LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 for PSP Reviews & Ratings by IGN

The LEGO games are nothing new. From LEGO Star Wars to LEGO Indiana Jones, we've been there and done that quite a few times. Now, the LEGO style of game has been combined with another ultra-popular license in the form of the fictional literary series Harry Potter. The PSP version of LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 differs from the console versions of the game, but it's still a slick-looking, solid-playing game. With that said, it's not going to make new fans that weren't already into LEGO games or Harry Potter. We'll just get this right out of the way: if you're not into either, than this game isn't going to be for you.



LEGO Harry Potter Years 1-4 covers the first four books in the Harry Potter series. So, you're going to play through the adventures found in the Sorcerer's Stone, Chamber of Secrets, Prisoner of Azkaban, and Goblet of Fire. You'll have to do so in order; for instance, you can't jump directly to the Prisoner of Azkaban sequences without first getting through the Sorcerer's Stone and the Chamber of Secrets in their entirety. That's OK because there's a story to be told here, albeit a loose one. LEGO Harry Potter tells its namesake's story in much the same way LEGO Star Wars did, in that there is a minimal amount of voice acting (especially in cutscenes) and there's an overarching assumption that the gamer who's experiencing the title is already familiar with the source material.



The gameplay itself is traditional action fare but not exactly the LEGO title you've probably played before. Most of the game's advancement is through fetch quests, mild combat, puzzle solving, and of course, the endless collecting of LEGO bits known as studs (of which there will be no shortage of as I had over 500,000 by the time we made it through the first year).



You'll have a tilted top-down view of the events transpiring through the game's four chapters, and you'll be able to navigate Harry and his friends through all sorts of environments, episodes and predicaments that will be familiar to the Harry Potter faithful. Controlling the game is fairly self-explanatory. You can use either the analog nub or the directional pad to move through environments. A single action button will allow you to explore items in the environment or cast your standard attack spell. If you can cast another spell on something in your vicinity (you'll learn new spells as you work your way through the game), the action button will bring up a sequence of buttons that must be pressed, but the combinations aren't particularly hard. If you have a character or characters available to you apart from Harry at any given time, you can toggle between them by way of the PSP's triggers.



And of course, because the game is aimed at a younger audience, LEGO Harry Potter is forgiving. Failing at a task, dying, and all of that jazz rarely results in a frustrating situation, because you'll almost immediately be able to start or try again from where you were. The game's playful aesthetics mirror this carefree, fun environment. The game actually looks and sounds decent, and although it's not at the visual or sonic height of what the PSP is capable of, it's still an aesthetically pleasing game. The cutscenes especially go a long way in advancing the narrative and telling the story of the Harry Potter saga (though the cutscenes do seem to randomly stutter from time-to-time).



That's not to say that the story doesn't take some liberties with what occurred in the book – we're sure that those of you who read through the Harry Potter books will surely find errors and omissions – but in general, the four episodes of the game attempt to tell the stories told in J.K Rowling's fantasy universe. All the while, Harry will learn new spells that will help him get through many obstacles in the game, and he'll run into familiar faces that can also help him get through tough spots that he's ill-equipped to deal with.



And that's really what's at the heart of a game like LEGO Harry Potter. Though the game is extremely linear in nature, once you've completed a stage, you can return to it whenever you'd like to try to collect various items, collectibles, and more that you may have missed the first time through. And that's really the beauty of the game because you'll actually be forced to return to most stages later in the game if you want to see, find and do everything. For instance, you won't have all of the spells available to Harry until deep in the game, but you may run into optional parts of a stage that require the use of a late-game spell. You'll have to wait until you get that spell to return to the stage and see what hidden item or collectible awaits you beyond the previous barrier. Likewise, as you unlock new characters, you may find different parts of stages available to you, as different characters have different skills that are useful at certain points in the game.



Because LEGO Harry Potter, like other LEGO titles, isn't aimed at the hardcore audience, you won't find an incredible amount of challenge, but that's OK because the experience with the game is really what you make of it. You could easily get through all of the stages in the four years in about 10 hours (depending on your skill level), but you'll need to spend many more hours if you want to see and do everything. So for those that want a loose, quick experience, you'll be able to find that here, but if you're a meat-and-potatoes kind of gamer who really likes to sit with a title for dozens of hours and collect every little thing in the game, you'll be able to do that here, too.

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