Game #1315: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets(Gameboy Advance)

 It's a secret to everybody. 

 I was actually planning on starting with Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets on Gameboy Color, but the battery was dead, kaput, gone.... which is something I solved this very day, regardless, that forced my hand, I had to start with the Gameboy Advance version.

 First impressions were bad, now the game uses an isometrical perspective, and I'm not gonna lie, Harry's new sprite looked too large and dorky, which at first, made me feel as if the game was jankier that the original. It's not, it really isn't. The game plays really well, platforming is kept to a minimum, and what little there is, it's not too bad, considering it's an isometrical game.

 The game is similar to the PS2 version of Philosopher's Stone, as it has some clearly defined dungeons to explore. If anything, they might be a tad too long, which is a negative when save points are sparse. As you go through the game you'll obtain 6 different spells that can be used to explore Hogwarts, as there's a bunch of secrets and goodies you won't have access to from the get go. And exploration is encouraged, since you can increase your maximum health by finding chocolate frog candies. Just as with the previous game there's sneaking and... it's still not very good. Yeah, I didn't enjoy it. It's ironic, 'cause Harry owns an invisibility cape, but in this game it's a rare timed power up. I hate stealth in videogames, what can I say. That aside, the exploration is pretty entertaining and the combat is passable.

 The Quidditch mini-game is the worst yet, the timing for catching the Snitch is all borked up it's not even funny. Catching the Snitch mini-game wasn't half bad in every port I tried of Philosopher's Stone, why this one is so bad is beyond me. The map isn't as useful as it used to be, sure, X marks the spot... as long as you are in the right section, you have no local map, you can only access the map of the zone you are in. At first cycling through items and spells was a bit of a pain, since I had to return to the pause menu, but you can quickly cycle through them by holding down select and pressing the appropriate button.

 While I enjoyed hunting for secrets and what not... Alohamora is just mean. This spell is the only spell you don't automatically obtain as you go through the game, instead you have to randomly press the action button next to a seemingly innocuous wall to produce a lever and find the last item you need to unlock it. I only found it after I looked it up online and had already beaten the game, so while I toyed around with it, finding some of the goodies I missed... I wasn't too invested, since I had already beaten the game.

 Chamber of Secrets on the Gameboy Advance was a pretty decent time. In some ways, it managed to bring the fantastic exploration factor from the console games into the handheld, while not being as tedious as the previous take on the Advance. It was quite decent, despite some minor flaws. This new take on Quidditch can burn in hell for all I care though.

 6.0