperate attempt to solve one of the animal related puzzles. Remus Lupin’s character can change into this not-so-scary, quite adorable werewolf and aid the characters in spots that needed to be dug up or objects that can only be opened by strong characters.
Hogsmead is the center of the story and traveling to Diagon Alley where all the shops are is where characters, spells and blocks can be bought. These items will have to be unlocked in the gameplay and then later on bought. As I said before there are a lot of different puzzles to solve depending on the characters abilities. Some of these abilities the player will not unlock until later in the playthrough and other puzzles like those needing dark magic will have to be solved in a second playthrough of the area.
