Lego Harry Potter Series- Nintendo DS

This is the final review for the Harry Potter Marathon, the Lego Harry Potter Games. The marathon has been loads of fun but everything good must come to an end and what better way to end this then the Lego DS games? The Lego games have always been known to be fun to play, good quality, and even have their own sense of humor. How will the Harry Potter Lego DS games hold up? Let's check them out!

Lego Harry Potter Years 1-4 is the first game bundling 4 games in 1. You can play as Harry and sometimes his friends or other stage based characters to collect studs, wizard cards, wizard hats and to get to the end of the stage. You can also use spells with the stylus pen to interact with objects and opponents to solve puzzles and to not explode into a bunch of Lego bits.

The entire game is on the touch screen so, you can just use the stylus for everything or in a combo with the buttons, the top screen shows a map on where you have to go labeled with goal points. This game being rated E 10+ is a much lighter tone than the original Harry Potter story. The game has added humor, the humor is a nice addition to the series it doesn't ruin the usually darker tone the Harry Potter world takes.

I honestly got so addicted to this title I even sat at home with my DS just to finish it. I loved the humor, stud collecting and solving puzzles to unlock characters and spells to use in the game. This game is a great addition to any Harry Potter or Lego fan and I give it a 10/10(it's rare I'll just sit at home with my DS to finish a game).

Unlike the first game, I found this one to be a bit more of a chore to play. The new control scheme took a bit to get used to not to mention I thought the first game's controls were better.

The game is shown on the top and you have a spell panel with spells you are allowed to use on the touch screen and you have to use Y and or A buttons to cast and sometimes even the control pad to use said spell as well. There is no map telling you where to go, and the game only gives vague hints on what to go, so I spent half of my game time trying to figure out what to do and where to go. I also did not care for the new dueling mechanic that you cast with Y and blocked with B in a one and one duel but I mostly just spammed the Y button until the opponent made enough mistakes to be defeated.

I normally loved the humor in the game but when it came to characters dying they made it too much of a joke in this game so I found it slightly offensive like the game thought death was funny. In Snape's death scene, it was ruined by him crying like a baby until I found a bucket for him to cry into. The only death taken seriously was Voldermort's just showing him disintegrating like in the movie. I'll likely keep this game due to the fact I want to own the set but I'm not really looking forward to playing this game as much. I will give it a 4/10 for convoluted gameplay and poor humor.

Overall, I say give these games a shot and start with the first one it is the better of the 2 and covers the first half of the movies. This marks the end of the Harry Potter Marathon and I might do it again next year. Thanks to all who have been reading my blog it means a lot.