Douglas's game of the week: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (GBA)

Sim Kid · #1

Well call me one shocked reviewer! My hopes for the Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban being like the first two GBC games actually came true-And even more shocking is that EA finally got a GBA HP game right. Why all Harry Potter games aren't RPGs is beyond me.

The graphics are a Major improvement from the Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets game. Instead of trying to make it look 3D and failing, they decided to use 32 bit sprites with some 3D looking battle backgrounds and succeeded. I like how the large sprites look, but unfortunatley, most characters and enemies are Pallete swaps-I don't nessecarily mind Pallete swaps, but they are done really often here. The Battle graphics are pretty cool-I like how it does a little 3D effect when your character attacks, and the spell effects look pretty great and are pretty fluid.

What has improved alot from the really great GBC games is the music. It's mainly just remixes, but with the sound capabilities of the GBA, it makes the background music sound very realistic, such as you can hear a Piano playing. The sounds...Well, take 'em or leave 'em. I also feel I should mention that I really like the Boss music, like what you hear when you fight the Monster book of Monsters in Hagrid's garden, the battle music there is pretty good too.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban throws out some puzzles that you'll use spells to solve. Each of the three Wizards have spells only they know, such as how Hermione can fix some stuff with her Repario(sp) spell and can freeze water with Glacia, Harry has Diffendo which severs cobwebs and Lumos which reveals hidden bridges, and Ron has Alamorha(sp) which opens locked doors and Spongify, which you can use on some things to make them Bouncy. Some of the puzzles are well done, but they're more or less just push the block puzzles at most. They're getting better...

Battling in the game is indeed pretty fun-Each enemy has resistance to specific spells, such as how a Salamander or an enemy coated in flames will sustain serious damage from Glacia and plant enemies will be burnt with Incendio. Using the spell Informus (lol, it's Inform us), you can see a short description on the enemy and see its weaknesses. So now we have strategizing going on-making the game even more fun. Also, each scorcherer has their own special abilities, Harry can use cards to unleash some effects like heal the party, Ron can use stink pellets and other joke stuff, and Hermione can give your party lectures to increase the effectiveness of your spells, increasing your defense, or recieving more EXP from battles. (Which is the most useful special attack EVER) Also, you must be careful with using them, as you can only use the special techniques once per battle. Battling is turn-based, and you can see the portraits of the scorcherers and the enemies in the upper right corner and that tells you which order they move.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban may be the best entry on the current system, but still, it suffers a few drawbacks. For one, the item management can be a bit annoying, such as when you buy an item, you can't tell who can use it and what it does. They can be ungodly helpful, such as they increase your health or have other great effects, but it really doesn't tell you what. >:E. The second major drawback is the fact that it's still pretty short. For one, you can easily beat it in like 10-15 hours tops. Of course, it can be even more if you want to upgrade the spells (Which are upgraded by casting them) and by having fun battling.

Unlike the other games where you can only play as Harry, you sometimes split up so that you're controlling Ron, Hermione, or both and Harry is absent from your group. There are also several moments where you can split up, such as when Harry faints on the train, you can play either as Hermione who'll be tasked with finding the conductor, or Ron who'll be tasked with finding Chocolate (Better be Cadburry!) to revive Harry.

One thing I forgot is that unlike the two GBC games, once you identify the enemies with Informus, you can see the enemies sprites walking about, so if you identify a flobberworm, then you can see Flobberworms walking around the areas instead of just clouds floating around. This is a major improvement, but they still usually come in groups, and you only see the first one.

Overall, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is one of the better GBA games-It won't be going on any top ten lists, but it's certainly worth a go. If you liked the first two GBC games, then you'll probably like this. This is how Harry Potter games should be done. 8.00/10

Pros:
-=Fun battling that involves strategy=-
-=They finally got it right=-
-=Some good musics=-
-=Puzzles have improved=-
-=Great looking sprites and battle backgrounds=-

Cons:
-=A bit on the short side=-
-=Take-it-or-leave it sounds=-
-=The rest of the music is just meh.=-
-=The game doesn't tell you who can equip a piece of equipment and what it does=-
-=Most puzzles don't involve much thinking=-

#2

Nice review!! *gives Douglas marshmallows*

I've always shyed away from HP games after playing one at a friend's place and wondering why I was torturing myself. Be good if I could actually recall which one it was now. [img]tongue.gif[/img]