LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 (Part 3)

LEGO Harry Potter

Introduction

Years 1-4: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

Years 5-7: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

Still no time to spend on an intro!

Prisoner of Azkaban: You’ve seen the film, right?

Wait, is the LEGO Knight Bus deconstructing
itself to thin down to pass between the double
deckers? That is super clever.

We begin the third year with Harry at the Dursleys, where one of their guests is mean to him so… uh… some weird wizard powers cause her to inflate like a balloon (though here, Vernon is quick enough to pop her with a fork). Harry leaves and sees a dark dog on a playground, then climbs aboard the Knight Bus to leave towards the Leaky Cauldron. The Knight Bus is one of those super-weird aspects of the Wizarding World that felt out of place in the movies; it’s seen once and never mentioned again, while the novels feature it whenever possible. Since it follows the films, this game suffers from the same issue (but at least the Bus’s scene still sticks out, even showing a cool LEGO effect).

Harry now stays with the Weasleys at the Leaky Cauldron. The wizarding world’s newspapers talk about the scary prison of Azkaban and how the convicted murderer Sirius Black is on the loose, looking for Harry. In the first level, Harry gets ready for the new school year, in a process that involves killing his book of monsters… which IS a monster. Following that, we have to get onto the train, with Draco Malfoy trying to prevent the main trio from doing so. They manage, but Molly Weasley, Ron’s mother, hurriedly brings him his pet rat, which he was about to forget. Ooh, that’s gonna clash with Hermione’s new cat, the large Crookshanks.

Big Brain move: Can't stop me from being ON
the train if I'm already ON the train! ...there
aren't too many tunnels on the way, I hope?

Patronum? I would Expecto Hermione to
get out of the goddarn way!

While inside the train, Dementors appear and Harry is kidnapped. The man sleeping next to the group, Remus Lupin (the next Defense against the Dark Arts teacher), wakes up to help Ron and Hermione in finding Harry. I mentioned before that the LEGO game expects you to know the story already. It will helpfully state that Lupin dislikes the moonlight. This, of course, leads to moments where only Ron or Hermione can proceed across open windows at night. However, Lupin is the only one who can cast Expecto Patronum to defeat the Dementors, eventually rescuing Harry.

In Hogwarts, the first lesson is Lupin’s class on Boggarts and the spell to defeat them, Riddikulus. As I mentioned, after this point, chests containing Dementors start popping up all over the damn school. And notably, Harry cannot learn the spell yet, too traumatized by Boggarts disguised as Dementors. Next is the Divination class, in which we don’t learn much gameplay-wise (but we do get the scene of Professor Trelawney having a premonition). Then, we have a class with Hagrid where he shows how to care for his Hippogriff Buckbeak, with Draco making fun of the beast and being attacked as a result, with Hagrid’s animal sentenced to death for attacking a student.

Gee, the passages underneath the castle
are full of endless pits. Hope no student falls
in them!

Skip to the Holidays, and Harry doesn’t have a letter signed by his (dead) parents to go to Hogsmeade, so he can’t follow the others to party and have fun. To help, Fred and George Weasley give him the Marauders’ Map, allowing him to sneak around the castle while knowing where everyone is. He uses it to find his way to Hogsmeade, then helps Ron and Hermione deal with Malfoy (again, because the little shit won’t leave them alone) in a fun snowball-throwing boss battle. I’m skimming a lot, but this level is split into MANY segments. Levels in this game can be long, and them being split into segments means that if you missed out on something, you need to start over. Don't bother with 100% completion yet, it's impossible till late in the game.

Oh hey, the bully has a friggin' snow tank now.

Sweet, they kept the "spider on rollerskates" gag
from the film for Ron's Riddikulus'd Boggart!

At The Three Broomsticks, Harry and his friends hear the story of the Marauders, with one explaining how Sirius Black’s last victim was Peter Pettigrew, for whom only a finger was found. The voiceless scene we’re shown, where Black seemingly attacks the other three Marauders (Pettigrew, Lupin, and Harry’s father James Potter), also clearly shows a little rat leaving the area. Once again, props for being accurate to the source material, but the game treats the detail as common knowledge and, thus, expects players to know about it already.

Speaking of, in the third level, Harry and Ron sneak around the school after reading the Marauders’ Map and seeing… Pettigrew? The guy who’s supposed to be dead? They give chase in a fun level through the castle halls, but ultimately their quest fails when Pettigrew disappears and Snape catches them. Feels like I’m speeding through this one? That’s because I am; three of the six levels in the Prisoner of Azkaban section are taken from the film’s climax.

Prisoner of Azkaban: The Time Turner Shenanigans

So, now Harry knows Expecto Patronus, but
his friends don't. That might lead to some
puzzle-solving in the near future.

Harry is finally taught Expecto Patronum from Lupin, using a Boggart as makeshift Dementor. Following that, the trio goes to Hagrid’s hut, and… you probably know the rest. And as much as I despise Rowling now, damn – this sequence is something I wish I could write in a fiction of my own someday, as it’s just brilliant. Hermione had been using a Time Turner, allowing her to rewind time to be in more classes than she could normally be. The next events are seen through two teams, the second of which is time-displaced, and causes a lot of the unexplained events experienced by the first group.

Minifig VS Tree. I cast FIRE!
Better, I cast CHAINSAW!

The fourth level is the original sequence, where instead of rescuing Buckbeak, Ron chases after Scabbers, which takes him and the others to the Whomping Willow. The tree is a boss, and it took me forever to understand that we had to jump into its “fist” when it slams it down, so that we could then cast a harming spell at its "head". It breaks Ron's leg before taking him inside, so after defeating the tree, Harry and Hermione follow suit, discovering a secret passage to the Shrieking Shack in Hogsmeade. There’s a scuffle inside involving Sirius, Lupin and Snape, and the truth is revealed: Pettigrew is still alive, and as an animagus (able to transform into an animal at will), he was hiding as Ron’s rat Scabbers the whole time. And he's the one who betrayed the others to Voldemort. Sirius is also an animagus, and his animal form is that of a black dog.

That distraction howl might have worked
a little too well.

Outside, it’s the full moon, so Remus Lupin, a victim of lycanthropy, turns into a werewolf and attacks the group, only to run off  on hearing what sounds like a female wolf, with a bouquet of flowers and hearts in his eyes. Straight-up Looney Tunes stuff. Appropriate, this is a WB product. Harry and Sirius end up attacked by a crowd of Dementors by a frozen lake, only to be saved by a powerful Patronus coming from afar. Cut to the team at the hospital wing, where Dumbledore suggests (directly, not hints like in the films) that Hermione uses the Time Turner to make things right.

She spins it, and we get the fifth level. First, in Hagrid’s garden, Harry and Hermione rescue Buckbeak. Cut to the confrontation against werewolf Lupin in the woods, where Hermione has to create a megaphone in order for her howl to be heard from their transformed teacher. Lupin arrives to attack them, but Buckbeak scares him away. Finally, the frozen lake: Harry only has to defeat six Dementors to finish the level, after which he summons his strongest Patronus that defeats the rest and saves himself and Sirius.

It's cruel, putting a student in danger in plain
sight in the background (attacked by a
Dementor), and you can't even go save them.

Sirius has been recaptured, though; and in a departure from the novel and movie, an entire level is made out of Harry and Hermione rescuing him from the Dark Tower, with plenty of battles against Dementors. Including a final, boss-level one, to boot! I kinda hated that fight because too many regular Dementors swarmed the small battlefield, on which we had to solve a puzzle in order to actually hurt the boss. At the end of this, the two let Sirius go free on Buckbeak’s back. Later, Harry wishes Lupin goodbye, then gets a brand new broom for Quidditch! End of the third year!

Do I actually have time to cover Year 4… …dammit, let’s do it.

Goblet of Fire: May the Odds Ever Be in your Favor!

Looks awesome! ...It won't last.

It, indeed, did not last.

After a nightmare where a random milk delivery man is killed by the bad guys, Harry wakes up among his friends as they’re about to leave for the Quidditch World Cup, using a boot as a Portkey (an item that transports a person holding it to a predetermined location). The Cup is a fun event and all, but the film version doesn’t give it all the fanfare the book did; so this LEGO game, even less. We don’t see any match before Voldemort’s followers, the Death Eaters, crash the party. Harry and most of the Weasleys go missing, leaving Hermione alone with Ginny to rescue the others. Yes, more focus on the female characters – I’ll take that any day!

Behold! Pretty trophy.

Once the Weasleys are free, the group still has to save Harry, and they do so by defeating multiple Death Eaters and snakes. Following this, we get to Hogwarts, where representatives of other wizarding schools have arrived: The tough guys from Durmstrang from Northern Europe, and the girls from Beauxbatons, France. With their respective headmasters, Victor Krum and Olympe Maxime; and Hagrid is smitten with the latter, a giantess. Dumbledore presents the reason for their arrival: The Triwizard Tournament, in which one student from each school will participate in very dangerous trials, with a prize for the winner. Only seventh-year students can apply by putting their name in the Goblet of Fire, so Fred and George, always the tricksters, make up a temporary ageing potion to sneak into the competition. This is the first “class” of the year, for some reason; and the Goblet is smart enough to see through their deceit, but if we learned that potion, it must be that it will be useful somewhere.

"HARRY! DIDJA PUTCHA NAME INDA
GOBLET OF FIYAH?!?!" Dumbledore
asked calmly.

Even in the Wizarding World, dragons are
nothing to f*** with.

From there, we know the story: Victor Krum of Durmstrang, Fleur Delacour of Beauxbatons, and Cedric Diggory, of Hogwarts, are selected. However, a fourth name comes out: Harry Potter. Someone else put his name in there. This is dangerous; people die in that tournament. Thankfully, Harry has a lot of friends who can help prepare him. In the second level, Hagrid even brings him into the woods to see the dragons that will be a part of the first task. After the level has ended, Harry leaves and Hagrid goes on a date with Olympe in the middle of the woods. To say that the date crashes and burns under dragon fire is putting it lightly.

Another aside on mechanics

The chest surrounded by red sparkles? Unless
you're Lucius Malfoy, or Crouch Jr., you can't
do anything with it.

This is the point of the game where I started looking for answers online as well as figuring more complex things on my own. I kept wondering why I couldn’t interact with items that had red sparkles around them; turns out, they are meant to be activated by dark/evil characters (think Lucius Malfoy or Barty Crouch Jr.), who use a villainous variant of Wingardium Leviosa. These evil characters’ tokens can't be found until you’ve unlocked Reducto, the last spell, so quite a ways into Year 4, i.e. close to the end of the game’s story. (And then, you still have to buy them in the Shop!) A lot of house crests and character tokens are locked behind things that only evil characters can interact with.

You can play as Dumbledore, a student from
a different House, a goblin, an evil character,
and even as Cat Hermione if you want to.

I wondered why characters flashed on the menu when using Polyjuice Potion. The reason? These characters have alternate outfits, and instead of having a spot on the (already humongous) character list for each outfit, their token on the select screen alternates between looks. Well, aside from the main three – Harry, Ron, Hermione – who have a main token and a second token for all their alts.

Lastly, when you beat a level the first time, you unlock it for Free Play, accessible from the Leaky Cauldron. You can play the story again, with the original characters – but in Free Play, you choose 1 character among those you’ve unlocked (including alternate outfits) and the game chooses a number of extra characters; on top of the original ones to complete the level, to prevent unwinnable situations. You swap among them using the Space key. Most levels are impossible to 100% on the first playthrough, because some things can’t be achieved except by precise characters or (usually late-game) spells. Hope you weren’t planning on speeding through your completionist run of the game – it won’t let you.

Goblet of Fire: The Tournament Begins

Before the next level, we have class with the new DADA teacher, Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody, who teaches the class the spell Reducto. It's a more powerful version of the basic blast spell, able to break large solid objects into pieces. We don’t get a class on the Unforgivable Curses like in the books and films, which in my opinion is the scene that marks the real moment the series got dark.

JK Rowling meant for the Wizarding World to be plagued by bigotry and prejudice, especially towards Muggles and Muggle-Borns, with the villainous Voldemort and his Death Eaters drawing obvious parallels to Nazis, and until now all of these details were already there, and indicative of a much darker facet to the world she created. Hell, I’d argue she did this a little too well, as it feels like most wizards are so antiquated, disdainful, stupid and/or bigoted that any whimsy the franchise had attempted to cultivate got just as quickly thrown out the window. The tone further shifted upon learning about Crucio, Imperio, and of course Avada Kedavra. That’s my real issue with Harry Potter: Once you start thinking about it, the world it presents gets so nasty that its attempts at being enchanting and wonderful no longer work.

We get to the third level by walking into a tent in the schoolyard, where the first Task will take place. Instantly, Harry and Hermione are assaulted by the infamous reporter Rita Skeeter, and in their shock, the two teens end up dropped into the arena at the same time. Y’know, I was wondering how this game would handle the Tasks, since Harry should be alone in them. Throwing Hermione in feels like a cop-out, but the  game had to include a second character for two-player play…

Hermione? Thrown in the Tournament? Heh... Let's not lie to
ourselves, if she actually was the one to participate, she'd
come home with the trophy, prize money, and all of
Wizardkind worshipping her sheer awesomeness.

Upgrading from "Troll in the dungeon!" to
"A goddamn dragon is rampaging across the
friggin' castle!"

So yeah, the two teens don’t so much fight the Hungarian Horntail dragon as much as maneuver around it and its flames, with the usual puzzle-solving. Harry casts Accio to summon his broom, which he and his friend climb on. They flee, but get chased into Hogwarts where they crash. The next part of the level, I hated it – you know that sort of 3D level where you only see what’s behind you, but not what’s in front? You have to react quickly to whatever holes, hazards and problems come to block your way? If you’ve played Crash Bandicoot, you know those. Yeah, well, LEGO decided to take a page from that book. Anyhow, after incapacitating the dragon, Harry completes the task, grabbing the golden egg that the dragon was guarding. He later tries to open it to hear a hint about the next task, but is greeted by an ear-piercing screech.

He does get a hint from Cedric to dip the egg underwater to get the clue, though, leading him to the bathrooms where we have the fourth level, a breather where Harry, aided by Moaning Myrtle, opens the way to more private baths. A short and easy one. Harry ends up hearing the hint from the egg, seeing mermaids.

Goblet of Fire: The Ominous Return

Keep collecting studs for several minutes,
Harry; it's not like Ron and the others are in
mortal danger or something.

A new path opens that leads to the lake. There awaits the penultimate level, where the Triwizard contestants must dive into the lake to rescue someone that’s dear to them. (If you ask me, a competition that literally endangers people who are NOT participating to it… Yeeesh, what was I saying again about the Wizarding World being too dark for its own good? Tack on a complete disregard for human life!) Neville Longbottom and Mad-Eye Moody help Harry by feeding him something that adds gills to the young wizard. Down there, once again to allow for two players, Harry teams up with Cedric Diggory. Underwater levels are usually a pain – well, the dev team behind this game went the easy route by making this a 2D level. Many problems solved, everything works fine, and there’s still room for puzzles!

Everyone is rescued, so this has a good ending. However, the worst is yet to come; it’s time for the third and final Task.

Hey, did we skip the scene of the Triwizard Yule Ball? Dammit, this was my favorite part of the movie. Classic music suddenly replaced by a rock band, in Hogwarts, somehow. Not just because it’s music that I like, but also for the absurdity of it. (Also, I feel it may be a reference to Wizard Rock, a genre that was created by HP fans.) Shame, I would have loved to see the LEGO take on it.

Lumos against vines, Immobilus against imps...
What's my score on the test?

Anyhow, final task: The hedge maze. One has to reach the cup at its center. The four students go in. Victor quickly goes mad and attacks Fleur. Harry and Cedric are left to fend on their own, so they team up. This is very much a “final exam” last level; not that there’s anything wrong with having a final challenge that forces you to use all the skills you’ve accumulated over the course of the game, but in this case it’s rather blatant. Wingardium Leviosa of course, but also Lumos, Immobilus, Expecto Patronum and Reducto.

In the center, Harry and Cedric grab the Cup, and are transported to a graveyard. Captured, they watch as Peter Pettigrew creates the dark magic potion to revive Voldemort using an asset from Harry himself. In the novel and movie, it’s blood; can’t have that here! Pettigrew uses Harry’s glasses instead. The baby Voldy is dropped into the cauldron and out pops a grown Voldemort (sporting Harry's glasses, which he tosses aside). This final boss is... disappointing. You cast the blast spell at a bunch of Death Eaters, then Voldemort grabs Harry for a one-on-one wand duel in which you have to press H a couple times to fight back. You don’t have to mash the button like crazy, like other games would have done. Repeat that three times, and the Dark Lord is defeated.

Sorry, Voldy, you can't win this. I am backed
by the unstoppable power of button-mashing.

Hey, by the way – once again, the game crashed on me while I was fighting that boss. Always fun when that happens. It’s crashed many times as I was playing, and usually during levels. It shouldn’t be struggling to run, it’s a 2010 game running on a machine younger than that!

Holy crap, Cedric's minifig was completely
dismembered. In the LEGO universe, that's
a definitive "DEAD" dead.

Ghosts of Voldemort’s victims come out to distract him while the teens flee towards the Portkey, but the dark wizard has time to Avada Kedavra Cedric, who appears literally in pieces next to Harry back at Hogwarts. Moody takes Harry away but gets cornered by Dumbledore, revealing that the real Moody spent the whole year hidden in a chest while the one who taught classes was Barty Crouch Jr., disguised through Polyjuice. The villain is easily stopped and Moody is saved, then everyone waves farewell to the groups of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, who return home. Angst over the death of a student? None of that here!

So, uh… that covers the plot of the game. Normally I would end by repeating my points more concisely, but this time, I think I’ll do something different – namely, I’ll cover Years 5-7 first, THEN I’ll finish with a post discussing my thoughts on both games together. That’s all for now, see you next Friday for Part 1 of that next review.