“I’ll buy this Incendio Spell for four influences, and hurt Malfoy with two attack points.”
“Okay, my turn. Dark arts is at it again, we all lose one health. I’ll also buy an Incendio spell and kill Malfoy with an attack of 3. “
“We won.”
“Yay. What a magical journey.”
Disclaimer: I have to mention that I am a huge fan of the Harry Potter books, emphasis on books. I read all of them ten times, I know all the characters, all the spells, etc. This is important since this game is Harry Potter themed, and I can’t look at it in any other way. It is entirely possible that someone who is not extremely biased towards the books would have a different opinion about this game.
Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle is a co-operative deck-building game, that includes seven scenarios (a la seven books) in which young wizards and witches need to stop evil wizards from occupying certain locations? Doing dark deeds in nice places? Something like this.
The gameplay is very simple. Each player takes on the role of one of the main characters: Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville. Each character has their own starting deck, which looks pretty much the same apart from a couple of unique cards, for example, Hermione has a Crookshanks card, Neville has Trevor, etc. Each scenario has some villains that the players will have to defeat. There is also a dark arts deck, aka random bad events. Each round follows this pattern: the players draw a dark arts card, resolve it, then see if the villain does anything, then buy new cards using influence, and hurt the villains using attacks. The bad guys will try to add villain control tokens to specific good guy locations, like Diagon Alley, and if they manage to occupy all these places they win.
The Good
Well, it is a game, and it is co-operative. I like the idea of multiple scenarios and being able to play through a campaign. This could have been a great game.
The Bad
The theme doesn’t work for me at all. The gameplay has nothing to do with Harry Potter. Why is Malfoy trying to control Diagon Alley during his first Hogwarts year? As the scenarios progress new cards will be added to the decks, supposedly following the books. This means that in scenario two, spoiler alert, Tom Riddle will show up as a villain, and the Chamber of Secrets will be a new location. How does the Chamber of Secret differ from Diagon Alley? In the gameplay, they are completely interchangeable. This is how the story of the books progresses through the game, new spell cards, new locations, new villains, but the mechanics of the game remain completely unchanged. If you have a game that follows the seven Harry Potter books the game should change with the tone of the books.
I am also struggling with trying to understand what influence represents in this game and why a quidditch gear heals you and also gives you an attack point. I guess you can bash someone with a beater club but what would heal you exactly? If anything, quidditch should take health points as Harry gets injured during games regularly. Not all the cards are bad, obviously, essence of dittany heals you, duh doy, but still, most of them just feel random.
This might come off as nit-picky, but in my Hermione deck I had access to Crookshanks and the time-turner during the first year. They both show up in book three, the Prisoner of Azkaban.
Now onto the non-Harry Potter-related issues. The game is pretty easy, during the second scenario the villains couldn’t take even one location from us. There is no gradual threat building, you just go through the motions, one villain after the other, doing the same thing, over and over again. The non-threat issue may also come from the fact that nothing really happens if you lose all your health. You get stunned for one round, lose half of you cards, and then bounce back.
The other problem is that once you have your cards in your hand your course is more of less set for the turn. The decisions are pretty straightforward, you max out on damage with your attack cards and hopefully you can spend the rest of your influence on some sort of upgrade. Occasionally you might heal your partner. But overall it doesn’t feel like there is much strategy to it, there isn’t much we have to discuss or think about.
Lastly, I don’t like the artwork. It looks like a really lame mix of photos from the movies and uninspired drawings.
The Co-Op
There is some co-operation in the game, you can heal each other and sometimes give each other influence or attack tokens. But since the game is easy and nothing really happens if you die, you are not exactly motivated to go through the trouble of helping your fellow players. They are perfectly fine on their own.
The Recommendation
In case it wasn’t clear, I don’t recommend Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle. Play The Big Book of Madness instead. It is a co-operative deck-building game, also features wizard students, and has actual spells that do magical things.
Info
| Release Year | 2015 |
| Genre | Deck Building |
| Difficulty | Medium |
| Number of Players | 1 to 4 |
| Length | 30 - 60 minutes |
Rating
| Overall | Bad |
| Story | Bad |
| Co-Operation | Terrible |