Hogwarts Legacy has a ton of optional content: A TON

I'm still playing the same open-world game almost a week later, can you believe it? It is very rare for me to actually do something like this but I think that Hogwart's Legacy is actually hitting all the right buttons with me and for once, I am not complaining about all the busywork that they have you doing outside of the main story.

I think part of the reason why I am not complaining about this is because all of it is optional. It really irks me when fetch quests are built into the main story and I especially hate it when fast-travel is limited for these fetch quests.

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The biggest offender of fetch quests being required and super-tedious that I can think of is for that brief month or two that I tried to understand the hooplah surrounding Final Fantasy XIV and that was just ridiculous. I'm a huge fan (or was) of the franchise but I think I played it for about 20 hours and 19 of those were "go here, get that, come back, do it again!"

In Hogwart's Legacy, there are tons of collectibles, tons of side quests, tons of optional content but NONE of it is mandatory for finishing the main quest outside of the first time you are introduced to the content just so the game can teach you how to do it. Most of it is rather inconsequential and only offers certain "looks" for your character which is something I have never paid much attention to in any game. It must be important to some people since certain MMO's make millions off of cosmetics alone.

In Hogwarts Legacy, more and more completely optional aspects of the game are introduced that include doing puzzles or my favorite collecting beasts for the little zoo that you build back at your secret magical room.

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The idea behind the beast room is that if you take care of your animals they will provide you with feathers, fur, and other things that are instrumental in the creation of certain potions and other items that you can use in combat. These things are not locked without you doing these things, if you prefer to run around and kill stuff in order to get money to buy these things you can do that as well. There is plenty of money in the game and there is probably a trade-off here in that the amount of gold that you have to spend in order to develop your beast farm and your potion and plant tables are likely at least as much as you would spend on simply buying the items at the store. I kind of like the process of creating my own potions and raising the animals on my farms though. I do like how the game has it built in that aside from learning that the system exists at all through a singular mission that takes very little time, you are NEVER obligated to do any of this stuff.

I kind of feel a sense of joy when I am able to create some sort of offensive creature that they call "charms" into my arsenal that I cooked at home on my own.

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There are also these things scattered around the world called "Merlin Trials" where you have to solve a puzzle of sorts in order to progress. These puzzles are normally either really simple or you don't yet have the spell necessary to complete them. As of yet I cannot tell if completing this trials actually do anything to buff your character but I really don't care: I find them fun and enjoy doing them and that's kind of the point right?

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During one quest you meet a fellow student who loves astronomy and teaches you about astronomy tables that are located all over the damn place. These involve a puzzle of sorts as well and when you complete it, that table is not not usable ever again. If you complete a certain amount of them you get some sort of reward that as far as I can tell, is completely cosmetic in nature. If you care about cosmetics, good for you! If you are like me and you don't give a damn what your character looks like, then I still find the puzzles to be fun and a nice break from combat.

Speaking of combat, there are optional bases located all throughout the land and it is pretty easy to tell which ones are going to hand you your ass if you attempt them and which ones will be easy, or a bit challenging.

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There are a lot of these goblin camps or poacher camps and once you loot the main chest there, as far as I can tell, the enemies never respawn - which honestly, is the way it should be. I got a bit irritated with Assassins Creed and even Tears of the Kingdom for respawning enemies in a camp or castle in exactly the same places that they were standing before, if I so much as leave the area and immediately come back. It-a-doesn't-a-make-a-sense!

There is of course the main story and they have a recommended level that I think it is a bit off kilter. I recently completed an optional mission that was recommended that I be level 10 and I was level 19. I went in there thinking this would be a breeze but it was actually quite challenging and I nearly died twice (to be fair I stood to close to an barrel in one of these near misses that I detonated, but still!) Now on the map there is a checkmark above the camp and out of curiosity I went back there to check and see if the goblins came back. They did not. The lone warrior remaining there is a troll that intentionally left alone because I know those guys pack a punch.

I haven't even really touched base on all the optional content that this game has but lets look at it like this: I have been playing, according to my PS5, for 12 hours now, and I have completed 5% of the overall collectibles. I have no notion of ever making it to 100% but if I was going to do that according to my math it would take 240 hours total. I have never liked any game to play it for that long.

Thus far though, I think I can say that this game will appeal to a wide range of people. The only ones that I would say to steer clear of this one would be the people that are into soulslike games with ultra high difficulty and precision parrying and dodging. This game isn't like that at all and I don't like soulslike games anyway, so this is perhaps why I am enjoying it so much.

To me this game has been a very worthwhile investment because there is always something new to do and most of it you are not forced to do it at all. Wanna fly over all the enemies on the way to a castle in the distance on your broom? Go ahead! Wanna totally skip all of the optional side quests? It's your call.

I like this sort of freedom and have been very happy with this game thus far