As a game developer who did work on that kind of license game in the past, I can provide some insight on what was happening behind the doors at the time. Basically, a big publisher acquires licensing rights first. Then they do some survey to know how many copies of a game they can expect to sell and thus how much money they will gross. They also have a net profit target and with that, they establish the maximum price they are willing to spend on development. This is followed by a call for offers to small developers who have to make a bid on how much they can make a game for. There is no game design at that stage, even the game genre is not even determined, the publisher doesn't care, they just want to put a price on the development and will simply pick the lowest bidder because they know that no matter how bad the game is, the license name will be enough to sell enough copies. I worked on license games that were negotiated for as little as 100k euros, even with a low man/month cost of 5k euros, that's only 20man/month, or a team of 5 working 4 months on a game. Nowhere near enough to make a quality game. It's not that the team is incompetent or unwilling to do a good game, it's just that the budgets were always so low that we had to cut absolutely every corner possible. Doing a prototype? nope, we just went with the first idea we got that sounded doable Throwing away badly implemented stuff? Nope, that would be cutting a good portion of the content QA testing? Almost none, we just played our own game after our official working hours Even game design documents are usually too much for the kind of budget those license games had, most of the game design was thought on the spot during meetings or sometimes programmers would just implement an idea they thought would be cool. All the problems you describe in the video are typically due to time and budget constraints. The few good implementations were most likely done in the beginning of the production, then as the budget and time was running out, they had to do things as quickly as possible to just get the game out in time. Let's not even talk about how some publishers lure you with royalties, big licenses and fame but if you read the small prints, you see that whatever money they pay you for the development is advance on the future royalties and if the game fails, you have to pay back that money or keep working for them until you work on a game that makes enough money to get a paycheck. Now, all of this was 15-20 years ago when I worked for small developers but I doubt the landscape has changed drastically. Bigger licenses now receive more care than before but smaller licenses are probably the same dumpster fire as they used to be.
Damn, that's crazy they would expect to make a solid game with that time frame and manpower. I guess a handheld/mobile game would be doable but even 2000s PC/console game seems impossible. You must have been stressed as hell working like that.
The PC version wasn't any better. There was a lot of things made in the Unreal engine that got cut but fun thing those stuff is still in the realeas when you install it. Some modders implemented the Editor back into the game as it was cut out to prevent the game from being modified and they found the Dursleys fully modeled so it looks like they wanted to make the intro scene fully animated or eve playable and they also found some fully working spells in the game files like verdimillious, flintifors and avifors. Avifors was actually used in the special E3 demo but that demo never got online so they remade it with the information they had got of a video of that E3 demo that can be found on TH-cam. They also did this with the second and third game he first three games on PC were all made in Unreal and today you can play maps in HP1 were you can learn the unused spells and in HP2 and 3 there is way more stuff like whole challenges some of them are unbelievable big and are made by only one person at all.
Surely it’s definitely possible for an incredible game to come out of next to no people as long as they’re passionate enough? I mean Hollow Knight exists.
@@lokephoenix1039 According to what I've read, Hollow Knight was created by 3 devs in 2 years and 10 months. That's 5 times the amount of man/months that OP mentioned. There's quite a few great indie games made by small teams or even by a single person but they usually take a long time to make and as you said they are often passion projects.
For a very long time, I actually believed that the game music was a 'remake' of the movie music due to copyright. When I learned that the composer had to do it before he had any idea how the movie sounded like, I was mind blown.. both soundtracks are similar in terms of instruments and musical theme, capture the magical feel perfectly and just scream Harry Potter.
The music is also the same in the PC version, and of course I had played this before Oblivion (my first TES game) and so I always wondered why on earth Oblivion felt like the Philosopher's Stone. xD Now I know why.
Jeremy Soule has written and composed some of the most beautiful video game music. He also did the music for another favorite game of mine Skyrim, which is music I own personally to listen to from time to time.
@@PatriotJedi Well yes, he composed music with his personally assembled library of sampled virtual instruments (as in, playing a tuba and violin section using a keyboard to trigger recorded samples of played notes, mostly from an orchestra), occasionally combined with real life performances for solo melodic instruments which needed the expressiveness of someone actually playing it; think of the manipulations the mouth makes when playing a solo flute part for instance; this can completely enhance the 'fake' keyboard-played orchestral parts underneath it to make the sum of it sound dynamic for the listener. Jeremy Soule built on his library of sounds he used and he'd tweak things like where the instrumentation was focusing, plus recurring harmonic and melodic themes for each game, but for instance, Morrowind's soundtrack, which was released a year after this game's first iteration, already sounds a hell of a lot like Oblivion's themes and overall sound too. For Oblivion though, Soule was able to really put in a lot of time experimenting and implementing new sounds, many of which were the product of altering existing instrument sounds with synthesizing use of effects to create 'new' instruments out of strings or vocal sounds etc. Neverwinter Nights is another game (Series) which comes to mind, that has early Jeremy Soule magic injected into it via soundtrack. I've always found the soundtrack to Harry Potter 2, as used in the PC version, to be his ultimate masterpiece above all other soundtracks he's made. Even fans of Oblivion and Skyrim who aren't familiar with HP2, invariably agree that the latter's soundtrack is special and superior, when they actually hear it. I would personally say Oblivion is his second best work, and although I put over 100 hours into Skyrim back in the day, I'm personally somewhat baffled at the appreciation it gets compared to Oblivion, as I've always found it to be decent, but noticeably lackluster, more generic and forgettable compared to the previous title's music, and the instrumental sounds are perhaps objectively less inspired and creative, more repetitive and conventional with less thematic contextual variations
What do you mean by "his personally assembled library of sampled virtual instruments" ? I get what a sample based midi instrument is I'm just confused by what you mean by personally assembled
When people talk about "liminal spaces" and a "dreamlike atmosphere" in these older games, this is the one that really comes to my mind. Everything about it just feels like the dream of a child who just read Harry Potter for the first time
The thing is, I think that's exactly what they were going for. This is the kind of stuff kids on the playground imagined doing when "playing harry potter".
Ah that's why I was so confused looking at the footage. I had the GBC and PC versions, honestly the tie in of all these platforms felt like the Mandela effect at school. No one seemed to understand what anyone else played. It was a very interesting experience
The PC, console, and portable versions were each by different studios. The PC version is a bit of a metroidvania, where the console versions are more an action adventure game
GBC versions were hands down the best adaptions, which is always funny since usually the GBC versions of games aren't super great. But I totally get what you mean. Before Goblet of Fire you'd have a hard time talking about the games depending on what platform they were played on unless they were the new gen (at the time) consoles since PS2/GC/Xbox all had the same game when they released it (I believe) after the new-gen version of Chamber of Secrets. But PC, PS1, PS2/GC/Xbox, GBC, and GBA players for both SS and CoS all had completely different experiences...with GBC players even having a completely different genre experience since theirs was an RPG adaption for both SS and CoS.
@@OliverTCrowe I agree to this day Cos is one of my favorite games I replayed that game so many times. it is near 100% accurate to the books and I have checked very little is different outside some things like diolage or for gameplay reasons like how the castle seems to only have twenty students instead of like three hundred. (edit) also as an added piece of irony harry the tital character doesn't cast a single spell in all of the first book and even most of the second. the first time he casts a named spell on "screen" is in his duel with draco. so by some demented irony the main character casts no magic in a magic book save for two instances at the beginning of the book by compleat accident. that tid bit never gets old.
14:40 In the PC version, there was a secret room during the Flying class and it had plenty of beans and a wizard card for your collection. Issue was that to get in there and still pass the class, you needed to make a perfect flight time. If you even hit one wall inside that room with the janky flight controls and thrash camera, you wouldn't pass the class.
it's literally so funny how she had to scramble to come up with a way to delete time travel from her books after she introduced it bc suddenly everyone realized it made everything trivial to fix if there's easily available time travel still doesn't explain why the ministry of magic or dumbledore didn't use time turners to go back in time and intervene with voldemort when he was younger though, nice try JKR
@@Zabe_B Wizards traveled back in time to flush excrement or something... I dunno haven't read Rowlings books, only heard her saying dumb stuff online so much putin got inspired and compared himself to her.
@@Zabe_B JKR showed that magic time travel is self-consistent. That means you can't actually change the past, you'll create a time paradox if you use it for anything other than being in two places at once. And since she's British we can just say that such events are Fixed Points.
Oh man, this brings back memories. I actually beat the game without a memory card, no joke. I would start the game over and over and over, and by the 30th or so attempt, I finally had enough time and patience to beat it. The things we do as kids...
That reminds me of "Zombies ate my Neighbors" on SNES, which is like a 4 hour long tour de force. It had a password system, but good luck getting anywhere without the supplies from earlier levels :D
That reminded my first ps1 rpg game, FFIX, but it was in Japanese and i had 9yrs old without google or anything to help, the results was that i had to hardly test every game mechanic, item, character, passive abilities, and memorizing it all, and of course many of them i couldn’t figure out, so when i beat the game for the first time i had around 300~400 hours of gameplay and even tho had some rly poor gear, just made it because everyone was at lvl 99 lol
I think you hit the nail on the head about why it’s so fondly remembered, me included, it’s a mix of people being fans of the films but also it being so full of 1 use mechanics, we were kids with short attention spans and now, no one remembers the full game or how it stitches together, they just go “oh remember the charms bit?” Or “remember the quidditch bit”
One of these days, I really wanna see Josh start up a series titled "Was it THAT Bad?" for games with negative reputations. If we highlight the good, it could be fun to re-examine/highlight the bad in games
@@FelisImpurrator While I've seen Civvie's review of that game, part of me really wants to just torture Josh with awful games, hah. Ride to Hell: Retribution also comes to mind
*Fun fact* about Peeves, he was actually going to be in the movie but was cut; he was played by Rick Mayall. When asked about it, the actor explained "every time I came in to do my part, the kids would uncontrollably laugh. They couldn't stop them no matter how many takes and I think that might be why they cut me from the movie. They still gave me tickets and paid me for it which was nice, but when I went with my daughter she kept thinking I played Hagrid" Peeves also appears very early on in the PC version and is used as a tutorial to "teach" you how to do certain mechanics. His lines in the ps1 game coming from that as he taunts you through the game; while you play. Peeves also appears in the 3rd movie game and more commonly in the GBC and GBA games as a plot device to move the story along or pad it out. To this day, nobody has seen or heard of the deleted Peeves scene of the first harry potter movie.
wow I never thought I'd learn something new about that movie over 20 years later, but cool! I always wondered why he was cut. He didn't have a large part but added a lot of character to the "ghosts" concept.
A slight nitpicker to this "To this day, nobody has seen or heard of the deleted Peeves scene of the first harry potter movie" There were "public witnesses" as there was a test screening prior to the release of the first film. The screening was a "3 hour cut" of the film (which totalled to around 30 mins extra stuff including scenes with Peeves) where the parents who saw it said the film was "too long" while the children said it the film was "too short". Unfortunately, the comment from the parents overuled the kids and the scenes were put on the cutting room fllor including all of Peeves' scenes. I can't begin to imagine the value of anyone who may have a copy of that test screening.
@@WakoDoodle You and me both. I was really hoping we would get something as part of the recent reunion but alas nothing. I now cling on to naive hope that every re-release of the dvd, blu-ray or 4k set comes with these deleted scenes similar to how the "lost" scenes for star wars was released as part of the blu ray collection of the first 6 films
The sounds of footsteps and the squeaking of the shoes just triggered more of a nostalgia moment than anything else in this video. Somehow those sounds stuck with me more than anything else about the game.
It’s like when you have a random memory of just looking at a wall in your house or a corner of the sofa and your brain is like “I’m gonna remember this forever”
Can you imagine how impractical living in this world would be? From normal corridors that require running jumps over acid rivers (good luck if you are trying to carry something heavy or are at all clumsy), to the insanely difficult process of making a withdrawal from the bank, to purchasing something basically being paying the storekeeper to go and do work for them... It's crazy. Good way to weed out the weak and unco-ordinated though. Neville Longbottom would have died in his first year by walking down a corridor, of course.
All I remember from this game was the dead atmosphere making it seem like a horror game. The dungeon area with the knights made it so. I loved the Malfoy chase scene because it was outside the castle and I was interacting with an NPC, not just talking to them for an exposition dump.
the amount of nostalgia I got from seeing that opening scene again. I was obsessed with this game when I was a kid. I never beat it, of course, but I loved it all the same haha
Well, it never dawned on me really how much information and context is missing in those ps1 harry potter games because I already knew everything about the story and franchise so playing this, I didnt notice information missing or lack of world building. That game series had alot of potential for sure, nonetheless I loved them as a kid!
The lack of information makes it more interesting even if you haven't read the books. I don't need to know who everyone is and how they are related to the MC. Just drop me into the story and let me sort it all out.
Well it wouldn't do because the PS1 platform was all we had. So at the time it was was all fun and new to us. Until the Next Generation came in, when you compare the two which one do you think people like better.
Well I think a big issue is trying to figure out what a kid will want to put up with. I think it's more than reasonable to assume most players are going to be people who have prior knowledge of the world. Kids likely aren't playing the game for the story. They want to just get into the action. I look back at the lord of the rings console games and I can't recall them telling barely anything. But I didn't care, I'd seen the movies and read the books. I just wanted to pick Aragorn and go plow through the hordes of orcs. That said I think story telling through exploration would have been a better compromise. Especially I a game like this. Though I think I'd want to see things I didn't know.
This comment doesn't make any sense. Wouldn't you be asking where all the context is if you were aware of it? Anyways this game is nothing like the book or move anyways. You probably just looked at it as some potter ip and was content like most children would.
This is why the movies got away with cutting so much, because the audience was weirdly super literate it didn’t matter; we filled in the blanks on our own without realising. The entirety of the Fidelius Charm in Azkaban comes to mind
The soundtrack in this game is truly the best thing about it. The soundtrack was magical and screamed Harry Potter, the main theme is just as magical (and recognizable to me) as Hedwigs Theme from the films.
I actually played on PC back in the day. I remember it actually being pretty good. Though I think I sunk the most hours into the GBC game. The PS version is so much worse than the PC, wow...
Had it on Pc too definitely noticed how repetitive parts were. I was undoubtedly drawn in as was a big Potter fan. Seeing it again now it wasn’t a great game in-fact downright shoddy at parts..
Philosopher's Stone on PC was significantly better, and Chamber of Secrets on PC was the best. Managed to get it working at 60fps and was the best nostalgia playthrough experience.
Between the empty environments, hideous character models and unnatural voice acting, this game just has an indescribably bizarre and uncanny atmosphere to it that used to really freak me out as a kid, yet I still loved playing it! Also...Metal Gear Solid when? 👀
Metal Gear Solid when?! I myself played MGS1 for the first time just a few years ago on PS Vita and was pleasantly surprised how good it was. Intrigued to see Josh's review of it.
The eerie atmosphere, the silence in the corridors when you can also hear Harry walking and trying to cast a spell, was the shit back days, I really love this atmosphere too.
I had the PC version of this, and all I remember is a section where you run towards the camera, away from the troll, down a corridor filled with obstacles and holes that you can barely see before you hit them. And also a really bad stealth section where you're trying to get back to your room in the invisibility cloak at night, but apparently if you step even slightly off the right path (which is extremely unclear,) Filch finds you instantly, even if you're nowhere near him. And it looked completely different from the one he shows early in the video.
I had so much trouble with the stealth section! It got to the point that I convinced myself that the game was listening for noise in the real world and alerting Filch if there was any IRL noise. I asked my parents to please keep it down for a little bit, and I actually managed to beat it in one or two attempts after that, so I confirmation biased' myself into thinking my theory was true until I grew up enough to realize there's no way that's how it'd work.
Regarding the cold and lifeless feel of the game world - that's kind of why I always loved this game. There was this odd, creepy vibe to everything that made the magic feel all the more foreign. The music and the character's attitudes can sometimes contrast with the creepier tone, which brings some levity to the experience (even if that levity is through flawed voice acting and strange dialogue). I think the same can be said for some of the wild level design choices. The world seems crazy and nonsensical, and the events of the barely held together plot follow that trend. Is it flawed? Tremendously. Do I still have fun playing it? Unapolagetically I actually do lol That said, your critiques are apt and I agree with a majority of them.
This was even true of later versions on other systems. Chamber of Secrets on GameCube had many similar moments. That game had a HUGE castle with many rooms, but so many of them were empty and didn’t even have any music. That emptiness added something to the experience of exploring. I spent hours doing it.
The PC version of this game was the first game I ever got, probably as a Christmas gift. Before that I had been playing whatever my older siblings had on our family computer. It had a bad localized dub and I would've liked for the world to be open but I absolutely loved it. We used to try and glitch the game with my friends in various different ways, amazing times. Still not an amazing game but a lot better than this, I liked it enough to get the next 2 games.
The PC version of this game was the first I ever bought with my own (allowance) money, saved up for it for so long. Still have fond memories of it, sadly was never dedicated enough to save money and buy the later games.
@@ExxoToxin I used to ask my mom to help me with all those,and I just looked in awe how perfectly she nailed those with our ball mouse. I remember it taking ages to complete the game, but i recently found an emulated version and I beat the game in 3 or 4 hours lol
The PC version was one of the first games i played as a kid, and the nostalgia is real, i replayed it not long ago at 24, to finally collect all of the wizard cards, and i can say, it WAS good. You should do avideo on the PC version as its very different.
@@paigelarson9279 nope, but being a 2001 game, and a film franchise one at that, its very easy to download through a google search. That's what I did, even though all the way back in the day i do remember having the CD, but i lost it.
It's interesting how they didn't know the movie music, yet they made it so similar and magical I just can't believe it! Also the PC version is pretty decent I think, liked most of it :)
A lot of (licensed?) games back then had huge differences between consoles. There is also a Game Boy Advance edition of a bunch of Harry Potter games that is a totally different kind of game. Also Spiderman, released in Playstation, PC and Nintendo 64. Many differences there, too.
@@binaryflawgic5713 its partially holdover from the cartridge consoles. Every one of them had very different specs, so the same game would need to be remade in varying amounts for multiple consoles. It got better over time, and i think for awhile it wasnt quite necessary so much as habit.
I still have a copy of the PS1 version. I played it so much as a kid, right up until the next movie tie in game came out. However, I never did finish it. I got to the final boss, and my parents and I spent weeks trying to beat it every night. Eventually, I asked about it one night, and my dad said, "oh, I played it last night after you went to sleep and I beat it. The fight moved to the roof and then you killed Voldemort. We can play something else now." I was young enough that that still sounded plausible.
So much nostalgia. I played the fuck out of this as a kid, with my two older brothers. We played it knowing the game was garbage, but that was kind of part of the fun. Still objectively bad though.
Me too, I had the flu and played it non stop on the old family PC in the computer room. I remember it vividly and I was just sad I was able to beat it in one day. Edit; wtf is a flipendo? I never got it and I am a huge fan of the books. Always rubbed me the wrong way even as a kid.
THE NOSTALGIA! I remember having this game on my Playstation 1 growing up and loving it! Just listening to the voice acting brings back so many memories. Glad you had the same experience growing up. Looking forward to watching the whole video!
It was composed by Jeremy Soule! You'll likely also have heard him composing for the Humongous entertainment games (spy fox, putt putt, etc) as well as Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim. He's a very talented guy, hell his work on chamber of secrets even won the BAFTA for best video game music! Him and John Williams have done a lot more to make the series memorable in the minds of many than ma'am 'house elf slavery' Rowling.
You know, I never understood why they changed it from "Philosopher's Stone" to "Sorcerer's Stone" in the US release. Even in America at that time, we were familiar with the mythological alchemical "philosopher's stone" for which the book was named.
@@Arsene_Lupin_the_3rd I like the way your mind works, though I really doubt that that's the case, Rowling would not have been able to keep her mouth shut about a governmental cease and desist
Two things: 1. Can we all appreciate the fact that Jeremy Soule had to completely construct a working, believable, memorable soundtrack for a magical world without having the film to help him? As the video mentioned, the game actually preceded the theatrical release, so there was no iconic John Williams score for him to go off of. I for one think that he succeeded in managing to capture the magical, childhood-esque feeling the games were going for. Listening to the Chamber of Secrets track "Ambient" still gives me chills. Soule would also later go on to score Skyrim, to critical acclaim! 2. As broken as these games were, I still think they're gems in their own right. I've mainly played the PC versions, but I think the PS1 version is fun as well, flaws and all. Plus, I have many happy memories of my brothers and I roaring with laughter as we'd mess around (yet again) with the debug menu and "ghost mode." There's so much meme materials in those games. Good times. Also, thanks so much for the in-depth, entertaining, thought-provoking video commentary, as usual. Your Tomb Raider and Rayman videos resulted in an instant subscription from me. You have a great narration voice, in my honest opinion. I look forward to seeing what else you end up covering in the future!
i personally have a problem enjoying the music he created, after these people coming forward with what he has done to them. just isn't the same anymore sadly.
@@piraipirai73 I completely agree that what he has done is horrible, if true. But I specifically like his craft, not him as a person, which is different. It's the same as liking someone's idea but not liking him/her as a person.
@@piraipirai73 To be honest, I'm pretty out of the loop, so I haven't heard anything that you're referring to. Although I wouldn't be surprised, as a lot of famous people end up doing terrible things. Good music, still, but thanks for the info! 😁👍
Sorcerer's Stone was a game where the designers went halfway toward setting up a story and then said "screw it, the only people playing this will have read the books" when asked to further elaborate on the characters.
It's that the point that, I get where a game should normally have set up. But what about Goldeneye, or most any game with an established background. They aren't going to tell you much, cause knowing the property tends to give you the information. Ever play a star wars game? They don't spend 20 minutes telling you Vader is bad, cause it's a huge fanbase. Harry Potter is the same. 8 million copies was probably 90% fans. I do get they mechanics looked bad. I played the GBA version myself... Did he not mention that one?
@@garcardosotan6172 Unlike this game, most Star Wars games aren't a 1:1 retelling of the movies, though. Vader _exists_ in them, but he's not a major character.
Personally i don't really care much about character elaboration, i'd rather focus more on events, world building, and lores, and i personally hate it when a work puts too much emphasis on character building/relationships that they decide to leave many important events off screen and/or neglect building a coherent lore
37:04 You cut it just before Peeves flies directly at the camera and I can tell you as a small child, that terrified the hell out of me. Traumatised, I'll never forget that section until the day I die.
I'm really glad to see you cover this, because it's the version I played as a child but isn't generally the one that seems to get coverage by content creators (outside of meme-spawning Kevin o'course). I have very fond memories of this game, but I also remember playing Chamber Of Secrets on PS1 and considering it to be a significant improvement in a lot of ways. I would love to see you cover that game too, because clearly my memory cannot be trusted.
something I never noticed when I used to play this game as a child is that if you pay attention during certain sections of the game you can see voldemort (black hooded figure) outside of cutscences observing you for some seconds before fading away. If I remember correctly he does that once somewhere during the eye door section. It's weird how they added such an interesting event while the rest of the game lacks so much work
that used to freak me out so much as a kid, in one of the places he appears if you move fast enough you can reach his location and see him vanish into a wall
Wait, seriously? I only ever played this game as an adult (after growing up with Chamber of Secrets on PS1 and I wanted to play the first one) and did so multiple times with 100% completion, but I NEVER saw Voldemort aside from that one brief cutscene near the beginning! Crazy!
I remember, that in the PC version you had to "draw" a symbol with your mouse in order to learn the spell. It was utterly awful and i hated it. I remember the world beeing bigger in general, but with the downside that most of the time, i was running through similar looking corridors without knowing where to go. But that may have been because i was a child and stupid
This is so different from the PC version in an uncanny way, like you feel like you remember exactLy whats going to happen and how the game worked until suddenly its wildly different
I only played the PC version. I loved exploring the castle on my own. I liked that there weren't a lot of students wandering around. I wonder what I would think of that game now. It was a bit hard to control as I recall.
I replayed it in a fit of nostalgia recently, and while the controls ARE clunky it's very much designed to be forgiving with that in mind - long aiming windows for spells, large platforms to make up for imprecise jumping. I found myself breezing through it, which is to be expected from a guy in his late 20s playing a game designed for 8 year olds, but a lot of cheaper games from the era are frustrating to control in a way this one wasn't.
24:45 “The dragon hatches, and he calls it Norbert. The dragon will now not matter for the rest of the game” Had a good laugh at that one. I replayed this game about two years ago for the very same reason, nostalgia. I have to say that I did enjoy it, but camera angles really got the best of me. I had a good laugh at the expense of the voices, though.
OH BOY this makes me happy. I played the PC Version as a kid and tbh, I think the first three games were absolutely perfect for children. It made the world alive and you could somewhat insert yourself into the story of this school. Loved it.
This looks really charming. I had Chamber of Secrets on the GBA and it was a surprisingly great version of the game, I spent hours as a kid exploring isometric Hogwarts ❤️
This game is like a showcase on how NOT to design character models. Seriously, what happened? I don't care if it's PS1, nobody should look like poor Fred and George. The PC version lacked mouth movement which was odd by 2001 standards (guess what, game was a rush job), but the faces looked decent enough for the time. And the models themselves, while hardly stellarly animated, at least weren't these lumbering blobs. Good god, Dumbledore, what curse turned you into a hair-covered traffic cone? (Oh, and PS1 Hagrid is not real, he can't hurt you... It's just a game, turn it off and he'll be gone...🙄)
Even some of the earliest ps1 games did better despite more limited technology, many of which were developed with far fewer polygons, lower resolution textures and a fairly new console and yet still did a lot better with what little they had available and even found creative ways to overcome limitations, and this came out right at the end of the console's lifespan when they could take full advantage of the console and the knowledge and tech that had been developed in the meantime. I don't think they even cared either, this whole game just feels like they were trying to go for the minimum effort they could get away with. They must have known it'd be garbage and that makes the whole thing even worse. Also someone apparently made a small horror game called escape from PS1 Hagrid, so I guess he's still gonna be visiting people's nightmares for a while longer Edit: Finding out this was the same studio that made Croc makes the whole thing worse
For me, this game is like a dream you had once in your childhood. Dream in a literal sense, because a lot of this game is heavily disconnected while populated and empty at the same time. Like before entering a class, you have to go through an obstacle course before you could enter. And then something life-threatening happens to Harry- and then after that, oops you have potions class next! A lot of the story flow doesn't make sense. And for the "populated and empty" part, this is obviously Hogwarts school. There are students here studying and so are you, but a lot of the places are barren. And when you do get to places where there are other students, like classes, you feel disconnected from them. Like they'll all go away after the next sequence and you never see a lot of them again. I know this is from 90's PS1 era mixed with the shenanigans of being a movie game. But it is still a fun nostalgic dream. I don't exactly want to relive it. But it's fun remembering it.
So much nostalgia! Its a bit funny when you mention "they didnt even get to hear the movie OST" "it had to get done along movie release" "the game feels rushed" "there are some moments where the game is actually smart (ie plugging air ducts with blob monsters)" but then say the devs probably didnt care or didnt know better when the game is bad. Like Im pretty sure the devs knew what they were doing, but production (planning, impediments, mandated deadlines) were ass.
You have literally no idea of how BIZARRE, surreal and feverish the Spanish dubbing is for this game as well as the sequel. In The Chamber of Secrets when Harry speaks in parsel to open the Chamber he literally yells “ESPAÑOL!” Imagine the hysterical laughter that ensued from me and my brothers
Oh, the video is about the shitty version for the Playstation :'( The one for PC is a true gem and far superior... I've recently found my old copy of this game while cleaning up and actually managed to get it installed, although getting it running required the download of a community patch. It's quite remarkable that it is possible to run a game that's 20+ years old on modern hardware, even though there are some wired new bugs and graphical troubles here and there. This game was one of the first "real" computer games I've ever played. It took me weeks to beat it and it managed to give me quite a few nightmares, especially the dungeon section and the ascent/descent to/from the astronomy tower, since I was in elementary school back then.. It's notable that there are quite a few quality-of-life features missing that we've gotten used to. Especially the placement of the save-points, the unskippable cutscenes and the mentioned inability to replay sections are annoying, but all in all the game holds up pretty well, imho. I'm still salty that I wasn't able to get all collectibles this time, which is actually quite hard, since there are no maps, no detailed level-objectives and one missed secret/card etc. means that the save file is basically ruined.. The controls are somewhat clunky, a high DPI mouse almost renders the game unplayable. The platforming is ok. The flying sections are ok, once you've gotten used to the controls and adjusted the key bindings. I wasn't able set the resolution to more than like 800x600, which meant that the image on my 2560x1080 widescreen monitor was badly distorted, which made the drawing sections quite hard The story is somewhat true to the book, the characters are ok, the camera is not that bad, there is a nice mix of mechanics and the overall pacing is respectable. Nowadays, the game appears to be quite short. I think it only took me one sitting of about 5 hours to finish the game. The last fight against Quirrell/Voldemort was brutal and probably took me close to a dozen attempts.. Back in the day, this fight, as well as the escape from the troll, were section that simply were impossible for me to do, so I needed my dad to do them for me, which turned out to be quite a struggle for him as well. Good times.
I managed to get it running without graphical glitches on a modern pc. Took me ages to find a workaround though. And by now I already forgot how I did it...
Had the PC version as a kid myself, so I never knew how lucky I got. This does help explain why people treat the PS1 version as a big meme. The PC version has nearly the same story problem (it's just a bit better in this regard, but has the same sin of relying on knowing the book for characters and real story), and some similar gameplay mechanic issues (wish they'd let us cast different spells on things freely), but at least the gameplay is not this boring crime against game development and it actually does some things Josh notes he wishes the PS1 version did.
i did play the PC version i borrowed a copy from the local libery but i got stuck so damn hard with the spell lerning lessons they was so demanding for perfection and my hand just was not steady enough to do it
@@KeiraLunar When I first got the game, I played on a laptop with one of those "nub" mouses... like... some old laptops had those tiny nubs on the keyboard that you used in place of a mouse or touchpad. (honestly... the mouse designs for laptops from the 90s and early 2000s were wild... had a laptop that had a detachable mouse-orb holder too... like... not a mouse... just the orb from it, that you rolled with your hand) It was a challenge that forever improved my mouse control, at the highest mouse sensitivities.
I loved this review :D I played this game as a 9-10 years old, not speaking or reading English at all so you know what happens with this little knowledge of this age? Yep. You don't realize that you can save. Oh and this is not the only game that I and my little brother didn't save :D We did this with every single game on PS2. Whenever we booted up the game, we started from the beginning. The scenes added with your commentary are SO GOOD! I had a really good time watching your video, so thank you for that :) Keep up this awesome work!
I played it when I was 5 years old. I never finished it because there was a warning message when you save and that scared me back then. I don't know how many times I started it. Because I was to afraid to save my playthrough, a couple of times I left my Playstation on over night to continue playing the next day.
@Jake A I was not allowed to play for too long. I believe I was allowed to play only 30 minutes a day starting of. Later an hour, then two hours, etc. When I was older.
@@carolinasilvarode326I scared easily when I was a kid. For me the scariest part of the game was when I was locked in the room with the groggy troll and you needed to levitate the objects out of the way. The heavy feet and whispers from Harry, added the tension. You also couldn't levitate and drop the objects from to high or they would fall over and wake the troll up. I had to turn the volume down for that part because I was scared, for a little while before I got the courage to progress pass that point. I woke the troll up and seeing it run at me literally made me jump. Couldn't play that part for a year.
I played when I was 8. Got stuck on the bit in the Forbidden Forest where a giant turtle farts fireballs at you, because I never figured out you were supposed to shoot it only in the ass. So I never got to actually finish the game. Also to whoever designed the minecart and peacock sections, I hope both sides of your pillow are warm every night for the rest of your life.
I loved playing this game when I was young, but I could never get past the troll dungeon because I was too scared. I also just never used a memory card for some unknown reason, so I just kept restarting it over and over. Then I came back when I was 13 and finally made my way through it all. Was pretty proud of beating it even though it is mostly easy. The hardest part for me was easily the gringotts coin missions, not the peacock.
It's so sad they didn't make a third one for PS1. That console was still getting some games back in 2004. The finnish dub for the two PS1 Potter games is just way too hilarious and I'm so glad I experienced them as a kid. Also the soundtrack for such average PS1 games is just WAY TOO GOOD. I only learned few years ago what else the composer has made.
Yes, Jeremy Soule is AMAZING, I love the soundtrack he did for Skyrim, and honestly, as someone who loves music, I think he added a lot to the first 3 Harry Potter games.
I was disappointed as well, but 3 is when they started just making them all the same carbon copy rather than enjoying the differences. the PC and GBA versions of 3 were still different because they could be (the GBA version of 3 being hands down my favorite version of it), but it was that point on when they really tightened any differences down to where Goblet of Fire and beyond were exactly the same on any console...even the GBA and DS being just very scaled down carbon copies. Not to mention, they became 100% straight movie adaptions rather than the more open adaptions of the books.
@@OliverTCrowe Pretty sure the console and PC versions of 3 are still quite different. I remember watching a playthrough of the PS2 version of 3, and being thrown for a loop by not recognizing stuff or mechanics that were completely missing in the PC version.
It's bizarre to see this version after growing up with the PC version. The PC's story and set pieces are 90% the same, but the mechanics work together much, much better. Story's still jank, though.
Judging from the improvements in The Chamber of Secrets, I genuinely think Argonaut Games had either very little time or not enough budget to make The Philosopher's Stone any better - Electronic Arts probably didn't think it was a wise thing to spend much money on a PS1 game scheduled to come out in late 2001, and relied on the movie to sell the game. The Chamber of Secrets, by virtue of using the same engine and assets as the Philosopher's Stone, has better... well, everything. Exploration, level design, rewards, anything you can think of.
Even the PC and PS2 versions are much better. I played philosopher's stone and chamber of secrets in the PS2 and they were pretty similar and more importantly, decent
This was literally a money grab and nothing more. Worked flawlessly too and doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why. Well done to them hustling.
I loved this game so much as a kid. Though I loved any game I was lucky enough to own. I'd only get a 2-3 games a year, 1 at my Birthday and 1or 2 for Christmas so every game, good or bad, got played a lot and I'd find a way to enjoy. Blockbuster was my best friend. Renting games was much easier to convince my parents of, especially since they had a Blockbuster card. Lol. Nostalgia.
This video resurfaced some memories that I didn't realize I had. Because I played and completed this game. And I didn't remember until I realized I remembered playing through some of the events. The button mashing with the final boss, the troll chase, the Filch stealth section...what the heck? How did I forget about a game I've played?
I'd love to see your take on the Prince of Persia games. Especially the original platformer and also the Sands of Time, which is my personal favorite. :)
What I like the most in this game and makes me play it again every 2 years or so, is its atmosphere. This game has such an eerie, bizarre and unique atmosphere. Walking in those huge but empty environments with almost no Hogwarts students at all, in the deep silence when you can also hear Harry' steps and the muffled noise of the wand in the corridors, was a really strange but memorable experience. The buggy textures, slightly moving following your movements, maybe more noticeable because of the capacity of the ps1, the very dark places... All of this reminds me of a weird dream. Huge, empty, dark random places, with only some wizards wandering endlessly and talking paintings.
I remember Being shocked at hearing Quirell say "damn you" as it was probably one of the first times i heard a video game character curse. And the whole chess puzzle thing, i dont know how i managed to figure it out at the time but honestly im kinda glad they made it that way as i definitely wouldnt have been too thrilled to play an actual game of chess. Also they had a few sub plots that the movie didnt, makes me think that maybe they had one or two people who liked the books on the team
That certainly was a nostalgia trip. In all the good and bad ways. I remember having great and *terrible* times with the game (yes, on ps1) as a kid. But I still managed, somehow. I'm sure that set me up for my love of Souls games later on. Also, "we need to get to diagonal alley" got an audible "oh no..." out of me. Gringots ptsd is real.
12:19 I used to annoy my parents so much on weekend mornings playing this game loudly haha. Good memories. My parents kept yelling to me "Turn off the stupid Nintendo!" because they thought flipendo was Nintendo.
Your best work yet. I remember absolutely loving this game as a kid because I was Harry Potter obsessed and it was amazing being able to run around hogwarts (while scoffing chocolate frogs irl). I still like the game to this day but your review really highlights some of the glaring issues. Rushed development and maybe some hardware issues too, but it's no excuse for lazy game design. Thankfully they rereleased it on PS2 (even though it's a reskinned chamber of secrets :p). The game does actually mention the stolen object from Gringotts but its in a completely missable issue of the newspaper in the Griffindor common room
About the stolen object that Hermione mentioned in the game, you actually first learn about it early on. In the Gryffindor Common Room, there's a newspaper that Harry can read which mentions it. It's easy to miss, though, so it's understandable if you feel like it fails to set that up.
41:45 hate to say it, but the first interaction you have with Ron in this game is where he says that Malroy is in Slytherin - in fact, look, it's right there: 6:59 - probably more a sad reflection of how many times I played the game as a kid
I feel heart broken having my nostalgia goggles questioned like this, and I will admit watching the game play, it's a lot rougher than I remember it. I will also say however that the first few years they did where you interacted with the school and explored Hogwarts was much more enjoyable than the mission select system they fell in love with in the later games. Granted having to redesign the castle 7 different ways without it being too similar or too different... I understand the choices they ended up making.
@@wentoneisendon6502 Except when it's the dbzt@rds, they still must insist Cancer Triger is the Magnum Opus of humanity, should you not hail the "glory" of the non-entity "Crono" as a prophet of the "gR3At" Kakarot, you're the fucking Devil.
To be fair, it doesn't really take exposition to understand a "school bully". By the time you are playing games or reading books you are firmly familiar with that concept.
They might be too recent for this channel, but I'd be fascinated to see you play and review the other Harry Potter liscences games - I played all by the last 2, and I remember them being surprisingly good, but the gameplay and even genre changed fairly dramatically game to game, making the series as a whole an interestingly mixed bag.
Yo can we just take a second to appreciate Josh's work ethic? Man has made 2 MMO reviews less than a week apart then drops this gem a few days later. Man really deserves a break sometime soon.
Goes to show that a game doesn't need to be perfect to be enjoyed. I loved this game despite all this. In older games the story isn't being fed to you, you have to connect the points through time yourself. And I like that.
playing this on my dad's laptop with only the touchpad as a kid was a challenge. I remember finding the debug codes that would let you do things like jump 100ft in the air and exploring the castle and it was really my first experience with looking behind the curtain. seeing how interconnected Hogwarts was but also the tricks that the devs used to make the world look seamless. whether it's a good or bad game, I loved it
This game was AWESOME. Totally immersive, the music from Jeremy Soule was incredible, the voice acting was pretty darn good of course because I believe they got mostly the real actors to do them. Some parts were genuinely difficult for me as a...oh IDK...jesus how old was I...8 or so back in about 2001? I played the second game as well for the Chamber of Secrets and it was also very good actually. I played the Playstation 1 game...and honestly...I thought it was awesome back then too, sure maybe if I were like 28 I would have hated it in current year but...fuck it, I loved it
This just makes me miss the pc version. I got all the games on the pc. Playing the console versions and seeing how different they were was very jarring. I'd only played a few of the console games but the pc ones were amazing. Saaadly modern hardware struggles to run old code so, cant really play the oldest ones anymore.
I managed to run them quite easily on modern PC, you just have to run them im compatibility mode. The channel 'Phil of Glimmer' did a video detailing how to run the first 3 Harry Potter PC games on modern windows if you want to revisit them.
When I was a kid, playing this on PS1, it was great and I loved it...... nowadays, I can't even finish GoW Ragnarok. I miss being young and stupid, so even bad games could be fun again.
As a game developer who did work on that kind of license game in the past, I can provide some insight on what was happening behind the doors at the time.
Basically, a big publisher acquires licensing rights first. Then they do some survey to know how many copies of a game they can expect to sell and thus how much money they will gross.
They also have a net profit target and with that, they establish the maximum price they are willing to spend on development. This is followed by a call for offers to small developers who have to make a bid on how much they can make a game for. There is no game design at that stage, even the game genre is not even determined, the publisher doesn't care, they just want to put a price on the development and will simply pick the lowest bidder because they know that no matter how bad the game is, the license name will be enough to sell enough copies.
I worked on license games that were negotiated for as little as 100k euros, even with a low man/month cost of 5k euros, that's only 20man/month, or a team of 5 working 4 months on a game. Nowhere near enough to make a quality game. It's not that the team is incompetent or unwilling to do a good game, it's just that the budgets were always so low that we had to cut absolutely every corner possible.
Doing a prototype? nope, we just went with the first idea we got that sounded doable
Throwing away badly implemented stuff? Nope, that would be cutting a good portion of the content
QA testing? Almost none, we just played our own game after our official working hours
Even game design documents are usually too much for the kind of budget those license games had, most of the game design was thought on the spot during meetings or sometimes programmers would just implement an idea they thought would be cool.
All the problems you describe in the video are typically due to time and budget constraints. The few good implementations were most likely done in the beginning of the production, then as the budget and time was running out, they had to do things as quickly as possible to just get the game out in time.
Let's not even talk about how some publishers lure you with royalties, big licenses and fame but if you read the small prints, you see that whatever money they pay you for the development is advance on the future royalties and if the game fails, you have to pay back that money or keep working for them until you work on a game that makes enough money to get a paycheck.
Now, all of this was 15-20 years ago when I worked for small developers but I doubt the landscape has changed drastically. Bigger licenses now receive more care than before but smaller licenses are probably the same dumpster fire as they used to be.
Damn, that's crazy they would expect to make a solid game with that time frame and manpower. I guess a handheld/mobile game would be doable but even 2000s PC/console game seems impossible. You must have been stressed as hell working like that.
The PC version wasn't any better. There was a lot of things made in the Unreal engine that got cut but fun thing those stuff is still in the realeas when you install it. Some modders implemented the Editor back into the game as it was cut out to prevent the game from being modified and they found the Dursleys fully modeled so it looks like they wanted to make the intro scene fully animated or eve playable and they also found some fully working spells in the game files like verdimillious, flintifors and avifors. Avifors was actually used in the special E3 demo but that demo never got online so they remade it with the information they had got of a video of that E3 demo that can be found on TH-cam. They also did this with the second and third game he first three games on PC were all made in Unreal and today you can play maps in HP1 were you can learn the unused spells and in HP2 and 3 there is way more stuff like whole challenges some of them are unbelievable big and are made by only one person at all.
Surely it’s definitely possible for an incredible game to come out of next to no people as long as they’re passionate enough? I mean Hollow Knight exists.
@@lokephoenix1039 According to what I've read, Hollow Knight was created by 3 devs in 2 years and 10 months. That's 5 times the amount of man/months that OP mentioned. There's quite a few great indie games made by small teams or even by a single person but they usually take a long time to make and as you said they are often passion projects.
@@lokephoenix1039 MegaMan rock and roll was made in 2 years by like 5 people so yes.
the models are really realistic in this game, british people look like that irl
😠 *angry british noises*
Americans tho
@@ryanh361 22:59 here they are
As a British person, can confirm we do look like that
@@SS501Fan101 nah just you bro
For a very long time, I actually believed that the game music was a 'remake' of the movie music due to copyright. When I learned that the composer had to do it before he had any idea how the movie sounded like, I was mind blown.. both soundtracks are similar in terms of instruments and musical theme, capture the magical feel perfectly and just scream Harry Potter.
The music is also the same in the PC version, and of course I had played this before Oblivion (my first TES game) and so I always wondered why on earth Oblivion felt like the Philosopher's Stone. xD Now I know why.
Jeremy Soule has written and composed some of the most beautiful video game music. He also did the music for another favorite game of mine Skyrim, which is music I own personally to listen to from time to time.
@@PatriotJedi Well yes, he composed music with his personally assembled library of sampled virtual instruments (as in, playing a tuba and violin section using a keyboard to trigger recorded samples of played notes, mostly from an orchestra), occasionally combined with real life performances for solo melodic instruments which needed the expressiveness of someone actually playing it; think of the manipulations the mouth makes when playing a solo flute part for instance; this can completely enhance the 'fake' keyboard-played orchestral parts underneath it to make the sum of it sound dynamic for the listener.
Jeremy Soule built on his library of sounds he used and he'd tweak things like where the instrumentation was focusing, plus recurring harmonic and melodic themes for each game, but for instance, Morrowind's soundtrack, which was released a year after this game's first iteration, already sounds a hell of a lot like Oblivion's themes and overall sound too. For Oblivion though, Soule was able to really put in a lot of time experimenting and implementing new sounds, many of which were the product of altering existing instrument sounds with synthesizing use of effects to create 'new' instruments out of strings or vocal sounds etc.
Neverwinter Nights is another game (Series) which comes to mind, that has early Jeremy Soule magic injected into it via soundtrack.
I've always found the soundtrack to Harry Potter 2, as used in the PC version, to be his ultimate masterpiece above all other soundtracks he's made.
Even fans of Oblivion and Skyrim who aren't familiar with HP2, invariably agree that the latter's soundtrack is special and superior, when they actually hear it.
I would personally say Oblivion is his second best work, and although I put over 100 hours into Skyrim back in the day, I'm personally somewhat baffled at the appreciation it gets compared to Oblivion, as I've always found it to be decent, but noticeably lackluster, more generic and forgettable compared to the previous title's music, and the instrumental sounds are perhaps objectively less inspired and creative, more repetitive and conventional with less thematic contextual variations
What do you mean by "his personally assembled library of sampled virtual instruments" ?
I get what a sample based midi instrument is I'm just confused by what you mean by personally assembled
When people talk about "liminal spaces" and a "dreamlike atmosphere" in these older games, this is the one that really comes to my mind. Everything about it just feels like the dream of a child who just read Harry Potter for the first time
The thing is, I think that's exactly what they were going for. This is the kind of stuff kids on the playground imagined doing when "playing harry potter".
Right? I mean, the voice acting is full of echoes, just like a weird unsettling dream. As if everything is inside a wet cave
@@yuriperez1221 well it is inside a moist castle so close.
@@yuriperez1221 the sound effect is a blend of echo and reverb but I agree with you.
This game is like the predecessor to Amnesia.
Ah that's why I was so confused looking at the footage. I had the GBC and PC versions, honestly the tie in of all these platforms felt like the Mandela effect at school. No one seemed to understand what anyone else played. It was a very interesting experience
Looooooove the gameboy games. And prisoner of azkaban on ps2 is very memorable to me
The PC, console, and portable versions were each by different studios. The PC version is a bit of a metroidvania, where the console versions are more an action adventure game
loved gbc one
GBC versions were hands down the best adaptions, which is always funny since usually the GBC versions of games aren't super great.
But I totally get what you mean. Before Goblet of Fire you'd have a hard time talking about the games depending on what platform they were played on unless they were the new gen (at the time) consoles since PS2/GC/Xbox all had the same game when they released it (I believe) after the new-gen version of Chamber of Secrets.
But PC, PS1, PS2/GC/Xbox, GBC, and GBA players for both SS and CoS all had completely different experiences...with GBC players even having a completely different genre experience since theirs was an RPG adaption for both SS and CoS.
@@OliverTCrowe I agree to this day Cos is one of my favorite games I replayed that game so many times. it is near 100% accurate to the books and I have checked very little is different outside some things like diolage or for gameplay reasons like how the castle seems to only have twenty students instead of like three hundred.
(edit) also as an added piece of irony harry the tital character doesn't cast a single spell in all of the first book and even most of the second. the first time he casts a named spell on "screen" is in his duel with draco. so by some demented irony the main character casts no magic in a magic book save for two instances at the beginning of the book by compleat accident. that tid bit never gets old.
14:40 In the PC version, there was a secret room during the Flying class and it had plenty of beans and a wizard card for your collection. Issue was that to get in there and still pass the class, you needed to make a perfect flight time. If you even hit one wall inside that room with the janky flight controls and thrash camera, you wouldn't pass the class.
I got so good at this though lol I played this game so much.
I could never get past the great hall trying to run this on windows 95, just like your likes
Making previously acquired abilities unusable, outside their very narrow story function, is extremely on brand for the HP franchise.
Time turner? Nah, we won't need that silly thing ever again!
it's literally so funny how she had to scramble to come up with a way to delete time travel from her books after she introduced it bc suddenly everyone realized it made everything trivial to fix if there's easily available time travel
still doesn't explain why the ministry of magic or dumbledore didn't use time turners to go back in time and intervene with voldemort when he was younger though, nice try JKR
Time travel in Harry Potter is deterministic, meaning that you can’t actually change anything.
@@Zabe_B Wizards traveled back in time to flush excrement or something... I dunno haven't read Rowlings books, only heard her saying dumb stuff online so much putin got inspired and compared himself to her.
@@Zabe_B JKR showed that magic time travel is self-consistent. That means you can't actually change the past, you'll create a time paradox if you use it for anything other than being in two places at once.
And since she's British we can just say that such events are Fixed Points.
Oh man, this brings back memories. I actually beat the game without a memory card, no joke. I would start the game over and over and over, and by the 30th or so attempt, I finally had enough time and patience to beat it. The things we do as kids...
That reminds me of "Zombies ate my Neighbors" on SNES, which is like a 4 hour long tour de force. It had a password system, but good luck getting anywhere without the supplies from earlier levels :D
That reminded my first ps1 rpg game, FFIX, but it was in Japanese and i had 9yrs old without google or anything to help, the results was that i had to hardly test every game mechanic, item, character, passive abilities, and memorizing it all, and of course many of them i couldn’t figure out, so when i beat the game for the first time i had around 300~400 hours of gameplay and even tho had some rly poor gear, just made it because everyone was at lvl 99 lol
Had the same with the Prisoner of Azkaban for ps2! Was sick anyways so what to do than beat a game in a day.
haha i did the same. only that i left the ps run over night
@@RogueCoup as a kid I was afraid it would break the PS to leave it on overnight xD
I think you hit the nail on the head about why it’s so fondly remembered, me included, it’s a mix of people being fans of the films but also it being so full of 1 use mechanics, we were kids with short attention spans and now, no one remembers the full game or how it stitches together, they just go “oh remember the charms bit?” Or “remember the quidditch bit”
One of these days, I really wanna see Josh start up a series titled "Was it THAT Bad?" for games with negative reputations. If we highlight the good, it could be fun to re-examine/highlight the bad in games
Daikatana! Daikatana!
@@FelisImpurrator While I've seen Civvie's review of that game, part of me really wants to just torture Josh with awful games, hah. Ride to Hell: Retribution also comes to mind
Superman 64 is a prime candidate for that
Dungeons and Dragons: Daggerdale.
Ooh, I would love to see Josh play that Batman&Robin game that Rerez covered.
*Fun fact* about Peeves, he was actually going to be in the movie but was cut; he was played by Rick Mayall.
When asked about it, the actor explained "every time I came in to do my part, the kids would uncontrollably laugh. They couldn't stop them no matter how many takes and I think that might be why they cut me from the movie. They still gave me tickets and paid me for it which was nice, but when I went with my daughter she kept thinking I played Hagrid"
Peeves also appears very early on in the PC version and is used as a tutorial to "teach" you how to do certain mechanics. His lines in the ps1 game coming from that as he taunts you through the game; while you play. Peeves also appears in the 3rd movie game and more commonly in the GBC and GBA games as a plot device to move the story along or pad it out.
To this day, nobody has seen or heard of the deleted Peeves scene of the first harry potter movie.
wow I never thought I'd learn something new about that movie over 20 years later, but cool!
I always wondered why he was cut. He didn't have a large part but added a lot of character to the "ghosts" concept.
That would have been fantastic, I absolutely love Rik Mayall
A slight nitpicker to this "To this day, nobody has seen or heard of the deleted Peeves scene of the first harry potter movie"
There were "public witnesses" as there was a test screening prior to the release of the first film. The screening was a "3 hour cut" of the film (which totalled to around 30 mins extra stuff including scenes with Peeves) where the parents who saw it said the film was "too long" while the children said it the film was "too short".
Unfortunately, the comment from the parents overuled the kids and the scenes were put on the cutting room fllor including all of Peeves' scenes.
I can't begin to imagine the value of anyone who may have a copy of that test screening.
@@AlexPaes26 I hope one day we will get to see this test screening because I'm sure it would be amazing !
@@WakoDoodle You and me both. I was really hoping we would get something as part of the recent reunion but alas nothing. I now cling on to naive hope that every re-release of the dvd, blu-ray or 4k set comes with these deleted scenes similar to how the "lost" scenes for star wars was released as part of the blu ray collection of the first 6 films
The sounds of footsteps and the squeaking of the shoes just triggered more of a nostalgia moment than anything else in this video.
Somehow those sounds stuck with me more than anything else about the game.
It’s like when you have a random memory of just looking at a wall in your house or a corner of the sofa and your brain is like “I’m gonna remember this forever”
didnt watch the video yet but just reading this made me hear those sounds dude.
It’s the sound of the doors opening for me
It’s the sound of harry grunting when you jump for me lmao
Can you imagine how impractical living in this world would be?
From normal corridors that require running jumps over acid rivers (good luck if you are trying to carry something heavy or are at all clumsy), to the insanely difficult process of making a withdrawal from the bank, to purchasing something basically being paying the storekeeper to go and do work for them... It's crazy. Good way to weed out the weak and unco-ordinated though.
Neville Longbottom would have died in his first year by walking down a corridor, of course.
All I remember from this game was the dead atmosphere making it seem like a horror game. The dungeon area with the knights made it so. I loved the Malfoy chase scene because it was outside the castle and I was interacting with an NPC, not just talking to them for an exposition dump.
Looking at it now it kinda has a shadowman feeling to it. But i guess that's just the case for most ps1 adventure games.
lichrally the knights scared me and it was all very eerie
Dark forest level always scared the hell out of me as a kid.
Agreed. The librarian (Argus Filch) level is the scariest level I've ever played on a game.
What scared me about this game was the sleeping troll part. I was stressed out there.
"It's time to put on your robe and wizard hat..."
2 nostalgia bombs for the price of 1. Bravo Josh, well played.
the amount of nostalgia I got from seeing that opening scene again. I was obsessed with this game when I was a kid. I never beat it, of course, but I loved it all the same haha
same, as a kid i never managed to get past the minekart thing. but you bet i replayed the opening hours of the game a million times!
Same 😂♥️💯!!
Well, it never dawned on me really how much information and context is missing in those ps1 harry potter games because I already knew everything about the story and franchise so playing this, I didnt notice information missing or lack of world building. That game series had alot of potential for sure, nonetheless I loved them as a kid!
The lack of information makes it more interesting even if you haven't read the books. I don't need to know who everyone is and how they are related to the MC. Just drop me into the story and let me sort it all out.
Well it wouldn't do because the PS1 platform was all we had. So at the time it was was all fun and new to us. Until the Next Generation came in, when you compare the two which one do you think people like better.
Well I think a big issue is trying to figure out what a kid will want to put up with. I think it's more than reasonable to assume most players are going to be people who have prior knowledge of the world.
Kids likely aren't playing the game for the story. They want to just get into the action. I look back at the lord of the rings console games and I can't recall them telling barely anything. But I didn't care, I'd seen the movies and read the books. I just wanted to pick Aragorn and go plow through the hordes of orcs.
That said I think story telling through exploration would have been a better compromise. Especially I a game like this. Though I think I'd want to see things I didn't know.
This comment doesn't make any sense. Wouldn't you be asking where all the context is if you were aware of it? Anyways this game is nothing like the book or move anyways. You probably just looked at it as some potter ip and was content like most children would.
This is why the movies got away with cutting so much, because the audience was weirdly super literate it didn’t matter; we filled in the blanks on our own without realising. The entirety of the Fidelius Charm in Azkaban comes to mind
The soundtrack in this game is truly the best thing about it. The soundtrack was magical and screamed Harry Potter, the main theme is just as magical (and recognizable to me) as Hedwigs Theme from the films.
Granted: the composer did go on to do Skyrim and Guild Wars
@@thejman5683*Casually forgets to mention Morrowind and Oblivion
I actually played on PC back in the day. I remember it actually being pretty good. Though I think I sunk the most hours into the GBC game. The PS version is so much worse than the PC, wow...
GBC version was actually pretty solid. I even collected every card. It was my Final Fantasy.
The pc versions were pretty rock n roll
The PS2 /GameCube versions are really fun as well strange that they came out after the chamber of secrets PS2 / gamecube versions came out though.
Had it on Pc too definitely noticed how repetitive parts were. I was undoubtedly drawn in as was a big Potter fan. Seeing it again now it wasn’t a great game in-fact downright shoddy at parts..
@@therandomheavy4570 and funnily enough are way more expensive than any other harry potter game now.
Philosopher's Stone on PC was significantly better, and Chamber of Secrets on PC was the best. Managed to get it working at 60fps and was the best nostalgia playthrough experience.
You know whats hilarious? Harry JUST entered the school, and he already has an owl, a "friend" and a bully... On the exact same day/minute.
man the PC version of this was dope, I can't believe how I managed to complete all wizard cards. No walkthroughs just my OCD kicking in
Between the empty environments, hideous character models and unnatural voice acting, this game just has an indescribably bizarre and uncanny atmosphere to it that used to really freak me out as a kid, yet I still loved playing it!
Also...Metal Gear Solid when? 👀
Metal Gear Solid when?!
I myself played MGS1 for the first time just a few years ago on PS Vita and was pleasantly surprised how good it was. Intrigued to see Josh's review of it.
„bizarre and uncanny atmosphere“ after so many years… finally someone who was able to sum up my own feelings I had while playing Harry Potter ATSS!!!
The music; the f* music. It's so damn gorgeous.
The eerie atmosphere, the silence in the corridors when you can also hear Harry walking and trying to cast a spell, was the shit back days, I really love this atmosphere too.
I had the PC version of this, and all I remember is a section where you run towards the camera, away from the troll, down a corridor filled with obstacles and holes that you can barely see before you hit them. And also a really bad stealth section where you're trying to get back to your room in the invisibility cloak at night, but apparently if you step even slightly off the right path (which is extremely unclear,) Filch finds you instantly, even if you're nowhere near him. And it looked completely different from the one he shows early in the video.
I had so much trouble with the stealth section! It got to the point that I convinced myself that the game was listening for noise in the real world and alerting Filch if there was any IRL noise. I asked my parents to please keep it down for a little bit, and I actually managed to beat it in one or two attempts after that, so I confirmation biased' myself into thinking my theory was true until I grew up enough to realize there's no way that's how it'd work.
@@masterplusmargarita hahaha, thats too cute
I want to see a supercut of all the times Harry says "Flippendo!" through the entire playthrough.
Do you have a deathwish?! lol
*Flipendo
@@MrWhatdafuBOOMPhilipino*
Nintendo!
Regarding the cold and lifeless feel of the game world - that's kind of why I always loved this game.
There was this odd, creepy vibe to everything that made the magic feel all the more foreign. The music and the character's attitudes can sometimes contrast with the creepier tone, which brings some levity to the experience (even if that levity is through flawed voice acting and strange dialogue). I think the same can be said for some of the wild level design choices. The world seems crazy and nonsensical, and the events of the barely held together plot follow that trend.
Is it flawed? Tremendously. Do I still have fun playing it? Unapolagetically I actually do lol
That said, your critiques are apt and I agree with a majority of them.
Also the eerie silence - almost no soundtrack
@@mtamer2943 thought my game was broken as a kid lol
@@mtamer2943 Right! going into the dungeons and just hearing water drops and air currents was so mystical
Also when you entered a room at hogwarts and the person was watching you from above.
This was even true of later versions on other systems. Chamber of Secrets on GameCube had many similar moments. That game had a HUGE castle with many rooms, but so many of them were empty and didn’t even have any music. That emptiness added something to the experience of exploring. I spent hours doing it.
I didnt think i would hear "established bramble eating mechanic" said with such gusto today but it was a nice surprise
The PC version of this game was the first game I ever got, probably as a Christmas gift. Before that I had been playing whatever my older siblings had on our family computer.
It had a bad localized dub and I would've liked for the world to be open but I absolutely loved it. We used to try and glitch the game with my friends in various different ways, amazing times. Still not an amazing game but a lot better than this, I liked it enough to get the next 2 games.
but really can get talk about the tracing you needed to do in the spell lessons .. it was the worst part xD
The PC version of this game was the first I ever bought with my own (allowance) money, saved up for it for so long.
Still have fond memories of it, sadly was never dedicated enough to save money and buy the later games.
My first game too, and I still find a way to troubleshoot compatibility problems in order to install it on every new computer that I buy.
@@ExxoToxin Certainly wasn't friendly to the old ball mice
@@ExxoToxin I used to ask my mom to help me with all those,and I just looked in awe how perfectly she nailed those with our ball mouse. I remember it taking ages to complete the game, but i recently found an emulated version and I beat the game in 3 or 4 hours lol
The PC version was one of the first games i played as a kid, and the nostalgia is real, i replayed it not long ago at 24, to finally collect all of the wizard cards, and i can say, it WAS good. You should do avideo on the PC version as its very different.
Yeah Gamecube, Xbox, Ps2 versions and the PC versions were awesomely good the PS1 versions were okay
Is it on Steam?
@@paigelarson9279 nope, but being a 2001 game, and a film franchise one at that, its very easy to download through a google search. That's what I did, even though all the way back in the day i do remember having the CD, but i lost it.
@@paigelarson9279 although im sure you could buy a used disc somewhere on amazon.
PS1 version was best imo. Very spooky.
Now I'd really like to see the comparison to the PC game! I have great memories of that version
It's interesting how they didn't know the movie music, yet they made it so similar and magical I just can't believe it! Also the PC version is pretty decent I think, liked most of it :)
You have Jeremy Soule to thank for that, also the composer for every Elder Scrolls game from Morrowind to Skyrim.
Guess the music was one of the last things to be considered while both were being made.
@@Xegethra It's also possible they weren't able to obtain the rights to some or all of the music.
A lot of (licensed?) games back then had huge differences between consoles. There is also a Game Boy Advance edition of a bunch of Harry Potter games that is a totally different kind of game.
Also Spiderman, released in Playstation, PC and Nintendo 64. Many differences there, too.
@@binaryflawgic5713 its partially holdover from the cartridge consoles. Every one of them had very different specs, so the same game would need to be remade in varying amounts for multiple consoles. It got better over time, and i think for awhile it wasnt quite necessary so much as habit.
I still have a copy of the PS1 version. I played it so much as a kid, right up until the next movie tie in game came out. However, I never did finish it.
I got to the final boss, and my parents and I spent weeks trying to beat it every night. Eventually, I asked about it one night, and my dad said, "oh, I played it last night after you went to sleep and I beat it. The fight moved to the roof and then you killed Voldemort. We can play something else now."
I was young enough that that still sounded plausible.
That's outrageous parenting, they literally attempted to raise a quitter haha
Genius move by your dad tbh
he just got tired of the same level every day, i would have done the same, just sooner.
@@herrabanani @Mark Howell
The duality of man
Your parents tried to help you beat it?
Wholesome
"you just defeat voldemort by kicking him in the bawls over and over"
So much nostalgia. I played the fuck out of this as a kid, with my two older brothers. We played it knowing the game was garbage, but that was kind of part of the fun. Still objectively bad though.
Ohh 100%, I rag on this game all the time, do I still play it once a year or two? Damn right I do.
Ok, potty mouth
I played it on PC and loved it as a kid.
Me too, I had the flu and played it non stop on the old family PC in the computer room. I remember it vividly and I was just sad I was able to beat it in one day. Edit; wtf is a flipendo? I never got it and I am a huge fan of the books. Always rubbed me the wrong way even as a kid.
Me too!
I played it on ps1, it was complete shit. I loved it.
Im from Argentina, and this channel is my childhood all over again. Thank you so much for this amazing work. You need to play Oddworld.
THE NOSTALGIA! I remember having this game on my Playstation 1 growing up and loving it! Just listening to the voice acting brings back so many memories. Glad you had the same experience growing up. Looking forward to watching the whole video!
The soundtrack for this game and Chamber of Secrets was absolutely godlike. Peak nostalgia every time I hear it.
It was composed by Jeremy Soule! You'll likely also have heard him composing for the Humongous entertainment games (spy fox, putt putt, etc) as well as Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim. He's a very talented guy, hell his work on chamber of secrets even won the BAFTA for best video game music!
Him and John Williams have done a lot more to make the series memorable in the minds of many than ma'am 'house elf slavery' Rowling.
You know, I never understood why they changed it from "Philosopher's Stone" to "Sorcerer's Stone" in the US release. Even in America at that time, we were familiar with the mythological alchemical "philosopher's stone" for which the book was named.
Europeans and Brits tend to believe that Americans know nothing.
Sorcerer sounds much cooler than philosopher. That's the reason.
Kids were more likely to pick up "sorcerer's stone" than "philosopher's stone"
@@Arsene_Lupin_the_3rd
I like the way your mind works, though I really doubt that that's the case, Rowling would not have been able to keep her mouth shut about a governmental cease and desist
Two things:
1. Can we all appreciate the fact that Jeremy Soule had to completely construct a working, believable, memorable soundtrack for a magical world without having the film to help him? As the video mentioned, the game actually preceded the theatrical release, so there was no iconic John Williams score for him to go off of. I for one think that he succeeded in managing to capture the magical, childhood-esque feeling the games were going for. Listening to the Chamber of Secrets track "Ambient" still gives me chills. Soule would also later go on to score Skyrim, to critical acclaim!
2. As broken as these games were, I still think they're gems in their own right. I've mainly played the PC versions, but I think the PS1 version is fun as well, flaws and all. Plus, I have many happy memories of my brothers and I roaring with laughter as we'd mess around (yet again) with the debug menu and "ghost mode." There's so much meme materials in those games. Good times.
Also, thanks so much for the in-depth, entertaining, thought-provoking video commentary, as usual. Your Tomb Raider and Rayman videos resulted in an instant subscription from me. You have a great narration voice, in my honest opinion. I look forward to seeing what else you end up covering in the future!
Jeremy Soule is really the best videogame music maker.
i personally have a problem enjoying the music he created, after these people coming forward with what he has done to them. just isn't the same anymore sadly.
@@piraipirai73 I completely agree that what he has done is horrible, if true.
But I specifically like his craft, not him as a person, which is different.
It's the same as liking someone's idea but not liking him/her as a person.
@@piraipirai73 To be honest, I'm pretty out of the loop, so I haven't heard anything that you're referring to. Although I wouldn't be surprised, as a lot of famous people end up doing terrible things. Good music, still, but thanks for the info! 😁👍
As a kid i played this game before i saw the movie/book, so it felt so cool and mysterious, and terrifying at times
Well, this video was just an hour of pure nostalgia. Down to the sound the pages make from the storybook that starts us off.
Sorcerer's Stone was a game where the designers went halfway toward setting up a story and then said "screw it, the only people playing this will have read the books" when asked to further elaborate on the characters.
It was a game where the designers weren't philosophers xD
It's that the point that, I get where a game should normally have set up. But what about Goldeneye, or most any game with an established background. They aren't going to tell you much, cause knowing the property tends to give you the information. Ever play a star wars game? They don't spend 20 minutes telling you Vader is bad, cause it's a huge fanbase. Harry Potter is the same. 8 million copies was probably 90% fans. I do get they mechanics looked bad. I played the GBA version myself... Did he not mention that one?
@@garcardosotan6172 Unlike this game, most Star Wars games aren't a 1:1 retelling of the movies, though. Vader _exists_ in them, but he's not a major character.
Personally i don't really care much about character elaboration, i'd rather focus more on events, world building, and lores, and i personally hate it when a work puts too much emphasis on character building/relationships that they decide to leave many important events off screen and/or neglect building a coherent lore
@@manusiabumi7673 I prefer when a story is able to do both
37:04 You cut it just before Peeves flies directly at the camera and I can tell you as a small child, that terrified the hell out of me. Traumatised, I'll never forget that section until the day I die.
I'm really glad to see you cover this, because it's the version I played as a child but isn't generally the one that seems to get coverage by content creators (outside of meme-spawning Kevin o'course).
I have very fond memories of this game, but I also remember playing Chamber Of Secrets on PS1 and considering it to be a significant improvement in a lot of ways. I would love to see you cover that game too, because clearly my memory cannot be trusted.
something I never noticed when I used to play this game as a child is that if you pay attention during certain sections of the game you can see voldemort (black hooded figure) outside of cutscences observing you for some seconds before fading away. If I remember correctly he does that once somewhere during the eye door section.
It's weird how they added such an interesting event while the rest of the game lacks so much work
that used to freak me out so much as a kid, in one of the places he appears if you move fast enough you can reach his location and see him vanish into a wall
Wait, seriously? I only ever played this game as an adult (after growing up with Chamber of Secrets on PS1 and I wanted to play the first one) and did so multiple times with 100% completion, but I NEVER saw Voldemort aside from that one brief cutscene near the beginning! Crazy!
@@robinanwaldt ye its extremly easy to miss
th-cam.com/video/cPwXJAky45M/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=BlueSpike
You can see him in this video
I also love how Hagrid just gets a few cold ones while you do all the work
I remember, that in the PC version you had to "draw" a symbol with your mouse in order to learn the spell. It was utterly awful and i hated it.
I remember the world beeing bigger in general, but with the downside that most of the time, i was running through similar looking corridors without knowing where to go. But that may have been because i was a child and stupid
omg yes! I played the PC version and drawing the symbols for the spells was such a pain in the ass lol
This is so different from the PC version in an uncanny way, like you feel like you remember exactLy whats going to happen and how the game worked until suddenly its wildly different
I only played the PC version. I loved exploring the castle on my own. I liked that there weren't a lot of students wandering around. I wonder what I would think of that game now. It was a bit hard to control as I recall.
I replayed it in a fit of nostalgia recently, and while the controls ARE clunky it's very much designed to be forgiving with that in mind - long aiming windows for spells, large platforms to make up for imprecise jumping. I found myself breezing through it, which is to be expected from a guy in his late 20s playing a game designed for 8 year olds, but a lot of cheaper games from the era are frustrating to control in a way this one wasn't.
I played the PC version of this game too and imo it was much better
If they spent 3-6 more months and implement all these spells into the puzzle levels, this game would be priceless.
24:45 “The dragon hatches, and he calls it Norbert. The dragon will now not matter for the rest of the game” Had a good laugh at that one. I replayed this game about two years ago for the very same reason, nostalgia. I have to say that I did enjoy it, but camera angles really got the best of me. I had a good laugh at the expense of the voices, though.
I'm gonna need you to put out more of these videos with the same amount of quality. Thanks
That snail Flipendo section was so DARK dude, I cant see anything but the white star & the health scar!
OH BOY this makes me happy. I played the PC Version as a kid and tbh, I think the first three games were absolutely perfect for children. It made the world alive and you could somewhat insert yourself into the story of this school. Loved it.
The PS1 version was the one I got, but my tiny child brain loved it
No matter what niche or genre I am watching, there's always a Patterrz comment below and I love it!
my tiny child brain thought he was screaming 'Nintendo' when casting the Flipendo spell
@@Zeluse. It sounded like "Lehpendo" to my kid ears, to this day it still sounds like that.
This looks really charming. I had Chamber of Secrets on the GBA and it was a surprisingly great version of the game, I spent hours as a kid exploring isometric Hogwarts ❤️
This game was a guilty pleasure for me growing up. Thanks for covering it!
This game is like a showcase on how NOT to design character models. Seriously, what happened? I don't care if it's PS1, nobody should look like poor Fred and George.
The PC version lacked mouth movement which was odd by 2001 standards (guess what, game was a rush job), but the faces looked decent enough for the time. And the models themselves, while hardly stellarly animated, at least weren't these lumbering blobs. Good god, Dumbledore, what curse turned you into a hair-covered traffic cone?
(Oh, and PS1 Hagrid is not real, he can't hurt you... It's just a game, turn it off and he'll be gone...🙄)
He can't hurt you, which is a sentence in the present tense, because he already has.
Hayride will never be gone. I still see him whenever I watch a Caddicarus stream.
Even some of the earliest ps1 games did better despite more limited technology, many of which were developed with far fewer polygons, lower resolution textures and a fairly new console and yet still did a lot better with what little they had available and even found creative ways to overcome limitations, and this came out right at the end of the console's lifespan when they could take full advantage of the console and the knowledge and tech that had been developed in the meantime. I don't think they even cared either, this whole game just feels like they were trying to go for the minimum effort they could get away with. They must have known it'd be garbage and that makes the whole thing even worse.
Also someone apparently made a small horror game called escape from PS1 Hagrid, so I guess he's still gonna be visiting people's nightmares for a while longer
Edit: Finding out this was the same studio that made Croc makes the whole thing worse
Those hideous character models are part of the reason why I love PS Potter games so much.
@@HarleyHerbert Time constraints as well. Licensed games are usually made quicker than normal games.
For me, this game is like a dream you had once in your childhood. Dream in a literal sense, because a lot of this game is heavily disconnected while populated and empty at the same time. Like before entering a class, you have to go through an obstacle course before you could enter. And then something life-threatening happens to Harry- and then after that, oops you have potions class next! A lot of the story flow doesn't make sense.
And for the "populated and empty" part, this is obviously Hogwarts school. There are students here studying and so are you, but a lot of the places are barren. And when you do get to places where there are other students, like classes, you feel disconnected from them. Like they'll all go away after the next sequence and you never see a lot of them again.
I know this is from 90's PS1 era mixed with the shenanigans of being a movie game. But it is still a fun nostalgic dream. I don't exactly want to relive it. But it's fun remembering it.
in my opinion the atmosphere and the ambience was this game's strongest feature
So much nostalgia! Its a bit funny when you mention "they didnt even get to hear the movie OST" "it had to get done along movie release" "the game feels rushed" "there are some moments where the game is actually smart (ie plugging air ducts with blob monsters)" but then say the devs probably didnt care or didnt know better when the game is bad. Like Im pretty sure the devs knew what they were doing, but production (planning, impediments, mandated deadlines) were ass.
You have literally no idea of how BIZARRE, surreal and feverish the Spanish dubbing is for this game as well as the sequel. In The Chamber of Secrets when Harry speaks in parsel to open the Chamber he literally yells “ESPAÑOL!” Imagine the hysterical laughter that ensued from me and my brothers
Oh, the video is about the shitty version for the Playstation :'(
The one for PC is a true gem and far superior...
I've recently found my old copy of this game while cleaning up and actually managed to get it installed, although getting it running required the download of a community patch. It's quite remarkable that it is possible to run a game that's 20+ years old on modern hardware, even though there are some wired new bugs and graphical troubles here and there.
This game was one of the first "real" computer games I've ever played. It took me weeks to beat it and it managed to give me quite a few nightmares, especially the dungeon section and the ascent/descent to/from the astronomy tower, since I was in elementary school back then..
It's notable that there are quite a few quality-of-life features missing that we've gotten used to. Especially the placement of the save-points, the unskippable cutscenes and the mentioned inability to replay sections are annoying, but all in all the game holds up pretty well, imho.
I'm still salty that I wasn't able to get all collectibles this time, which is actually quite hard, since there are no maps, no detailed level-objectives and one missed secret/card etc. means that the save file is basically ruined..
The controls are somewhat clunky, a high DPI mouse almost renders the game unplayable. The platforming is ok. The flying sections are ok, once you've gotten used to the controls and adjusted the key bindings.
I wasn't able set the resolution to more than like 800x600, which meant that the image on my 2560x1080 widescreen monitor was badly distorted, which made the drawing sections quite hard
The story is somewhat true to the book, the characters are ok, the camera is not that bad, there is a nice mix of mechanics and the overall pacing is respectable. Nowadays, the game appears to be quite short. I think it only took me one sitting of about 5 hours to finish the game.
The last fight against Quirrell/Voldemort was brutal and probably took me close to a dozen attempts.. Back in the day, this fight, as well as the escape from the troll, were section that simply were impossible for me to do, so I needed my dad to do them for me, which turned out to be quite a struggle for him as well.
Good times.
I managed to get it running without graphical glitches on a modern pc. Took me ages to find a workaround though. And by now I already forgot how I did it...
Yep, it's not about the less shitty pc version. I played all of the versions and nostalgia is pretty much all they have going for them
Had the PC version as a kid myself, so I never knew how lucky I got. This does help explain why people treat the PS1 version as a big meme.
The PC version has nearly the same story problem (it's just a bit better in this regard, but has the same sin of relying on knowing the book for characters and real story), and some similar gameplay mechanic issues (wish they'd let us cast different spells on things freely), but at least the gameplay is not this boring crime against game development and it actually does some things Josh notes he wishes the PS1 version did.
yeah man i fucking love the first 3 harry potter games on PC
they were amazing, considering its a movie franchise game basically.
Even the game boy games were nice, at least the 1st and 3rd one.
i did play the PC version i borrowed a copy from the local libery but i got stuck so damn hard with the spell lerning lessons they was so demanding for perfection and my hand just was not steady enough to do it
@@KeiraLunar When I first got the game, I played on a laptop with one of those "nub" mouses... like... some old laptops had those tiny nubs on the keyboard that you used in place of a mouse or touchpad. (honestly... the mouse designs for laptops from the 90s and early 2000s were wild... had a laptop that had a detachable mouse-orb holder too... like... not a mouse... just the orb from it, that you rolled with your hand)
It was a challenge that forever improved my mouse control, at the highest mouse sensitivities.
I loved this review :D
I played this game as a 9-10 years old, not speaking or reading English at all so you know what happens with this little knowledge of this age? Yep. You don't realize that you can save. Oh and this is not the only game that I and my little brother didn't save :D We did this with every single game on PS2. Whenever we booted up the game, we started from the beginning. The scenes added with your commentary are SO GOOD! I had a really good time watching your video, so thank you for that :)
Keep up this awesome work!
How the hell is it that you are playing every single game I loved as a kid?
Also, do Kingley’s Adventure next!
I played it when I was 5 years old. I never finished it because there was a warning message when you save and that scared me back then. I don't know how many times I started it. Because I was to afraid to save my playthrough, a couple of times I left my Playstation on over night to continue playing the next day.
Helicopter parents? Either way, that's one intense 5 year old.
@Jake A I was not allowed to play for too long. I believe I was allowed to play only 30 minutes a day starting of. Later an hour, then two hours, etc. When I was older.
Thats me lol
@@carolinasilvarode326I scared easily when I was a kid. For me the scariest part of the game was when I was locked in the room with the groggy troll and you needed to levitate the objects out of the way. The heavy feet and whispers from Harry, added the tension. You also couldn't levitate and drop the objects from to high or they would fall over and wake the troll up. I had to turn the volume down for that part because I was scared, for a little while before I got the courage to progress pass that point. I woke the troll up and seeing it run at me literally made me jump. Couldn't play that part for a year.
I played when I was 8.
Got stuck on the bit in the Forbidden Forest where a giant turtle farts fireballs at you, because I never figured out you were supposed to shoot it only in the ass. So I never got to actually finish the game.
Also to whoever designed the minecart and peacock sections, I hope both sides of your pillow are warm every night for the rest of your life.
I loved playing this game when I was young, but I could never get past the troll dungeon because I was too scared. I also just never used a memory card for some unknown reason, so I just kept restarting it over and over. Then I came back when I was 13 and finally made my way through it all. Was pretty proud of beating it even though it is mostly easy. The hardest part for me was easily the gringotts coin missions, not the peacock.
It's so sad they didn't make a third one for PS1. That console was still getting some games back in 2004. The finnish dub for the two PS1 Potter games is just way too hilarious and I'm so glad I experienced them as a kid. Also the soundtrack for such average PS1 games is just WAY TOO GOOD. I only learned few years ago what else the composer has made.
Yes, Jeremy Soule is AMAZING, I love the soundtrack he did for Skyrim, and honestly, as someone who loves music, I think he added a lot to the first 3 Harry Potter games.
Vipu on täällä jossakin... Siinä se on, löysin sen!
I was disappointed as well, but 3 is when they started just making them all the same carbon copy rather than enjoying the differences. the PC and GBA versions of 3 were still different because they could be (the GBA version of 3 being hands down my favorite version of it), but it was that point on when they really tightened any differences down to where Goblet of Fire and beyond were exactly the same on any console...even the GBA and DS being just very scaled down carbon copies. Not to mention, they became 100% straight movie adaptions rather than the more open adaptions of the books.
@@OliverTCrowe Pretty sure the console and PC versions of 3 are still quite different. I remember watching a playthrough of the PS2 version of 3, and being thrown for a loop by not recognizing stuff or mechanics that were completely missing in the PC version.
Argonaut Games stopped in 2004, just when the 3rd movie came out. Maybe that's why Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban wasn't made :(
It's bizarre to see this version after growing up with the PC version. The PC's story and set pieces are 90% the same, but the mechanics work together much, much better.
Story's still jank, though.
That the story is jank is not the fault of the game, it's a fault of the source material.
@@JPG.01 While I agree that the source material is jank, the real issue that it just assumes you know the story like the PS1 version.
The GB color rpg was one of my favorite games as a child. I would beat it and restart it immediately, I beat it countless times
I had the Chamber of Secrets one and I remember it being super fun.
Judging from the improvements in The Chamber of Secrets, I genuinely think Argonaut Games had either very little time or not enough budget to make The Philosopher's Stone any better - Electronic Arts probably didn't think it was a wise thing to spend much money on a PS1 game scheduled to come out in late 2001, and relied on the movie to sell the game. The Chamber of Secrets, by virtue of using the same engine and assets as the Philosopher's Stone, has better... well, everything. Exploration, level design, rewards, anything you can think of.
Even the PC and PS2 versions are much better. I played philosopher's stone and chamber of secrets in the PS2 and they were pretty similar and more importantly, decent
This was literally a money grab and nothing more. Worked flawlessly too and doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why. Well done to them hustling.
I loved this game so much as a kid. Though I loved any game I was lucky enough to own. I'd only get a 2-3 games a year, 1 at my Birthday and 1or 2 for Christmas so every game, good or bad, got played a lot and I'd find a way to enjoy. Blockbuster was my best friend. Renting games was much easier to convince my parents of, especially since they had a Blockbuster card. Lol. Nostalgia.
This video resurfaced some memories that I didn't realize I had. Because I played and completed this game. And I didn't remember until I realized I remembered playing through some of the events. The button mashing with the final boss, the troll chase, the Filch stealth section...what the heck? How did I forget about a game I've played?
Also rather polite of the Devil's Snare to not attack Harry while he's trying to set it on fire.
I'd love to see your take on the Prince of Persia games. Especially the original platformer and also the Sands of Time, which is my personal favorite. :)
What I like the most in this game and makes me play it again every 2 years or so, is its atmosphere. This game has such an eerie, bizarre and unique atmosphere. Walking in those huge but empty environments with almost no Hogwarts students at all, in the deep silence when you can also hear Harry' steps and the muffled noise of the wand in the corridors, was a really strange but memorable experience. The buggy textures, slightly moving following your movements, maybe more noticeable because of the capacity of the ps1, the very dark places...
All of this reminds me of a weird dream. Huge, empty, dark random places, with only some wizards wandering endlessly and talking paintings.
I remember Being shocked at hearing Quirell say "damn you" as it was probably one of the first times i heard a video game character curse. And the whole chess puzzle thing, i dont know how i managed to figure it out at the time but honestly im kinda glad they made it that way as i definitely wouldnt have been too thrilled to play an actual game of chess. Also they had a few sub plots that the movie didnt, makes me think that maybe they had one or two people who liked the books on the team
Right my friend and I replayed that scene and laughed out asses off.
I recall that, too. Lol
... but damn isn't a swear word
@@RenoRebornIt is to wittle babies.
That certainly was a nostalgia trip. In all the good and bad ways. I remember having great and *terrible* times with the game (yes, on ps1) as a kid. But I still managed, somehow. I'm sure that set me up for my love of Souls games later on.
Also, "we need to get to diagonal alley" got an audible "oh no..." out of me. Gringots ptsd is real.
I have very fond memories of the PC version, it's fun seeing the mess that is the ps1 version in it's full glory. Thanks for the video!
I played it a few months ago and i still had a blast with it, the first trilogy of games are soul.
12:19 I used to annoy my parents so much on weekend mornings playing this game loudly haha. Good memories. My parents kept yelling to me "Turn off the stupid Nintendo!" because they thought flipendo was Nintendo.
The fact there is a Gamecube version makes it ironic.
Your best work yet.
I remember absolutely loving this game as a kid because I was Harry Potter obsessed and it was amazing being able to run around hogwarts (while scoffing chocolate frogs irl). I still like the game to this day but your review really highlights some of the glaring issues. Rushed development and maybe some hardware issues too, but it's no excuse for lazy game design. Thankfully they rereleased it on PS2 (even though it's a reskinned chamber of secrets :p).
The game does actually mention the stolen object from Gringotts but its in a completely missable issue of the newspaper in the Griffindor common room
the Malfoy health bar icon looks like they took a picture of Tom Felton and just pasted it in the game lmfao
About the stolen object that Hermione mentioned in the game, you actually first learn about it early on. In the Gryffindor Common Room, there's a newspaper that Harry can read which mentions it. It's easy to miss, though, so it's understandable if you feel like it fails to set that up.
I'd actually love to see you play the PC version, and compare it to this one. Maybe not as a full review, just a shorter video.
41:45 hate to say it, but the first interaction you have with Ron in this game is where he says that Malroy is in Slytherin - in fact, look, it's right there: 6:59 - probably more a sad reflection of how many times I played the game as a kid
I played the PC version and it was so damn good. Amazing game dor that time.
The ps2 version of Chamber of Secrets is a Certified™ Hood Classic.
I tried recently. God awful. It's like a LEGO game. Totally for kids.
I feel heart broken having my nostalgia goggles questioned like this, and I will admit watching the game play, it's a lot rougher than I remember it. I will also say however that the first few years they did where you interacted with the school and explored Hogwarts was much more enjoyable than the mission select system they fell in love with in the later games. Granted having to redesign the castle 7 different ways without it being too similar or too different... I understand the choices they ended up making.
nostalgia is never good and warps your perception. its good to have it broken
@@wentoneisendon6502 Except when it's the dbzt@rds, they still must insist Cancer Triger is the Magnum Opus of humanity, should you not hail the "glory" of the non-entity "Crono" as a prophet of the "gR3At" Kakarot, you're the fucking Devil.
I mean is PS1 , it can't get better than this on a 27 years old console
Listening to the narrator talk at the start of the video while reading the book made me feel so happy briefly as i remembered being a child
@@ryuzen30it literally can, you dont know what youre talking about. Look at Vagrant story or Megaman Legends, beautiful games with amazing animation
To be fair, it doesn't really take exposition to understand a "school bully". By the time you are playing games or reading books you are firmly familiar with that concept.
They might be too recent for this channel, but I'd be fascinated to see you play and review the other Harry Potter liscences games - I played all by the last 2, and I remember them being surprisingly good, but the gameplay and even genre changed fairly dramatically game to game, making the series as a whole an interestingly mixed bag.
Yo can we just take a second to appreciate Josh's work ethic? Man has made 2 MMO reviews less than a week apart then drops this gem a few days later. Man really deserves a break sometime soon.
Goes to show that a game doesn't need to be perfect to be enjoyed. I loved this game despite all this. In older games the story isn't being fed to you, you have to connect the points through time yourself. And I like that.
playing this on my dad's laptop with only the touchpad as a kid was a challenge. I remember finding the debug codes that would let you do things like jump 100ft in the air and exploring the castle and it was really my first experience with looking behind the curtain. seeing how interconnected Hogwarts was but also the tricks that the devs used to make the world look seamless. whether it's a good or bad game, I loved it
This game was AWESOME. Totally immersive, the music from Jeremy Soule was incredible, the voice acting was pretty darn good of course because I believe they got mostly the real actors to do them. Some parts were genuinely difficult for me as a...oh IDK...jesus how old was I...8 or so back in about 2001? I played the second game as well for the Chamber of Secrets and it was also very good actually. I played the Playstation 1 game...and honestly...I thought it was awesome back then too, sure maybe if I were like 28 I would have hated it in current year but...fuck it, I loved it
I have watched quite a few of your Was it Good reviews, love the format. This one really makes me appreciate games like Vagrant Story all the more.
My god, the nostalgia. I remember renting this game from Blockbuster and playing the hell out of it
This just makes me miss the pc version. I got all the games on the pc. Playing the console versions and seeing how different they were was very jarring. I'd only played a few of the console games but the pc ones were amazing. Saaadly modern hardware struggles to run old code so, cant really play the oldest ones anymore.
WINE might run them
I managed to run them quite easily on modern PC, you just have to run them im compatibility mode. The channel 'Phil of Glimmer' did a video detailing how to run the first 3 Harry Potter PC games on modern windows if you want to revisit them.
HP1 on PS1: "-It's like 5 students & a handful of teachers!" lol! 😂
When I was a kid, playing this on PS1, it was great and I loved it...... nowadays, I can't even finish GoW Ragnarok. I miss being young and stupid, so even bad games could be fun again.