I’ll be honest with you for a second… when I saw Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions coming, I thought to myself: “great, another shameless cash grab.” I thought to myself, how would this even work? We’ll just have seven players all trying to catch the snitch, with the rest of the game forgotten.
Everyone knows whoever catches the Snitch usually wins, so why not just focus on that?
Boy, was I wrong. I’ve already sunk a few hours in, and I can tell you that this game is a lot of fun. Yeah, I’ve loved the Harry Potter universe since reading the first four books, and then waiting for what felt like forever for the last three books. But all of that aside, this is kind of a good game.
I’ll take you though the good, the bad, and the surprising. Let’s go.
The Single Player experience – Career Mode
The first aspect of the game is the Career Mode, which takes you from the Weasley’s back yard all the way to the Quidditch World Cup, and it’s honestly pretty good, if a bit easy. Higher difficulty levels are unlocked as you go, however, and
The initial stages are all about learning what Quidditch is. If you’ve picked up a Harry Potter game and you don’t know… well, I guess that’s actually okay. Quidditch is for everyone, after all!
The gameplay is certainly fun, with some good loops and rewarding animations. Obviously, catching the snitch is the best experience of them all. It’s also set up really well, with every position in the game feeling important.
Scoring a goal nets you ten points, like in the the real Harry Potter universe. Catching the Snitch — which is only released after some game time — only nets you thirty points. This also restarts the phase of play, and you do it all over again.
The first cups are a little silly, especially the Tri-wizard cup. Only three teams? Am I the only one who would have loved to see an Octo-wizard cup? That could’ve been fun, with group stages and such. Yeah, there would be five never-before-seen schools, but surely there are plenty of wizarding schools across the world? Can’t just be the three.
Anyway, things become more fun at the world cup.
The Quidditch World Cup is actually quite fun
The Quidditch World Cup has sixteen teams to choose from, and I’m currently not sure whether this is based on your own location. South Africa is there, and I’m not used to seeing my home country included in games like this!
The World Cup takes you through a group of four teams for seeding, and then into the bracket, which includes a Quarter-final, a Semi-final, and a Final. It’s pretty fun, but still a tad easy. The problem is not the difficulty level — that does get more satisfying as time goes by. The Snitch becomes trickier, Bludgers become harder to dodge, but the AI team stays a bit stupid.
They have real trouble scoring, and as long as you upgrade your seeker first and keep catching the Snitch, you don’t really have anything to worry about.
I need to finish this world cup to unlock the final difficulty, and give the jumps, that should be real fun.
Let’s talk about Multiplayer
Multiplayer is something to get used to. You can bet that, right now, matches will be pretty competitive — and they are. But soon enough, players will become more skilled and, as with many games, the barrier to actually enjoying online lobbies will rise quickly.
There’s no ranking system in the game yet, but it could certainly benefit from one. Currently, you play with two other players against three opponents. It would be even better if, in future, we saw teams of seven compete against each other. Sure, the Keeper might not have too much to do some games, but the tactical planning aspect could sure present a small gameplay loop that keeps the Keeper engaged.
Seekers could act as blockers while the Snitch is off the field, and once it launches they can return to their usual job.
This would certainly add a good amount of esports potential to this simple game. Even with three players, however, I can see this catching on. There’s a fair bit of skill involved here.
But is the multiplayer experience any good?
I mentioned that multiplayer is something to get used to. That’s because the timing on everything seems to change a bit. You have to be that little bit faster. It could be my consistent 180 ping that I play all my games with, given my location, but it still feels a little sluggish.
Other than that, however, it’s actually really good. I expected a lot less from this game, and I can certainly see myself sinking my teeth in for a while.
So, what’s the verdict?
Overall, I’m pretty happy to give this game a solid 6/10. It’s worth playing, that’s for sure. But I can also see the fun fading a little fast. There’s an aspect of grind here, so you can improve your brooms, your players, and so on.
And, of course, unlock all of those sweet cosmetics.
If you’re a Potter-head, grab it now. There are enough cameo’s from the Potter universe to make it worth playing, even if just for a few days. It’ll be a game you pick up every now and then to play with friends, but beyond that, I don’t see much else here (yet).
A good meaty update could definitely provide us with a few more hours of fun but… will that update come in the form of paid DLC?
Probably.
For now, once you’ve won the cups on the highest difficulty level — which will only take you a day or two — multiplayer is all that’s left. Let’s hope more layers get added to the game. What those layers look like, I don’t know. But I bet you Unbroken Studios and Warner Bros. Games might have some ideas.
They’ve done a fantastic job with a fairly small title here, and I’m genuinely impressed.
Next question… does Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions have crossplay and cross-progression?
Published: Sep 4, 2024 06:53 am