So I am nearly finished with the main story and will soon only be subjected to finishing up the collectables which I probably wont bother to do since after nearly 40 hours of playtime, I am kind of starting to kinda be over with this game. It's a great game. Know this. It is the favorite game that I have played in its genre and I am as surprised about this as anyone since I was never a fan of the films or the games.
Here are some things that I think people who are thinking of getting this game would maybe want to know before they get involved.
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Do not put the difficulty below "normal"
I am a filthy casual as far as gaming is concerned. I quickly tire of, and will give up on games that I consider to be too difficult such as basically any souls-like game. I don't want to "git gud" because I am not a competitive gamer and have no aspirations to do so. I have a wide variety of other activities in my life that I consider to be more important than gaming and I simply will not take the time necessary to be really good at something that requires pinpoint accuracy in order to complete it. That isn't fun to me.
That being said, on the normal setting this game is extremely easy and there were 2 options lower than that as far as the difficulty slider is concerned. While playing the game on normal setting and for the most part leaning back on the sofa while playing, I have only died a handful of times throughout the entire game. This is fine by me because sometimes the battles are challenging but since you can dodge roll away from almost anything, it is pretty easy to avoid damage.
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Since the normal setting is extremely easy, I can't even imagine how incredibly simple the "story" setting must be
For hardcore gamers the normal setting will likely be far too easy for them. As the game progresses the "normal" setting stays pretty easy and the fact that I am about 90% completed with the main story really back that up.
Most of the stuff you find in chests are trash
For people that simply want to 100% this game there are a ton of items to be found in the game. Unfortunately you kind of lose your enthusiasm for finding gear later on in the game because almost everything you discover is not going to be as good as the gear you are already wearing. Very infrequently do I ever find something in a chest that is better than what I already have on an since there is a cap on how many pieces of gear you can actually find, there isn't much incentive to seek out that chest that you can see when you use your "reveal" spell and can see it through a wall. I have found that unlike almost every other game that I have found that the best stuff you can have at whatever level you happen to be at the time can be bought at the "armor store."
This is very different than any other game that I have played but in Hogwarts, if you feel like you need to upgrade your gear, then the store is probably the best place to acquire that. Stats on gear can be changed by you at any time so if a piece of gear comes with some sort of attribute that you think you are going to like, you can always just change the gear that you are already wearing to that particular stat.
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The stats of anything can be increased dramatically with the loom that you are offered rather early on in the game.
There is no reason to amass an army of beasts
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One of the side things in the game is capturing beasts in the wild and taking them back to your "zoo" - which is called something else but I don't remember what it is - and this is actually a pretty fun part of the game. When I first started capturing beasts, which is really easy to do outside of one or two of them, I was just taking EVERYONE back to the zoo with me. The thing is, there is no real benefit to this especially once you unlock the breeding pen and can replicate as many of them as you want provided that you have enough space in your pens.
I haven't discovered much benefit from having a ton of the same kind of beast other than for the sake of doing it. You get a bit of XP for capturing them so I suppose you could over-level by doing that and you can also sell the "spare" ones that you get. However, there is more than enough gold just found all throughout the world so there is no reason to grind for this either.
Basically, you only need 1 male and one female of each of the types of beasts, of which there is a grad total of 13. It's a fun and relaxing side part of the game but other than for upgrading your equipment stats, which isn't really a factor until later on in the game anyway, there isn't much reason to spend a bunch of time capturing every little creature that you find.
Keep one of each color of skill in your current "wheel"
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On the PS5 and Xbox, you can only have 4 skills that are readily ready at a time, you can swap between a total of 16 by using the d-pad but this can prove quite complicated in the heat of battle. Enemies will sometimes, and it becomes a lot more frequent, cast a shield on them that cannot be penetrated by any sort of spell unless you cast one of the corresponding colors. Since all spell have cooldowns you should probably mix up your wheels and have one of each of the offensive spell colors that are purple, red, and yellow that I have discovered thus far.
None of the Harry Potter characters are in the game
If you are a fan of of the films or books and are hoping to see Snape or Hermione in some cutscenes, that shit aint gonna happen. Not only are they not in the game as a voiced character, they aren't even mentioned.
I have thoroughly enjoyed this game and I am not even finished with it yet. I doubt that I will do all of the side quests and attempt to 100% the game because honestly, the game is too huge for me to even consider doing that.
I am one of those people that dislikes more games than he actually likes so if I am giving a stamp of approval on this as a casual gamer, I think that most other casual gamers will enjoy it as well. At the moment on PS5 the game is only $15 and it is well worth at least that much.