Dive into the world of LEGO Harry Potter with this in-depth review of the LEGO Harry Potter Collection. See if this magical collection is worth adding to your shelf.

It’s unthinkable to talk to someone who was a child in the 90s or 2000s and not have them play a LEGO game . For years, the Danish toy brand and Traveller’s Tales dominated the market for family-friendly adaptations of beloved popular culture universes such as Star Wars , Harry Potter or The Lord of the Rings . Although their influence has been diminishing over the years, partly because the new generations hardly feel close to what the Europeans propose, those children today are less impressionable adults than they were back then. For this reason, and at such a strange time for the license , the Danish company is betting on remastering LEGO Harry Potter for the second time , with a new version that falls into no man’s land .

Because yes, if LEGO Harry Potter sounds familiar to you, we’re not talking about will-o’-the-wisps, this isn’t the first time TT Games has released a video game based on the universe of the teenage wizard. The first version, LEGO Harry Potter Years 1-4 , was released in 2010, followed by Years 5-7 in 2011 , fully covering all the events of the eight films starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, in two games cleverly divided for those who wanted the younger Harry Potter or the more adult and darker one. However, as generations don’t stop, in 2018 Warner Bros. repeated the same move, remastering these same games with the added incentive, this time, of being part of a single game. Two projects , seven years , and all on one disc .

There was nothing wrong with that first remaster, don’t get me wrong. Aside from the ” LEGO soul ” itself, which imbued these games from start to finish with its goofy humor , capable of bringing a smile to your face when you catch a reference on the fly, and with puzzles perfect for a game night with friends or family, combining eight movies on one disc was the icing on the cake of one of the best LEGO projects we’ve ever played. From The Philosopher’s Stone to The Deathly Hallows Part 2, all with improved resolution , loading times, and FPS rates , LEGO Harry Potter Collection was and is an impossible nut to crack for any modern update of the same project. And no, Warner Bros. just doesn’t nail it this time .

A wave of nostalgia, puzzles and good humor without any new additions.

Reliving the Harry Potter saga in LEGO is always welcome. Whether it’s because of those silly jokes at key moments for the plot such as the conclusion of the story, or some subtle references to other works and even films, they make LEGO Harry Potter one of the best projects of the European brand. From the maligned The Half-Blood Prince to the award-winning The Prisoner of Azkaban, we’re talking about two games with around 12 hours of content , minimum, for each one , something that already offers enough incentives to replay this version.

In this case, the two games and eight films, over their respective seven years, remain unchanged. There is no restart, not even a cinematic for any of the game’s moments. Something that would have been strange, since TT Games embraced the films from beginning to end and what it included in the original responded to its needs as a puzzle – platformer . In fact, these same puzzles have not seen a single improvement or minimal addition to their modus operandi. From that chess game in the first film to the puzzles during the fight between Dumbledore and Voldemort, they are all mechanically identical .

The soundtrack is also no different, with the scores from the films by John Williams, Patrick Doyle and Alexandre Desplat remaining the same , and no voice acting added . In a purely narrative and audiovisual sense, LEGO Harry Potter Collection remains so close to its original 2010-2011 release that it’s frightening.

I understand that TT Games’ treatment of LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga as the ultimate project of George Lucas’ franchise, completely remaking the original six chapters and adding the next three based on the latest trilogy, is something that Harry Potter can only dream of, with new additions barely focusing on redeeming the additional , paid DLC . These add five additional spells that can only be used while exploring maps, but do not affect the already scripted puzzles or events of the base game; and then ten characters that, again, do not affect an already-made story mode.

Minimal graphical improvements without taking advantage of the current generation

When we face a project of this style, it is not only that we are forced, both as press and as players, to have a clinical eye to be able to see the differences, many of which are minimal and barely involve small tweaks between them, but they must be approached under the critical eye of the PC. In purely playable terms , that known as game-feel, the PC experience will always be superior: better resolution, more FPS —or at least an unlocked rate that will depend on our PC—, better textures… A good list of improvements that make consoles pale, in the worst case. Therefore, with a second remaster like this one, it is expected that, at the very least, the visual standard of the PC that the same game achieved at its release will be reached. The problem? It was already achieved in its same version in 2018 .

Six years later, the situation with LEGO Harry Potter Collection is strange. In this case, I have had the opportunity to play and squeeze the PS5 version of the game, and I have barely managed to find a noticeable difference with that remastered version of 2018. While it is true that, thanks to the FPS Boost of Xbox Series – where I played it for pure personal entertainment the first time – the original Harry Potter Collection managed to scale to 2160p , maintaining the 60 FPS stably, on the Japanese console I have had to take a look at the Backwards-Compatible website to realize the harsh reality: the only performance improvement is on PS5 , where it goes from 1440p to 2160p, maintaining the same FPS rate as a generation ago.

Although it may not be so clear at first glance, TT Games has added very slight adjustments here and there to sweeten the proposal. Of course, there are huge lights and shadows. In Gringotts, at the beginning of the first adventure, we can see better lighting and reflections on the ground, as well as a less exaggerated color tone, something that makes the project lose a bit of spark. While upon reaching Hogwarts, the visual quality has barely suffered minimal improvements. This statism in the visual finish is constant throughout the game.

Once we get to the Ministry of Magic in the fifth film or the fight at the Weasley house, we see a more polished finish again, with lighting with certain adjustments in the models and sharper reflections , although static, not at all dynamic. Don’t expect big differences between versions – in terms of size, volume and weight in the changes – but rather small details. All this to then fall back into more plastic scenarios, typical of a LEGO game from more than a decade ago. Without a doubt, it is a version that will hardly win the player over through the eyes, and that is despite the fact that TT Games has shown, at least with what has been seen so far in LEGO Horizon , that its graphics engine, the NTT, is capable of creating worlds with weight. However, here we are talking about a remaster without much seasoning .

The game world is in a worse position in terms of structure . With the new generation and the power of the SSD in both consoles, one might expect that those small independent spaces that make up the game’s maps, divided, for example, into the Great Hall, the Observatory Courtyard, etc., would no longer be isolated. LEGO Harry Potter keeps those tiny loading screens between sections that could have been diluted with the current hardware. It’s not something crucial that will make many people suffer. They are barely a second’s pause, but in a game where it’s hard to highlight positive changes, one would have expected the boundaries of its game world to be blurred to offer a much more natural and organic experience .

• The collection combines two games, seven years of history and eight films on a single disc.
• You can’t choose a chapter or movie, we’re still limited to the classic menu system.
• The improvements compared to the 2018 version are minimal and anecdotal.
• For a novice player or someone who doesn’t own the PS4 or Xbox One version, this is a great compilation of one of the best LEGO games.
• There are no new additions or significant structural changes.

Analyzing a project like this is incredibly strange. On the one hand, you are encouraged to be extremely critical, since we are talking about a second paid remaster in a matter of 13 years. On the other hand, you inevitably try to compare it to games like LEGO The Skywalker Saga, a fully-fledged remake that this version does not aspire to.

However, and ultimately, you have to be honest and accept that LEGO Harry Potter Collection is not the version dreamed of by the fan, even less so by the one who has been religiously following TT Games’ releases based on the Wizarding World since 2010. Without major visual changes, with small adjustments to the lighting with uneven results and non-existent improvements that, due to the power of the current hardware itself, should be present, there is not much to recommend this new version beyond the fact that you have never played it, and you are a big fan of JK Rowling’s work.