Game #1310: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone(Gameboy Advance)

 Magic, stealth and stars.

 More bits, means a better game, right? Well, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone on the GBA is here to show you why you should stay with the GBC version of the game! Eh, I'm being a bit unfair, as this is a completely different game, taking the form of an over-the-top adventure game.

 Much like the previous game, I have to mention that I really dig this game's art design, as it comes from a place before the movies had actually come out and the developers didn't have the technology, or the material(Photos, etc), to stick close to the movies. It's a bit less whacky than the GBC version, but you'll come across all sort of weird pictures hanging on walls and what not. It's interesting. It's also interesting how it shuffles events around, but hey, who's keeping track?

 While it's presented as an adventure game, and exploration is rewarded with goodies such as permanent health upgrades... you are actually railroaded into going wherever the game wants you to. Got a new spell and want to try opening a chest in the dungeons? Tough luck, you have to wait until the game unlocks that door again. Prefects will regularly block your way, and doors get chained up so that you can't backtrack unless the game wants you to. It made me feel quite bitter actually, what's the point of getting new spells if I can't go back and try them out on places I remember having stuff I couldn't open or reach? It's not as if it's for the players' benefit as not to get lost, since the map clearly tells you where you need to be.

 While you get a bunch of spells, most of the puzzles are about pushing stuff with Flipendo. The other spells basically act as keys to obstacles/doors, so you don't need to spend much brain power figuring out how to proceed. That said, the forbidden forest section is awful, since you need to walk through fake walls and what not. It wasn't challenging, it wasn't fun, it was just... annoying. Lumos gets the prize as the most useless spell in the game, since you need to regularly use it to light up the environment. It's not a puzzle, it's just an inconvenience on the player, and it's not as if you came across dark rooms before that you can now access, oh no, the moment you get Lumos is the moment you start to need to use it. It's so dumb.

 The game is quite repetitive too, every time you learn a spell you need to play dull Simon Says minigames, and after every spell you enter a challenge room in which you have to collect 6 stars. It doesn't make much sense. Another time you need to guide worms using a flute towards Hagrid, which makes no sense story-wise, and it felt like such a tedious chore. And don't even let me get started on moving platforms. There's no jumping, but if you the platform is a pixel away from the floor and you touch that pixel you fall down and you have to restart the entire challenge room again.

 And don't even let me get started on how unwieldy the flight controls are, and the stealth is so annoying. As you play the game you are awarded, or substracted, how points. It's cute, since you can use Flipendo on students, for flavor text, but using it on teachers will cost you house points!... but then, it's so easy to lose House Points to the stupid stealth sections. What's worse, sometimes it's not clear that you are in a stealth section, like when going to rescue Hermione from the troll, there's a single student nearby, and if it touches you... you lose points. To be fair, House Points only change the ending, I think, and it's a lame ending whether you get the House Cup or not, but I still didn't want to lose points to garbage like this.

 I'll tell you this, however, despite how many gripes I have with the game, I still enjoyed walking through Hogwarts. Finding secret stuff and using spells to navigate the environment was enjoyable too, the game has a certain... whimsical quality to it, a certain je ne se quois that made the overall game not be as terrible as some of its parts are. 

 4.0