This ONE Feature in Hogwarts Legacy CHANGED The Way I Play

I don’t play video games often, but when I do, there’s a 50% chance it’s Hogwarts Legacy!

I remember years ago when the concept of the game was announced and I was beyond thrilled. Harry Potter is one of the only series I’ll happily read over and over again (I’m a big reader, but not a big re-reader) and has meant so much to me for as long as I can remember. So when the game came out, I was beyond ready to play after my brother gifted me a copy for the holidays, but there was only one problem — I SUCK at video games.

As I said, the world of Harry Potter was a big part of my life for a long time. When I was 12, I spent THREE days exploring Hogsmeade at Islands of Adventure (Diagon Alley wasn’t open yet!), and I changed the names of my regular classes to what I thought their Harry Potter equivalent was to survive the monotony of middle school. When my brother went to college on the backlot of Universal, my parents and I became Annual Passholders, which was easily a highlight of each trip visiting him.

Visiting Diagon Alley for the first time in 2017!

So what does all this mean? Well, despite my lack of talent at video games, I was determined to enjoy the game and explore the world that younger me only dreamed she ever could. While I love exploring the world, I’ll also admit that I’m the type of player who needs to be given quests and told what to do — open world games with little guidance aren’t my thing! But in order to do that, I needed to actually complete the quests I was given.

Younger JP was going to have the time of her life playing this game, I was DETERMINED

My biggest complication in video games is combat, and while there isn’t a TON of that in Hogwarts Legacy (or you can choose to avoid fights most of the time), there’s a good bit you can’t continue a quest without continuing. I quickly started to get frustrated at myself and at the game when I had to repeat fights multiple times. I kept getting confused with the buttons, mixing up which was which and my lefts and rights, but I didn’t want to be frustrated, I wanted to enjoy the game!

So I called up the best video game player I know — my brother — and asked him what I should do. His response was so obvious but it had been something I was trying to avoid; lower the difficulty for the fight I was on, then raise it again after. When you begin the game, you choose what difficulty you’d like to play on, but you can adjust it whenever you’d like. I was hesitant to do this because I didn’t want to miss out on the nature of the game, but I quickly found he was right — I lowered the difficulty to easy (there are four levels: Story, Easy, Normal, and Hard). By moving it down, I was able to complete the challenge in a way that was easier, but still challenged me, and I found that I haven’t switched it back since.

Now when I play (which I admit, isn’t as often as I’d like), I find that I’m still genuinely fighting to win any altercations I find myself in (don’t ASK how long it took me to complete the first quidditch challenge, that was HARD), but the buttons I should press flash on the screen for me with enough time to defend myself and not perish in the fight in 15 seconds.

This reminds me I desperately need to go back to Universal

So if you find yourself struggling in a similar way with Hogwarts Legacy or another game, don’t be afraid to lower the difficulty! If you’re frustrated every time you play, you won’t want to anymore, and that defeats the purpose of having the game entirely. Stay tuned to AllEars for all the latest Disney and Universal news, and the occasional obsessive post about Hogwarts Legacy!