Hermione Granger and the Prisoner of Azkaban

I recently saw my good friend Chloe stream on her twitch channel the first harry potter game for ps1 (and later for ps2, although she kinda hates that one... scratch the kinda).

I remember having played pretty much all of the harry potter games in a way or another, but the only one that stuck with me is the third one. The Prisoner of Azkaban is my favourite in the series, be it book, film, or in this case game, I played it time and time again and never got tired of it. I absolutely loved it when I was little, so seeing Chloe playing the Harry Potter games made me want to replay my favourite and see how it holds up.

If you want to see a funny video/summary I made of the game on my youtube channel click on the image to get there!

The game starts on the train to Hogwarts where Ron, Hermione, and Harry read the newspaper about Sirius Black having escaped Azkaban. Harry is very worried about it as Ron's father mentioned the escapist might be after him. After a brief scene about Hermione’s cat Crookshank giving chase to Ron’s rat Scabbers, the game explains all the core mechanics as you make your way across the train trying to catch the fleeting rat. After that there are dementors involved, prof. Lupin helps and explains the situation, and the trio gets to Hogwarts and starts school. But alas, in this school you spend more time in danger than you do actually learning stuff. The story is pretty much the same as the one we all know and love. (You get to fly on Buckbeak as well!) I won’t spoil it in case you don’t know it but if you do know it, there’s honestly not much else to spoil.

While at school, each of our three protagonists learn new exclusive spells in dedicated lessons.

Ron will learn Carpe Retractum, a spell to pull yourself towards something or pull something towards you; Harry will learn Glacius, a spell to freeze things; and lastly, Hermione’s lesson will involve two spells because she’s just that good. She will learn Lapifors and Draconifors, two spells to turn certain statues in an adorable rabbit or a cute little dragon that she can control.

Throughout the game you will be able to collect beans and other valuable treats which will then be expendable at George and Fred’s shop in exchange for some nice stuff, mostly collectibles. My favourite way of collecting beans is helping these poor guys with their indigestion problems.

Casting Depulso on these guys will make them vomit out a handful of beans. Yummy!

If you pay enough attention you will also find secret areas where you will most likely get a collectible card. It seems that they expanded their range this year as the cards are not only exclusive to wizards and witches but also to vampires, beasts, monsters, and other magical creatures.

Some of the best places to find treats and collectibles are in the challenge areas, aka the lesson rooms. The goal of the challenges is to find as many shields as you can, possibly all 10 of them to unlock the special Bean Bonus Room where you can collect all the beans and more valuable treats under a time limit. You will also find collector’s cards after you beat certain challenges up to 5 times, getting one card each time.

Overall this game is, as I said in the beginning, extremely nostalgic. Replaying it now, I was surprised to find that it still holds up well to the test of time. It is a little tricky to run on new computers, but once it starts it sails well and fluidly, albeit with some minor graphical glitches. There are a few worse glitches like secret doors and passages not opening up so you either can't get into the secret area to complete the whole game or you can't get out of them. But I didn't expect an old game like this to run perfectly today.

The controls are extremely easy and, most importantly for old games like this one, they’re not frustrating (ahem.. except flying on Buckbeak). Keep in mind that it is a game designed for kids so you won’t find extremely complicated mechanics, but I do believe that this game in particular is to blame for my completionist tendencies. I remember completing this game a couple times and it wasn’t easy. There are a lot of secrets in the game, and while most of them are way easier to find now that I’m older and can see certain clues in the level design, there are some that still eluded me like that damn ninth shield in the first challenge. (I thought I had them all! Turns out I didn't. I’m still mad)

I remember loving Hermione so much that I changed the name of the game shortcut on my desktop from Harry Potter to Hermione Granger in the hope that it would let me play as her more often. Unfortunately it didn’t work. But I could still go over to her lesson whenever I wanted and not only play as Hermione but also as the sweetest cutest most adorable rabbit and lil dragon that you will ever see in a game.

If you already played this game when you were little, go replay it! If you’re like me, you won’t regret it.

If you didn’t play it and you’re a fan of Harry Potter, chances are you’ll really enjoy this gem of a game, even more than the other in the series.

Be sure to check out Chloe’s channel at twitch.tv/ughlygirl ! She plans to play all the Harry Potter games and that includes Prisoner of Azkaban! I can’t wait.