THE GOOD:-The Ability to explore Hogwarts freely and thoroughly, finally! This is free roaming at its best, though it can be hard to get around.
-Using the Analog Stick to cast spells is genius; it's slightly realistic and it adds some skill to spells.
-Harry has a good variety of spells, and there's some good use of magic in your environment
-References to the book are a nice touch, adding that extra bit of interest to those of us who have bothered reading them.
-Good replay value given all the discovery points. Though sometimes, the sheer amount can be a bit overwhelming.
THE BAD:
-All conversations consist of boring and/ or annoying voice acting, the dialogue isn't much good.
-Not enough variety regarding missions- Half your play time is given up to getting lost and looking at your map.
-All missions are utterly pointless, with the exception of about six- You just waste time running errands for dopes who are too lazy to do things themselves.
-You rely too much on your map, it's almost impossible to get around otherwise.
-Harry is just too slow, especially when climbing and walking along ledges. The confusing maze that is Hogwarts coupled with this can just end up driving you through the roof.
-Some of the discovery points are just too obscure. You can spend an hour messing around with random items in the room to discover all you had to do was press Square.
-The game isn't actually very long, so you just end up trying to discover the whole of Hogwarts. As I said earlier, this is both confusing and annoying.
-Some missions you have to fail, which makes no sense whatsoever. Utter rubbish in my opinion.
-Some of the mini games, such as Wizard Chess, are just too time consuming. You could spend an hour on a game just to lose at the very end.
SUMMARY:
Firstly, this is, without a doubt, the best Harry Potter game to date. All the past games have been very different from each other, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse, but I really think that the Order of the Phoenix has reached a gameplay type that suits Harry Potter. Most of the game is based around exploration, which is good fun, but it does get repetitive after a while- Not the fact that you're going around to the same places continually, but the fact that you're continually getting lost. Though I try not to use maps, the map is essential in this game. Without it you could spend half an hour finding a mission, followed by another trying to do the thing. The layout is a bit too confusing for my tastes.
The magic section has been improved greatly, and it's about time EA did so- It's the most important aspect of the game! Your arsenal of spells is near perfect, mostly because EA have (finally!) stopped making up spells themselves. There's a reason that J.K. Rowling is the multi- millionaire, and they're not. In OotP, spells do what they're supposed to- No more deflecting spells with Expelliarmus, or blasting people off their feet with Rictusempra, no; the different effects of each have finally been worked out, which is a great relief. It also adds a lot more fun to the game, in particular to the duels. It's great fun casting all manner of jinxes and hexes on people, hanging them upside down, freezing them in their tracks and whatnot. But this is mildly ruined by the simplicity of the fighting- It's near impossible to lose, and you can't win in some of them. It makes no sense, and is a bit annoying.
Like I mentioned earlier, Hogwarts is a lot more fun to explore, and not only that, but there's a lot to do in it. Discovery points are the only collectibles, and there are tons of them, earned in many ways. This basically means cast every spell on everything until something happens. But this is a bit annoying in some ways, given that some discovery points are near impossible to figure out without help. So even though there is lots of replay value, most of the time you just don't feel up to it.
The missions are a real downside to this game, and let it down in many accounts. There is no point in 95% of them, and they give you no feeling of accomplishment. People are just too lazy to do anything, and ask you to do it. The worst part is, Harry ALWAYS agrees! What a pushover! Not only that, but most of the missions are just running to a destination miles away, and this coupled with Harry's speed is enough to drive even the hardest gamer to insanity.
So though this is a fine game, there are, unfortunately, a good few errors that let it down a bit. But all problems aside, this is still a good fun game, but definitely not for someone who has no interest in Harry Potter. If you like Harry Potter, there is a good chance you will enjoy this game, and if Harry is your life, you can't live without this game!
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