Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets [Windows/Mac]

While the first game in the Harry potter franchise was a mid-tier puzzle platformer, it at least had some originality to it which is more than I can say for any of the other games including this sequel which is a complete carbon copy of the first game but with its platforming elements removed. OK that's not entirely accurate as it’s an open world game as opposed to it being stage by stage but the presentation, story structure and puzzle mechanics are identical here to its predecessor.

Just like the first game, this is more in line with the books rather than the films in terms of the world building as once again the characters dress and behave how they were described in the books rather than how they appear on screen. We have more spells to work with this time around including the return of flipendo, alohomora, Lumos which works the way it should and incendio which also works the way it should. Wingardium leviosa is no longer a spell here, it being replaced with diffindo, avifores, skurge and protego even though the game calls it expelliarmus for some reason. As this game is an open world sandbox (well sort of as the areas in the castle are separated into different areas due to console limitations) this means that you can not only backtracking to certain areas to acquire the secrets in the game but also replay the "lessons" to achieve more house points which you can now loose whoever you're caught by a prefect at night. The stealth mechanic from the first game also returns even though Harry no longer has his cloak here like he did in the original, not that it matters because the prefects all have basic Ai patterns that makes it effortless to avoid them. Quidditch has also been updated to where it’s possible to lose a match rather than it being a tedious minigame of finding and catching the snitch from the first game, although aside from the threat of the opposing seeker getting the snitch before you do, the mechanic remains unchanged which makes it barely an upgrade from the first game. Collectibles here are identical to that of the first game, although there are far more cards to collect given how the game included them all from the Harry potter site of the day rather than a select few in the original. Aside from that, there's no differences in the method to finding them as Harry needs to cast the right spell to unlock the secrets they're contained in. I guess another change is that Harry now needs to equip his spells rather than them being conveniently used whenever he goes to cast magic, this is to allow more dynamic uses of the spells that admittedly weren't possible in the original given how apart from flipendo, none of them were offensive or even defensive like the case of protego.

I'll give this a passing grade even though there's nothing phenomenal about it, the graphics still suck despite being on stronger hardware than the first game, the music is even worse now with the one decent peaceful tune being butchered this time around, and the gameplay is more primitive here than in the original despite offering more mechanics to play around with.

This game really has no business in being as good as it is. It follows the event of the second movie pretty closely, and its budget is obviously limited, but it still manages to be a solid title.

It controls fairly well for a third person game, and the lock on system is very functional and makes the gameplay largely on the funny side. The campaign has you unlocking the spells slowly through beating dungeons, and you can then use these to unlock secrets in Hogwarts, which acts as a persistent hub. Thats really the biggest strenght of the game for me, the level design and how it encourages exploration. There are really a lot of hidden stuff in the castle, and its really enjoyable to grab them all.

There is a lot of side content in the game, including magic duels, which are always fun to play. Collecting the cards is also really fun, even if they dont really have much uses. Its definitly a game in which you shouldnt rush it to be the most fun out of it.

Overal a very solid movie tie in. Not really worth playing it if you are not a fan of the series, but a solid game nonetheless.