ike the two previous Harry Potter games, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is an adventure platform title. Harry and his friends encounter Dementors, accept training from Professor Lupin and continue their battle with Draco Malfoy and his sniveling cronies, all
the while solving reasonably complex puzzles.
In a new feature, players can easily control each of the three main characters, Harry, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, toggling between them even during battle. In addition, players pilot both Buckbeak and Hedwig as they retrieve airborne items, swooping over the grounds near
the Quidditch field and within the stone corridors of Hogwarts.
The game features lengthy cinematics of the characters talking and figuring out clues. These scenes mostly serve to end an adventure or establish a new quest, but the film's actors don't provide the voice work for the game. It's not generally noticeable, except with Professor Snape (the substitute can't mimic Alan Rickman's sneering drawl) and Ron (who seems to have a strangely guttural, Liverpudlian accent).
Azkaban has some RPG-like elements, as players check their quest logs, collect cards of famous wizards and witches, keep track of new Folio pages and search for hidden Every-Flavor Beans (used as barter goods to trade with Fred and George). In this game, the Marauder's Map is available to Harry, who can use the map to discover secret passages, highlighted in green.
Throughout the game, the beasts get slightly harder and the maps become more complicated. Prefects who patrol the halls are more likely to catch Ron, Harry or Hermione hidden in the shadows. With the discovery of each new spellbook, players need to replace old charms with new ones, allowing them to fix broken bridges and collect creatures for the afternoon's Potions lesson.
Controls could use improvement
In Azkaban's linear game design, players must finish each challenge, all the way through, in order. If that involves a troll that simply can't be outsmarted—too bad. There's nowhere to go but forward. If that sounds challenging, you're likely to enjoy Azkaban. If not, you'll wish you'd only rented it.
The frustration would be lessened if the controls were simply better or the targeting more sophisticated. In an odd reversal, boss fights are often easy, while smaller battles (such as with the Hinkypunks or pixies) are far more annoying than they should be.
If you get stuck outside the Hogwarts grounds, trying to figure out how to get the creatures you need, often the other characters will recommend a course of action. ("Shouldn't we try to find Buckbeak?" Hermione will ask, helpfully.)
The drawback to this approach is that they also repeat these statements—so much that you just want to tell them to shut up, already. Since there's often useful information mixed in with the nagging, muting isn't a good option. For the next Harry-based game, the designers should limit the number of times any character can say the same line, the same way, over and over in a scene. (If Ron asked one more time, "Shouldn't we get going?" bad things were likely to happen.)
These design issues don't distract too much from an otherwise fine adventure game, and there are an equal number of reasons to recommend it. The game maps are evocative of the movie (especially the outdoor areas) and change based on season and time of day. The candlelit stone
hallways, in particular, look great, and new additions (like the Muggle museum) are clever. Some puzzles are a little redundant, but most are truly challenging, making Azkaban a good choice for one-time-through gameplay.
My biggest advice? Save constantly. Otherwise, if you fall off a bridge into oblivion, you'll be put back at least one or two scenes prior, with the same pixies you already zapped—respawned.
— Jennifer
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