Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Platform: Nintendo DS
ESRB: E 10+
Genre: Third Person Action/Adventure
Number of Players: 1
Publisher: Electronic Arts (EA)
Release Date: June 30, 2009
Official Website

Basic Idea as I See It – Playing as Harry Potter, this game takes players around Hogwarts, completing tasks and finding various items for friends and other students. There are bits of story in between the sets of missions that closely follow the movie, and a great many mini games to provide distraction and variety along the way. There are also opportunities to brew potions, duel schoolmates (Slytherins), learn charms, and collect wizard cards, gobstones, chess pieces, and butterbeer which can be used to swap for important objects to help complete the tasks at hand.

Graphics: As far as the characters and familiar rooms go, they do vaguely resemble their movie counterparts. Though, since it’s on the DS and they are so small, that’s a pretty good feat in and of itself. The colors are pretty representative of the feel of Hogwarts and the feel of the movie. All of the students from their respective houses are different colors on the map, which is helpful for some of the missions. Sometimes it is easier to look at the map to move Harry around the different stairs and obstacles than looking at the scene screen. Overall, though, the game is pleasant to look at and does take players in to the wizarding world as much as it can on such a small screen.

Sounds: Occasionally the background music did get to me a little bit and stayed in my head all day. During the quidditch matches the music did induce a sort of stressful frenzy that stressed the urgency of scoring and catching the snitch. I thought the sounds of casting spells and mixing potions were fitting, as were those in the mini games. it would have been nice to have some voice or more dramatic sound (with the visual limitations of the DS) perhaps during the movie moments between times of playing. For the most part, the sounds are pleasant and contribute somewhat to the feel of being at Hogwarts, though I would have liked more.

Controls – Controls in this game are pretty straightforward, though slightly more complicated than point and click. Moving Harry around can either be done with the stylus or the t-bar. I generally used the stylus because that’s what is used for charms casting, potions brewing, and mini games. I found that, in the moments where the stylus was particularly ineffective in getting Harry to go where I wanted him to go, either because touching Harry with the stylus brings out other options or because the stylus didn’t seem to work around the edges of the screen, the t-bar got me through. Of course, there were the temporarily frustrating moments where, while trying to get butterbeer out of a spiderweb or chess pieces from underneath a tapestry, Harry would go back out of the room or cast a different charm, or it was a little more difficult to see where he was running in two dimensions, or I couldn’t quite pick up the bottle of unicorn hair to shake it up for the potion to induce euphoria, but not nearly as many as I was expecting. Also, like I said, sometimes it helped to have the map open in the top screen to help navigate Harry from a different perspective. What I would have liked to control occasionally is the zoom aspect of view. Sometimes in certain rooms, such as the Great Hall, Harry gets so far away, and therefore so small, that touching the right person to talk to with the stylus does become more challenging, as does simply moving him around, because it’s difficult not to touch him or other things around him while trying to direct his motion. It would have been easier from the players’ perspective to be able to get in closer when the game didn’t do that automatically (or change perspective, for that matter, to better look around the room, though the map helped with that). My DSi is still, admittedly, novel to me, though, too. So, I also had fun using the different control mechanisms, which the game took full advantage of. I think that my favorite was blowing the smoke off of overheated potions.

Flow – Excellent. The adventure and story segments flowed seamlessly into one another. Having the mini games an optional part of the journey available at any time and giving the option to use stink pellets in lieu of dueling only add to that, giving players complete control of their experience. For me, completing the tasks seemed more pressing while playing that I often opted to pass by mini game opportunities (realizing the option to return to the room and play at anytime). After completing the adventure, though, players are plunked back into Hogwarts for and endless day to complete some mini game trials, collect all the necessary potions ingredients, brew more, find all the famous quidditch player cards, and achieve the mini games trophies.

Fun Factor – I had fun playing this game. I like the idea of being able to brew potions and cast spells and duel. I liked recognizing things from the movie in the game, and the variety of types of play offered, from the matching pairs of exploding snap, to the missions, to measuring, stirring, and heating potions, to aiming gobstones, to the shooting aspect of fighting death eaters to name a few. The only thing that interrupted my fun was having to duel all of Harry’s friends. To me, that was strange… Other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed a little escape from muggle existence.

Female Aspect – Though players play as Harry, the other known strong characters from the stories (ie. Hermione and Bellatrix) still play an important role, and there seems to be an even mix of witches and wizards in the environment both to help and provide dueling opportunities.

Replay Value – I would say this is pretty high. I do plan on playing more. I don’t think I will necessarily play the entire adventure mode again, but I will continue to brew potions and search for the remainder of items and talk with others in the endless day mode. Even after I take the cartridge out of my DSi, I may put it in again for some quidditch, exploding snap, or gobstones.

Final Thoughts – Being a Harry Potter fan and a proud owner of a new Nintendo DSi, I was really looking forward to trying out this game. And I will say that, though I was not blown away, I was not disappointed either. Though it’s difficult for me to separate it from the Harry Potter world I adore, I can see its merit simply as a game in and of itself as well. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince offers a good variety of light hearted gaming. Being at Hogwarts, well that’s a bonus.

Buy it Now!