Harry Potter Mastering Magic

Calling all Muggles and eager magicians and all real Harry Potter’s out there – this is a must have addition to your collection.

If you have always dreamt of attending Hogwarts Academy and putting your skills to the test as nearly all bookworms and moviegoers have done over the past half-decade or so, then Harry Potter: Mastering Magic is certainly the right potion to put you under its spell. Choose which character to play, either Harry Potter, Hermione Granger or Ron Weasley during their fifth year at the illustrious magicians college to undertake your Ordinary Wizarding Levels (or ‘O.W.L.’s) - the results of which will determine your career path (so no pressure then?!) But for your trouble, should you be successful you will be awarded the Studious Success Cup should you prove to be the most triumphant pupil out of all.

In achieving your OWL’s you must practice in class in the arts of divination (seeing into the future through correctly guessing distorted images from four possible images), transfiguration (turning one object into another by rearranging pieces of a puzzle), potions (correctly remembering the amounts of different ingredients used), astronomy (a celestial dot-to-dot), charms (doing a magical wordsearch), care of magical creatures (testing your arithmetic by counting the amount food), herbology (selecting the plant which will grow tallest), history of magic (tests your Harry Potter knowledge).

Of course this game is geared towards the enthusiasts of the epic magician’s tale and no doubt they will get the most enjoyment out of it, having said that though, this is still quite an enjoyable game for just about anyone to play. I would stress that this is much more appealing to the younger fans out there rather anyone else. Yes the maths and wordsearch do offer something for the general public to enjoy, but for those who know relatively little (if anything) about the story you’ll be at a huge disadvantage in scoring well in the OWL’s and winning 1^st place – even on the easiest level!

This game does offer quite a good level of entertainment and of course will prove more addictive than anything else imaginable to the right person. For the more mature gamer, whether it’s puzzle or other you’re after, you’ll probably be left wanting. As a mediocre fan of the movies I had a rough idea about what some of the answers were and fortunately my luck helped out where my lack of knowledge began to show. In summary then, this is a great game for the right person and a must have for all fans of the book and movies. If you’ve got about twenty minutes to spare, you will be able to complete the course and get your results, if not, then you will probably be able to take at least one ‘lesson’ and be able to finish the rest off in due course.

Rating 78%

Positives

Great artwork (although a little limited)

Novel mini-games

4 different difficulty settings – which can be traced and compared

You can play this 2 player as well as on your own

Negatives

Not much scope and certainly not much playability for more mature gamers

Only truly addictive should you be a fan of the Potter franchise

Not atmospheric or really spellbinding as you may expect