My Analysis of Hogwarts Legacy Main Story
I had the assignment to analyze a game's narrative without focusing on the game mechanics; I chose to use Hogwarts Legacy. It is essential to call out that there are spoilers for both the main story and some of the companion stories, so this is your warning to hop now.
The main story of Hogwarts Legacy is a fairly short plot line, although the game takes about 30 hours to complete. Therefore, a recap is essential before jumping into the analysis.
As the player, you are found in London, ready to be whisked off to Hogwarts as a 5th year as you have come into your magic. During a ride in the sky, you learn that you can see some other magic, later called Ancient Magic, that glows blue. After your ride is cut short by a very aggressive dragon with a red collar, you arrive at an unknown location in Scotland to land in Gringotts before landing again in Scotland at Hogwarts.
You and Professor Fig try to piece together what has happened and eventually land in the Map Chamber, where you meet the four keepers. During this time, you also navigate and learn about Rookwood, Ranrock, and Harlow. The Keepers give you each a test, and then eventually, you make it to the end where you kill Rookwood, defeat Ranrock, and maybe if you complete Natsi's quest, something happens to Harlow (I did not finish her side plot, so I am not 100% sure). And that's the main storyline complete.
The plot described above was presented through several formats, including in-game cinematics, cut scenes, found narrative, and many dialogs.
The in-game cinematics was primarily used at the beginning of the game, leading up to the actual intro. I enjoyed this part of the main story the most out of the whole game. It was intriguing, touched many different emotions, and, most importantly, drew me into the game and left me wanting more. Of course, some other scenes were throughout, but that was the main one.
Cut scenes happened a lot, all over the game, and for the most part, helped the story's narrative move forward. However, it wasn't overused or prevented gameplay from happening.
The found narrative was used throughout, from the pages you were required to collect to notes around the castle. Found narrative in this game felt genuinely designed for the fan rather than for the story. As a fan, I read through several of them, but looking back, I cannot say they did anything for the plot progression.
Next is the dialog, which this particular form of narrative is an interesting one because it both helps the story while also deterring it. When you had an opportunity within the main plot to ask questions, the information was mostly useful or provided guidance in some way. However, there were times when I felt that the questions were obtrusive, and I would have rather a cut scene to get the information rather than continue clicking through each option to get the details. The dialog also never went very deep, so there were times when from a plot perspective, I was looking for more information or why something was the way it was.
This missing why leads me to the last narrative component, the gameplay, specifically regarding the Keepers and their tests. The way they describe the tests and behave towards your character, you expect the test will lead to something in the story. While this is true in that at the end of every trial, you got a memory, the trials themselves had nothing to do with what they were leading up to. As a result, I sometimes found that watching the memory cut-scene felt disjointed from what I had just done to get there. Had there been more sense of why you were doing the tasks and a connection to the end, it would have been more congealed as a story.
Related to dialog was also the presence of choice or at least the illusion of it. Avalanche did claim that the choices you would make would have an impact on the game. However, from what I found myself playing the game and watching others do on YouTube, this was not the case.
At certain points in the game, the dialog choice you made had an "effect," but actually did very little to the game and made the choices feel inconsequential. For example, deciding whether to keep the magic for yourself versus bottling it back up only affects how Fig dies. Snorting the magic and nothing else is just a disappointment to the player. Also, the final cut-scene of the game is identical no matter which route you picked before the final boss, and this took away from the consequence and purpose behind being asked the question.
While I am sure, this was for DLC and expansion purposes so that everyone's game lands in the same place, I feel that through the cut-scenes they could have offered different results while still having the game itself land in the same spot of needing to take your O.W.L.S.
Strictly from a story perspective, I never thought that the Keeper's storyline indeed concluded. In the end, it felt anti-climatic and lacked a solid ending. It had a great introduction, a middle that needed more depth to keep the story grounded, and an end that didn't conclude on a solid note.
I want to call out because, from a story perspective and analysis, it's important, is that this was the main storyline, where it felt that there wasn't much risk taken or trust in the audience to approve of taking the chances that they were willing to with the companion storyline.
In my opinion, the Sebastian Sallow companion line was a much stronger but more risky story with an emotional pull, a solid three-point arch, and a decision at the end that could have more of a consequence than the actual ending did. It was not perfect, but I think it rang more true to what this game was supposed to be.