David Sykes

Hogwarts Legacy is cringe inducing from start to finish with corny dialogue and writing, and a really boring storyline but it's even awful on a technical and gameplay level. 10 years ago, this game would have been impressive but the 'open world' is repetitive and bland, and weirdly limiting. It's full of loading screens between each area and there's even a spinning loading icon that pops up while you wait for the doors of the castle open when you go from an inside to an outside area of the castle (even on performance mode on ps5). Instead of an actual open world, it's split into a series of different maps that are clearly unconnected so even wandering into a cave means you're pulled into a loading screen before a completely new map loads. Whereas the Red Dead Redemption or Horizon series have everything seamlessly transitioning to make it wll feel big and real and inspiring, this is like a throwback to Fable 2 (2008) but without the dog and certainly without the witty dialogue. The gameplay is dull as well. Combat is ok but repetitive and while you'd hope that flying a broom or riding a hippogriff might be some magical experience, it's really not. Hogwarts is pretty enough but it just sits there and flying around it exposes countless invisible walls and the inside is quite disappointing - the 'moving staircases' have a very lazy animation and don't move as they do in the books or films, the great hall is strangely lifeless and you seem to spend most of your time walking through the same areas again and again, hearing the same corny dialogue and the same bit of music over and over and over and over.... Oh and the dialogue really is awful, whether it's the incidental chatter of the students (and you'll see dozens of people hanging around with identical copies of themselves because there are so few character models) or the terrible voice acting and the lines of the main character who I grew to absolutely hate. It also plays out every trope and cliche around - for example - bad guys almost all speak with regional dialects while the good guys are prim and proper.... It's really quite offensive when you notice it. I could go on with things I dislike about this game but the reason I'm writing this is because I was lured into giving it a go by the many outstanding reviews it's had.... It's one of the best selling games of this generation after all! But if people are playing this and thinking 'this is the pinnacle of modern gaming' they need to give their head a wobble. There's even a side mission where you need to dive into the Hogwarts lake to find some treasure and the game doesn't even let you swim underwater... You just paddle along the surface to some bubbles and press the action button.... Wtf!!??? I did enjoy Harry Potter when I was younger and I liked the Fantastic Beasts films too... But this has made me firmly close the book (lol) on the franchise. And don't even get me started on the limited inventory!

Probably the best Star Wars since Rogue One - more fresh and interesting than it has been for a very long time. Great acting, slick direction, gorgeous cinematography and a story that had me hooked. I do not understand the negativity, I loved this show (and hated Ahsoka) and can't wait for more.

Probably the worst big-budget Star Wars. Almost every scene is lacklustre and acting is mostly deadpan, as if noone is interested in anything that's happening. It hugely relies on you having seen the Disney XD animated series, Rebels (which I enjoyed more than this). The overall plot could have been delivered in one 90 minute movie, rather than 8 hours and it'd have been much better for it

Ridiculously low metacritic and rotten tomatoes ratings for this movie: It's an incredible end to the Star Wars saga which has been made all the better for this brilliant addition to it. A deservedly epic, heartwarming and heartbreaking movie which builds on all eight films before it. Maybe it's one for Star Wars fans, rather than a casual viewer, but it was the perfect end to the series!