
As Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger enter their fourth year at Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft, new challenges await them, both "professional" and personal. The Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire video game sticks strictly to the adventure aspects of the story, never touching upon the sticky relationship drama that makes up key subplots in the novel and the film. You'll still have plenty to do in the game, though: Guide the trio of young wizards through various locales, fight magical creatures, solve puzzles, and usher Harry through the Triwizard Tournament challenges just before a climactic showdown with Lord Voldemort himself. Though the collection aspects of the game are a drag at times, The Goblet of Fire still does enough to keep Potter fans engaged throughout.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione are back in the newest Harry Potter video game.
The Goblet of Fire makes a few departures from the last game in the series, The Prisoner of Azkaban. You still play as Harry, Ron, and Hermione, but the three don't have unique abilities anymore. You also can't switch between them during a mission in The Goblet of Fire. But you'll still solve plenty of environmental puzzles using each character's standard, context-sensitive charm
Jinx spells are another primary spell type. Jinxes are basically just an attack you use to attack monsters in the game, which include fire salamanders, dugbogs, and erklings. The menagerie isn't very extensive, but each of the monsters has a different fighting style and offers a different challenge. You can combine charms and jinxes to do combined attacks on creatures, as well. For example, if one character lifts a creature up in the air with a wingardium leviosa charm, the others can jinx it while it's being held for a combined attack, which is more powerful and effective than just spamming the jinx button.
As you make your way through the game's levels, solving puzzles and fighting creatures, you'll collect Bertie Bott's Every-Flavor Beans, which you can get when dropped by defeated creatures, or by jinxing random parts of the environments. The beans serve as currency, which you can use to buy cards to power up each character. The character card system adds depth to the game, letting you customize each of the three characters depending on the situation and play style. Some cards increase the power of your jinxes; others add stamina or duration to your magicus extremus meter, which when filled, gives you a limited amount of increased firepower for your spells. The more expensive and interesting cards let you fire double or triple jinxes with each cast, or give you an advantage against certain creatures. Each character can only use three cards in a mission, so you'll need to choose carefully before starting. Each character also maintains his or her own bean count and deck of cards, so that encourages you to switch between characters as you go through the campaign and make sure all of them have around equal power.
The primary gameplay in The Goblet of Fire involves collecting Triwizard shields that are scattered about the various levels. Some are hidden away for you to pick up, while others are earned by defeating boss creatures. Most of them require you to use your spells to solveenvironmental puzzles and reach them in out-of-the-way places. As you collect Triwizard shields, later levels are unlocked for play, letting you
The Triwizard challenges you unlock also help mix up the gameplay, as they're different in nature from the standard levels. The Triwizard challenges follow the template used in the book and the film; one challenge has Harry fly off on his broom with a dragon in pursuit, while another has Harry explore the depths of the Black Lake. These levels don't involve any exploration or collection--they're pretty much linear races, with some light combat involved.
You'll explore various levels looking for Triwizard shields.
Graphically, The Goblet of Fire is competent, excelling the most in its environment. For example, as you scale the towers and roofs of Hogwarts, you can see the surrounding buildings of the school grounds in the distance. The dragon that chases you through your first play of the Forbidden Forest is also quite imposing and impressive visually. Spell effects also look impressive, making use of particles and other lighting effects. However, the character models look pretty small on screen and don't animate particularly well. What's most disappointing is that the game never leverages any media from the film, aside from still shots used to decorate the cards. The cutscenes in the game are comic-like in their style, not unlike the
As a platformer aimed at the younger crowd of Potter fans, The Goblet of Fire does a
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