Harry Potter Reviews

I initially purchased this wand for my sister's birthday, but ended up going back and buying another for myself. I, like many other ardent Harry Potter fans, couldn't pass up having a wand of my own.

The wand itself makes more than 25 sounds and is much more durable than most things kids use as wands.

If you have small children, I would say this wand is pretty safe. The tip is actually soft and has some bend to it and there are no sharp or pointy ends. You could get this for multiple children and let them duel in the style of Harry Potter. Because there generally isn't any physical contact, they can have as much fun as they would sword or pillow fighting without hurting each other or breaking things in the house.

This wand is a great gift for a child or for any Harry Potter fan. In its own small way, the owner can feel a taste of the magic that is Harry Potter.

I have not built or bought this set yet but I am going to get it as soon as I can and so should you! My favorite part about this set is the fact that it has buckbeak. The tower opens and there is a secret chest inside. I HIGHLY RECOMEND THIS SET, WORTH THE MONEY.

i just bought this today at my local target and what do i have to say his toy is wonderful!~ The only thing thats bad is the Bogart box. the dementor reminds me of a garbage bag with air in it, but everything else with this toy is cool. Remember buy batteries!!!

This game is really loads of fun to play! EA did a great job in developing it. The matches are fast paced, and this game can be played by any gamer due to four difficulty levels. The tutorial-like challenges and easier games at Hogwarts help prepare you for the World Cup, which is more like an entire season of quidditch. The Hogwarts challenges were kind of easy at first, but they gave me quite a lot of practice on 2 or 3 challenges with school records that were pretty hard to beat.

The addition of special moves and combos was a great idea, because they add plenty of excitement to the gameplay. Before I bought the game I was worried that I wouldn't be able to handle playing all of the different positions at the same time, but the quidditch games flow seamlessly. You mainly use your chasers to play, and when the option comes up, your beaters may help you regain possesion of the quaffle. The important boosting power of your seeker depends on how well you play as your chasers, and how many combos you pull off. It sounds weird, but it becomes almost subconcious if you practice a lot.

The only problems I have is the inability to control your goal keeper while the enemy team is trying to score, and the lack of fouls. I guess I can understand why there are no fouls though-- the games would take way too long. It already takes me 3-4 hours to complete the 16 match World cup with one team, and that's only on Comet 260 level...

I like the instrumental opening theme, but the sound could be better-- hearing Ludo Bagman say "I'm sorry to cut you off there, but that was an amazing tackle!" over and over again can get a bit tedious... but the visuals are amazing! My personal favorite stadium is The Nordic Team stadium, as there is an Auroroa Borealis display! I couldn't believe it the first time I saw it!

I recommend this game as a must buy! There's alot to do, especially because of the quidditch cards to collect for completing certain objectives, so you're not likely to get bored with this soon!

In my head, I've been clamoring for this game since I first read through the Potter books in 2001. Quidditch is simply too well-realized a sport not to enjoy a video game incarnation; now, finally, we Muggles can play it whenever we wish.

From the first tutorial training challenges, Quidditch World Cup is immensely satisfying. The character animations and special effects are breathtaking, always worth the brief cutscene following any special move. Controlling the three chasers (the only position over which you have direct control until the end of a match) is simple and intuitive, though passing can get tricky at times. Whacking a bludger at an opposing chaser is always a sadisitic good time, and chasing down the snitch at the end of the match is appropriately exciting.

Are there problems with Quidditch World Cup? Absolutely. Most glaring is the utter lack of customization options, a staple for any respectable sports title. There is no way to slow down or speed up the snitch meter (when the meter fills up, the snitch chase begins, thus ending the match), and no storage of team or player statistics. These are minor gripes, and EA has plenty of time to resolve them in a sequel. All in all, these problems would probably only be an issue to non-Potter fans, who won't buy the game anyway.

All said and done, Quidditch World Cup is a charming and addictive realization of the fictional sport. And seeing as it's the only way any of us is ever going to get to take a turn on a Firebolt, it's at the very least a must-rent for Potter fans.

I am almost sure that you will love this game, weather you are a die-hard Harry Potter fan or just looking for a enjoyable game.

This was a great find for my 6 yr old son. He loves Harry Potter and was thrilled with the robe, wand, glasses and stickers. The robe was a nice soft material, not that itchy stuff that costumes are usually made of. The glasses were made with real glass and metal, not cheap plastic. The wand is plastic, but still pretty durable. My son wore the scar tattoo and was thrilled he was "just like Harry Potter".

The costume came in a nice box, and for $13.88 was a great deal! My kids are still playing with it even after Halloween.

I purchased this as a halloween costume for my 5-yr old son and he absolutely loves it. He runs through the house casting spells with the wand that comes with it. The glasses are made with real glass lenses so you need to be carefull with them.The only problem we had with it was the clasps for the robe that came with the set were flimsy and the glue that is used to hold the decoration onto them is very weak. All in all, this was great fun for my son!!

This was a great find for my son's trick or treating, despite it's quality. He is fascinated by Harry Potter. The kit includes a robe, wand, glasses and stickers. The stickers don't really fit with the set and should be played with separately, but a nice bonus. The wand is decent quality, simulated wood grain plastic. The glasses are quite huge on my 4 yr old as is the cape. The cape itself is of good quality, but needs hemmed...big time. The clasp came unglued immediately and needed fixed. Overall a good value and comes with a box, which I guess for the avid collector is a bonus. This was on sale for $13.88 which made it a better deal. Beware when you find accessories...scarf, tie, vest to complete the set...they're not as cheap.

This game is much better than what most people are putting in their reviews for this game. It is terrific! Sure, chess is long, which is why I put 4 stars. Also, in the areas where there is a lot of plastic, it's strong, but weak in areas like the knight's mace and the top of the bishop's staff (3 stars). And for the one at the very top that said there were no instructions and that you have to glue the board together, that person obviously bought a phony one.

Any game that gets children to think, as chess does, is obviously a great idea. That said, the pieces to this game are soft plastic and easily ruined. The board is cardboard, of course. This is just not a very well made toy. There are so many other nice chess sets out there for about the same price, that are of MUCH higher quality. Too bad the HP franchise chose to lend its name to this one.

It really irritates me to read the reviews about the perceived lack of quality of the game. For the price it is wonderful. If you want a better quality (stone or heavy pieces and quality board) game you are going to have to PAY MORE for it. Quit complaining!

We bought this toy at the full price a couple of Christmases ago, and did have a lot of fun with it. (...) Even the adults had to have a go at it.

I bought this game for my son who is 7 and really into Harry Potter and he loves it. I must say it IS really cool! I've never seen a game like this before and it really works well. The ball levitates and you have to create your own obstacle course for it to go through. The "professor's" voice is realistic sounding and the game was not very hard to assemble at all. It requires 3 C sized batteries. The player can adjust the height of the ball as required, my son picked it up right away and does pretty well with it. You can also play this with more than one player to compete against each other(. . .) I highly recommend this game for the Harry Potter enthusiasts in your life!

Oh my gosh this game is SOOO fun!!! My boy got this for his 7th birthday and I want to play more than him!!! Him and my other son (who's 4) are loving this game. It teaches coordination because you need 2 hands,,,,you have to control the height of the ball as well as how fast it moves forward while manuevering it through the maze. You can change the maze to easy or hard and it talks to you telling you at the end how long it took and what you ended up "Head Master, Sorcerer, Keep practicing" etc. I would HIGHLY recommend this game. VERY VERY fun!!!!!

I'm going to start off by coming right out and saying that I played the first two titles in this franchise, and enjoyed them both. I've read the books, seen the movies, and have enjoyed (for the most part) the games. So as you read this review, appreciate that I'm not coming down on Harry Potter himself, nor am I slighting the world that Rowling has created in the books, and Warner Bros. have put to the screen. Nor am I even taking undo shots at the great and mighty Electronic Arts, although they deserve a few for getting a little lazy with this most recent addition to the line of Potter gaming titles.

First and foremost, let me air my chief complaint. You don't play Quidditch. Not once. In fact, you never touch a broom. The Quidditch matches are reduced to a static cut scene, where you're simply holding the Quidditch Cup. The cynic in me suspects that EA left it out to help drive sales of their stand-alone Quidditch title. But none of the speculation matters, it's simply not there.

My second issue is this game is exceptionally short. I'm not sure how long it took me to finish each of the first two, but it was longer (in each case) than the 5 hours or so it took me to play this one from start to finish. That's not braggadocio. I mean, for one, we're talking about a game in the Harry Potter franchise that has to be something that can appeal to, and be completed by, a wide age and ability range of gamers. So 'easy' isn't an issue here, particularly since a game like this isn't so much something you get for a challenge, but rather an opportunity to sort of live a little bit of Hogwarts. For another, I enjoy getting off the beaten path a bit in games. So this wasn't a case where I just raced through, I collected the pages, cards and beans (although there was really no point to it -- in the last title you spent beans on trinkets Ron's brothers had for sale, not so here). I played the side games, made sure I had A+ in each of the 3 'minigames', Buckbeak's bat chasing, owl racing, and dueling club. The point is, even if you allow yourself to be sidetracked, there will quickly come a point in the game where Dumbledore tells you to speak to him when you're ready to hear who won the House Cup. Make no mistake, that's the end. With no final cut scene, save a grimacing Snape as confetti falls, and some jumping around by the winning house, the game simply drops you out to the main menu. I'm not sure I've ever seen a more abrupt ending, it's a bit like the developers meant to do more, and simply ran out of time.

To wrap up my gripes, the control is a little wonky in this one, some sloppy camera angles allowing you at times to lose site of everything as you stare into the woodgrain of a bookcase, or a stone wall that has blocked your field of view. Games with this perspective have been around long enough that this should have been much cleaner.

I'm not all complaints though. This is, by far, the best visual presentation the franchise has enjoyed so far. There's a level of artistry in this game that really jumps out at you, and there are times when you'll find yourself admiring the composition of different scenes. They clearly went out of their way to make it look good.

So that's the quandary here. The game looks good. It plays adequately, and while brief, it's true to the story. So is it good? I'd have to shrug and say 'yes', and I'll give it 3 stars for the sake of this review. It's certainly worth a rental, and while I know some will scoff and flap their Hogwarts robes in outrage at the suggestion that this isn't worth buying -- I think that's an important point to make here, and one that I wish I had considered before plunking down cash for this game. Really, don't buy it unless you're making a point to collect.

I sort of imagine the development team for this game sitting around a table some time ago, in a meeting intended to lay the groundwork for the game. And in my imagination, a lot of great ideas are tossed around, but then someone in a suit with insectile eyes speaks up and says "Look, that's all great, but toss it out. What's important is the cover. As long as it says 'Harry Potter Prisoner of Azkaban', it will sell. Make it look pretty, but don't spend just a ton of time on this. Create a linear gauntlet of 'Point A' to 'Point B' light puzzle solving, use the voices of at least some of the actors from the movie -- and it will sell, and sell well." I don't know if that's how it happened, but this game falls well short of expectations driven by the first two titles. It's always those people in the suits...

You do play as Harry, Ron and Hermione. There is "new" action, such as flying Buckbeak, and Hedwig. But there's no depth to any of that. Some of the puzzles are clever, the visuals are terrific, the sound is solid. It is, in the end, a Harry Potter title, true to the book and the movie, and for that alone, this game will find its way into people's libraries. I simply hope EA gets its act together and really does something with the next title, so that I don't again feel like the game was merely an afterthought. The first two didn't feel or play like that, there's really no reason the third one should have.

No Quidditch. How could they?

I have played both of the versions of the Sorcerors Stone and the Chamber Of Secrets and all three are my favorite games. I thought this game would probably have the same layout different storyline but I was amazed when I read about the new features. This game is going to be bloody brilliant. I've heard about the new feature where you get to be Ron or Hermione also, but come on I will and always will be Harry cause it is his tale and his game. But I'm just wonderin if there will be Co-op. XBOX bloody rocks!!!!!!!!!

This is the most amazing Xbox game ever!!! I just got it yesterday and I beat it in 1 day!!! I couldnt stop!!!

Things that make this game so great...

1. Exploring Hogwarts Grounds and flying on Buckbeak! Also their are 3 different seasons...fall with rain...Winter with beutiful snow and great winter music...and spring! The grounds are huge! Its amazing! You can even run around the two courtyards from the movies! On buckbeak, you can take off, and land anywhere on the grounds!

2. Being Harry Ron and Hermione!

3. The graphics are amazing, much better then the first two games! Harry Ron and Hermione dont look stupid like they did in the first 2 games!

4. The music is great...the same great music from the first 2 plus new great music!

OK...their are many more great things about this game that I could be here all day...get this game! Dont even think about it just get it...you will thank me!

As a Harry Potter fan, I started buying Legos for the first time in years; I still remember when they didn't have specific kits. I was so impressed by my first Harry Potter Legos that I've collected quite a magical landscape by now. I loved this kit--it has a lot of interesting elements, like the swinging back door and revolving bookshelf, and I have found that its parts can be well-used to make up good alternative buildings for those of us who like to create models rather than build them exactly as instructed. This set and the Hogwarts Castle are my favorite Lego sets thus far.

Whenever I buy a Lego set for my son I consider three things. First of all, the build: How fun will it be to build the first time? Second, I consider the playability: What's fun about this set? Then I consider the pieces of the set: Will it still be fun when half of the pieces are lost in the sofa and he's building his own castles from what's left (this kind of versitility is why I buy my son Legos)?
This set is really fun on the first day. While it only took us a few minutes to build (there are lots of large pieces), my son really enjoyed acing out scenes from the movie. The following weeks however, were not quite as good. The srength of the Harry Potter Legos is that they really resemble the places in the films. However, the consequense of this is a lot of peices that are specific to Harry's world. The prblem with this is that my son's original castles become less his, and more Harry Potter's-- the pieces really do not work well in other environments. Since we bought a few Harry Potter sets my son has asked that we not get any more, he says they are "too much like the movie". So I guess it's fun for a while, but don't expect the fun to move much past the directions.

Look at the name."Dumb"ledore's Office.It's dumb this set including Harry Potter. He doesn't teach much for kids and this set makes no difference.You can always buy it I suppose for a medieval legos collection but Harry is a minifig thats mindless.

if it is a game that you are saving up your $ for:... don't get this... cause im like now to have my GBAsp and i finnished it in seven hours and secsounds so if you are looking for that i would give it two stars...

if you have a lot of$ and are jus looking for fun...:
this is THE game for you! this game is fun and i could not stop playing it! i was like constantly on it! in my bed, while watching tv, secretly playing it in my classroom!if that is what you want the it would be five stars!

if you are looking for quality....:
this is an OK game.... good music...
but really bad graphics!!(...)!
like this is a disgrace to the GBA title! so for that i would give
three stars!

i give this game four stars cause i don't like the graphics but other than that it's all good!

This GBA game is a very well done RPG rendering of the omonimous Harry Potter book.

You control the wizardly trio (Harry, Ron, Hermione) in the quest to unveil and defeat the traitor that caused the death of Harry's parents.

The story starts out with a well done and useful tutorial: while on the Hogwarts Express you have to try to capture Ron's pet rat (or whatever kind of rodent it actually is).

The story then unveils in Hogwarts. You can explore with your party the various chambers of the academ, visit locations you are familiar with either from the movie or the book, and make many pleasent encounters with notorious Hogwarts characters.

Combat is turn based and all members of the party have their own special powers. Furthermore, you get 17 spells you can learn and find in the game that will enhance your party's power and there are a lot of in game items with which you can buff up your characters' defenses and main game characteristics.

Overall the game is a very nice RPG, very simple and charming. Graphics is ok, as the overall quality of the game. Expect to play for no more than 20 hours though. Replay value is not that high, as you will be able to retain all the levels you accumulated in the first game (monsters instead don't improve at all).

Bottom line:
This is a very nice Harry Potter game. I love how EA transformed it in a complete and simple RPG. I strongly suggest any Harry Potter fan to buy this.

I really enjoyed this game. The graphics are some of the best I have seen for Game Boy. The bonus activites/mini-games are also amusing, if slightly repetitive. I like the fact that the game offers the chance to grow as a character, both with items and spells and level-ups. The game goes pretty quickly, but mostly because it is difficult to put down. Congrats to EA games for another great addition to my Game Boy collection.