Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Wii)

Yet another licensed game, but this one actually plays pretty well. I know it’s hard to believe but in short I found myself having fun playing Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix for the Wii. Harry Potter fans can probably stop reading now and go pick up the game, but for those of you that are curious let’s look at the game in more detail.

Graphically there isn’t anything jaw-dropping, but overall the visuals work very well. The character models look good, the in game cut scenes look good, maybe the only real gripe you can find is the facial animations aren’t that great, but not bad either. It may not be the most graphically impressive game on the Wii, but one thing to remember is you never see a loading screen at any point in the game. There’s some loading, but it’s hidden, sometimes the game will make you walk from place to place as it loads the next area, but that’s never a big deal. The opening scene after you select new game or a save file is simply used to load the world of Hogwarts, but it’s not just a screen saying “Loading.”

Now while the no loading thing is quite cool, the sheer amount of space you have to explore is amazing. In past Harry Potter games the load times got pretty bad. OotP (Order of the Phoenix) totally solved that problem. You’d really have to play the game yourself to see how big Hogwarts is. Let’s say I start off in Gryffindor Common Room, go down the grand stair case, take a secret passage to the dungeons, go over to the Herbology greenhouses, through a secret passage back to the grand stair case take another secret passage to the library, take the long way back to the grand staircase, take a secret passage out to the boat house, go through the grounds and back to the grand staircase, and go down to the bottom floor and take a secret passage to the seventh floor all without seeing a single load screen. (If that was confusing don’t worry I’ll explain what keeps you from getting lost in a little bit.)

Something that I usually don’t look at as much is presentation; however this OotP does this part quite well. From the opening title to the extras you unlock, everything feels very much like it should in the Harry Potter world. The title menu is a copy of the Daily Prophet and you select new game or continue. The music in the game works well, and they have the “Hedwig theme” in the game that so many associate with Harry Potter. All the voices I could find were done by their movie counterparts.

The gameplay is focused on exploration a lot, meaning very few wizard duels in OotP. Spells are done entirely through gestures. The spells generally work well if you take time to make sure you are doing them right, but I seem to have a bit of a problem with the ones where you have to move the Wiimote in a circle. But generally spell casting feels very good. The spell that allows you to make things move around in the air works particularly well, once you use the spell you tilt the Wiimote to make the object float in the direction you want it to. There is a flaw in the control system and it happens when moving around. Moving Harry around feels sluggish, it’s not a huge deal and once you adjust you probably won’t really notice, but I feel it should be said as it is a small flaw in the game.

As I stated earlier, while there are few duels that are required, you can actually try to get others to duel with you. Did someone tick you off with a comment they made toward you? No problem, just hold B to aim at a person and make sure they are highlighted, then you can use a combat spell on them. They may run away, or they may start a duel. Sometimes one of their friends might be with them. The dueling works pretty well, but it can be a bit hectic.

As for the exploration there is a lot of it to do. You can find certain items, statues, or animals to get what are called Discovery Points which can make your spells stronger and unlock movies done by the movie cast and some of the development team talking about their role in the game, or certain scenes, etc. While I usually don’t care much for this type of thing, some of them can be interesting. To keep you from getting lost in your wanderings around the castle you have the Marauder’s Map. At anytime you can press the – button to view it and search for a person that you need to find or any room/ place within the castle and grounds. You can push A on the place and then hit – again to go back to the game and footsteps will appear along the ground to show you where to go. One part that was really smart is that the map takes into account the secret passages you have passwords for, so if you have the password for the shortcut to the library and you are near the grand staircase, the footsteps will lead you to the portrait (where the secret passage is) and tell you to go through it. The Marauder’s Map is a very good tool to have with such a large area to cover. Which brings me to a sub-point about the exploration, with such a large area, some may say, “Yeah, but won’t it take forever to get from one place to another?” At first it may, depending on where you have to go, but once you open all the secret passages you can get around very quickly.

You could probably finish the game’s main story (which the game butchers quite a bit) in 5-10 hours, but to complete the game 100% you could probably spend over 20 if you don’t use a guide of some kind to find everything.

Anyways to finish up, I wish there were a bit more action in this game, but altogether Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is very well put together. Not to say it doesn’t have some flaws (sluggish movement, one spell motion that was a bit tough to get right, and not quite enough action), but Harry Potter fans will probably easily over look those. One thing that I really wish was in the game is the ability to fly around Hogwarts grounds like you could in previous Harry Potter games on a broom, but ultimately it’s a minor gripe. Even people who aren’t really fans of Harry Potter may enjoy the game, but I’d suggest a rental or playing it somewhere before you buy. Overall I’d give Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix:

8/10 With Harry Potter fans being able to add one-half to full point to the score.

Edit: Right now according to the game I have it 60% done and have 16 hours on it. I still have a bit of the story left to go. One final note, unlike most Wii games when your batteries are low there is simply an icon in the upper left corner of the screen instead of a message popping up ever 2 minutes to tell you that your batteries are low. It's a much better way to let people know.