QUIDDITCH is the most popular sport in the wizarding world of Harry Potter.
Even when the world is under threat of destruction from the evilest wizard to ever exist, there always seems to be time for our heroes to throw a ball around.
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The books and films made it seem like quite an exciting thing to take part in, which is why it’s such a surprise that Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions is so boring.
The game lets you play any role on a Quidditch team.
For the uninitiated, there are the Chasers who pass the Quaffle and try to score in the hoops, the Keeper who defends the hoops, the Beaters who attack other players with Bludgers, and the Seeker who attempts to catch the golden Snitch.
Like in the books, scoring through a hoop is ten points, however, this game makes a change to the rules surrounding the Snitch.
More in Quidditch Champions
While in the books, catching it scores 150 points and instantly ends the game, the developers realized that this is ridiculously unfair and nerfed it significantly.
The snitch now only scores 30 points and doesn’t end the game. Instead, games end when one team scores 100 points or the time limit expires.
Maybe long-time Harry Potter fans will be a bit irked by these changes, but it’s something this game definitely needed to be a fair competitive experience.
Not that you’ll get anything fair when playing against the AI, which is utterly dreadful.
Clips have gone viral of people winning the game without even playing because the enemy AI is so useless.Â
We even renegotiated our car insurance while playing, and it’s not a good sign when that is more interesting.
With three Chasers and one of each other role on the field, you can hop between them with a simple button press, but I found that darting about the field as a Chaser lets me do almost everything.
As a Chaser you can tackle to get the ball off of people and catch the ball before it goes in the hoops, making both Keepers and Beaters redundant outside of a few specific scenarios.
The Seeker is the only role that can catch the Snitch though, and once it appears on the field, you’re better off ignoring the rest of the game just to catch it.
Not that doing so is any more interesting. You just have to follow it around for long enough, flying through hoops to keep up enough speed, it gets dull fast.
Naturally, there is also a multiplayer mode, but even there you won’t be able to escape the awful AI.
While a 6v6 match might sound fun, the game only allows up to 3v3, with each player controlling a Chaser and one of the other roles.
You can switch between your two roles as you please, but an AI will be controlling whichever one you’re not, which allows the other players to relentlessly bully them.
It means you have to micromanage two characters to avoid getting overwhelmed in multiplayer matches.
Your reward for doing all of that is another cavalcade of generic live service guff.
Which is to say, a bunch of fairly underwhelming cosmetic items and tiny amounts of currency so you can buy even more stuff in the shop.
If you’re not a fan of Harry Potter there’s absolutely nothing here for you.
Even if you are a fan, this is a soulless take on the wizarding world that boils the iconic sport down to its least interesting parts.
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Score: 2/5
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