Oh Hogwarts Legacy. What a maypole of controversy you were back in 2023. The discourse surrounding its existence, and the morality of even daring to cover it in a website, was vastly larger than the game itself, which was, at the end of the day, a pretty competent open world game that allowed for any Harry Potter fan to live their dream fanfic of being part of a house in a story of their own.

But we’re not here to talk about early 2023 Hogwarts Legacy. Oh, we’re here for something a lot more interesting. We’re back to yet another episode of one of my favorite kinds of games to tackle, the “impossible Switch port”. Hogwarts Legacy has a Switch version, one coming out right after WB’s recent deluge of disastrous and/or half-baked Nintendo Switch ports of Mortal Kombat 1 and Batman: Arkham Knight. Am I going to dive into yet another overpriced disaster? Am I going to unveil a hidden gem? Something in the middle, perhaps?

Yep, something in the middle. It was surprising to find out that Hogwarts Legacy wasn’t a pure dumpster fire like Mortal Kombat 1 was, but it was far from being a banger like the pristine ports of Ori and the Blind Forest or The Witcher 3. It’s a boringly competent, but heavily gimped port of an open world action-adventure that had no business being translated into a portable. This makes it somewhat of a novelty, and also a fantastic companion piece for die-hard Potterheads, but there are too many asterisks and qualifiers to make this particular SKU be worth a purchase to a wider demographic.

The hindrance lies on the visuals, of course. In order for Hogwarts Legacy to reach a meager 30fps in a somewhat stable manner (remember, it suffered to maintain framerate stability on other platforms in the first place), it had to cut corners in its graphical fidelity. The geometrical detail and textural quality are vastly inferior, and the amount of particle effects was diminished to nearly a wet fart, in comparison to the spark fiesta seen in the original versions. That, to be fair, was expected. It still looks like Hogwarts Legacy, if that’s any consolation; the game looks vastly worse, but on a smaller screen, you can get by. I expected a lot worse. I expected Mortal Kombat 1.

The biggest issue, however, is the increase in loading times. As per usual, this is a Switch game with a lot of compressed files (you will clearly notice that in the sound department), meaning it takes a while for everything to be unzipped and loaded into the RAM. I originally played Hogwarts Legacy on my PC, with a SSD, so going back to long loading times was a major turn-off, but I can’t say I wasn’t expecting this hindrance.

I won’t say it’s all bad. Sure, pretty much everything about this port is a downgrade, but there is a neat little feature which is exclusive to the Switch version. The UI is completely compatible with its touchscreen, making one of the game’s worst aspects (its horrendous menu interface) vastly easier to deal with, even if the icons are still pretty small onscreen. And, well, it’s still very much playable. Just not ideal.

The bottom line is that the Nintendo Switch version of Hogwarts Legacy is, of course, the weakest and most compromised port of the game. The addition of touchscreen functionality doesn’t exactly mitigate all of the various setbacks and issues which needed to occur in order to make such a game run on such underpowered hardware. With that being said, it’s a lot less worse than anticipated. If you can put up with the reduced visual fidelity and long loading times, this is a neat companion piece for the beefier current-gen ports, but only truly worth it if you’re a massive Harry Potter fan, and if you can find this at a discount.

 

Graphics: 6.5 Incredibly heavy setbacks were taken in order for the game to run on the Switch, but it doesn’t look overly disastrous. It looks underwhelming, sure, but I’ve seen worse on the Nintendo Switch.	Gameplay: 7.0 The 30fps cap is a bummer, making some of the more twitch-based sections more annoying to deal with. Loading times are also pretty long. The usage of the Switch’s touchscreen in order to deal with the horrible pause menu UI was a neat surprise, though.
Sound: 7.0 It’s the same soundtrack seen in other ports of the game, but with an added layer of (excessive) compression.	Fun Factor: 7.0 Really long load times and a sensation you could be playing a much better version elsewhere cursed the Switch port of Hogwarts Legacy all throughout my playthrough. With that being said, it’s nowhere near as disastrous as other “impossible ports” on the Switch.
Final Verdict: 7.0

Hogwarts Legacy is available now on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, PC, and Nintendo Switch.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch.