If you would like a good time capsule of its age and a mirror back into the past, look no further than the era of the Gameboy Advanced. One look at the library, and you will see titles that will open up that wonderful sense of nostalgia for all of those with fond memories of the time. It is chocked full of films and TV Series you may only have on DVD rather than Bluray and more than one of them may have been dubbed by the now defunct 4Kids! Anything from this era was put on the Gameboy Advanced and that is hardly a joke.
Back then anything was up for grabs when it came to video games. If it had anything of a following, you give it a tie-in game to capitalize on it. If it was popular in any way, it was probably given a side-scroller and/or beat'em up game of some sort. This was a chaotic time in gaming history, because the whole idea of being awesome, having fun and looking cool while gaming was becoming more and more popular. Streamers were gaining a bit of traction on the internet and it was a sprint race to see who could throw out more products to bank on this.
Harry Potter was a beacon on a mountain top on the summit of Olympus, as it was one of the catalysts that started this entire consumer phenomenon in the mid-2000's. While Pokemon was reaching its peak, Harry Potter was soaring on money-feather wings, leaving behind a trail of profit in its wake. Every single movie of the time got a port on every single console they could get their grubby little hands on and the Gameboy Advance was taking on ANY and EVERY game that came its way. This came to an end when the game sales began to dwindle at the fifth entry, so there was no port of Half-Blood Prince or Deathly Hallows. By then, the Advanced was reaching the end of its hayday, sadly. What this meant was, while there were so many awesome retro games getting ported to the GBA, it was also getting a reputation for being a bloated consumer product that was releasing more commercials than actual "games".
The Harry Potter games put on this system, as a result, were wholly uninspired. While they did explore an interesting array of different types of gameplay, it also threw garbage at the wall, if you catch my drift. Sometimes, gameplay just doesn't belong and that didn't seem to matter when it came to putting Harry Potter on a portable gaming device.
Harry Potter Quidditch World Cup
Giving credit where credit is due, it is really cool that you get to pick which team you want to play. A lot of games of the era normally kept with the main characters and put you on Gryffindor regardless of preference. Does that fix the control problems this game clearly has? No, not really. While the gameplay is rather simple and can even be labeled as decent, the controls are exhausting to your thumbs. The D-Pad's simple commands are relegated down to grinding your thumb. This is especially bad when you try to pass or shoot your Quaffle, you need to keep your thumb firmly on the D-Pad for your direction or you're going to shoot it wherever the game thinks you should, which is wrong! Still, the game is not bad, once you get the hang of the controls and the Chocolate Frog Quidditch Cards are pretty fun to collect. Of all the games, this one can be labeled as "not bad".
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Well, it's better than Flobberworm Fritters, but not by much. This is a whole lot of running through the hallways and searching doors while occasionally getting some boring gameplay and stilted dialogue. The puzzles are ridiculously easy while also being staggeringly boring at the same time. Either mimic wand movements or just flat out fail at shooting weird creature things, this is a slog. Now, is it completely without merit? No, actually, it does have you collect Bertie Bott's Beans and you get different, nasty flavors. That gave a good chuckle. It has the Harry Potter essence about it and the childish charm may strike you, but don't expect that to make Hogwarts interesting.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Even with the abridged scenes, this game manages to be as boring as studying bird migration. This is what happens when a game with little to no means of doing so, attempts to stick too close to the lore. The game is "go to the place and get the thing". While the graphics during the overhead gameplay are passable, it is still a game of nothing but backtracking and trying to remember where you were supposed to go as you're in the vortex of dizzying boredom.
On the flip-side, seemingly mundane tasks suddenly turn into DEATH DEFYING FEATS! Somehow, getting your gold from Gringotts turned into attacking creatures and collecting Knuts (bronze coins) throughout a harrowing journey. The gameplay is very mundane, but at least the graphics and a bit of the charm seeps through a bit. You've got your good Harry Potter flavor as you play, but sometimes, it would have been nice if that didn't always include traveling through samey hallways and talking to people who tell you to do more things.
To its credit, the puzzles and switch-finding can be considered quite satisfying. To its detriment, the platforming is absolutely terrible with the controls. The game needs to choose whether it wants to be precise or just a simple aim-and-shoot beat'em up. Injecting some adrenaline in the combat and maybe tigthtening the gameplay beyond collecting things and finding passages would be a big help overall. As it stands, this is one of the less favorable.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Once again, we see the developers thinking that walking through hallways with a top-down view makes for interesting gameplay. This time, instead of firing clumsily at goblin/elf things, you're firing at big bright blob things. It doesn't affect them but you can shoot them! They're actually your enemies and you walk into them to fight them in your normal RPG combat. It's turn-based, which is fine for the most part, but at the same time, you're fighting rats, bats, spiders and... Redcaps? Well, that's an unexpected bit of lore, but even Redcaps do nothing to help the monotony. You're still grinding to get levels and going through a series of events that either never take place in the movies/books or are extremely loosely based as such. This is a slog! Even if you do, somehow, make it through the Leaky Cauldron it is another drag to get to the next plot point.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Once again, I am flabbergasted by this one port. For some reason, this is the installment that all consoles somehow get right and yet retain so much of its other port's gameplay, it shouldn't work at all! These sorts of mechanics of point and cast spells makes sense with the 3D perspective, but this is a top-down! Somehow, moving objects and working your way through the levels still works! It even has Ron shouting "BEANS!" When I wrote the other Goblet of Fire review, I had no idea that was a meme.
With the sense of urgency without the ticking time, the game keeps up the pace while not becoming overly clunky with a stupid time limit. Even with the top-down view, it does combat a lot better than these other titles on this list. How this one installment into the series keeps coming out on top in quality is a mystery but at least there is a title we can all hop onto without much of a fuss.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
After the peak in the series, of course, there has to come a downward slump of epic proportions. It's as if one massively awesome game was just too much for the spectrum to bear, so it switched it right downward. This is the walking and talking simulator you never knew you never wanted. The graphics are such an enormous step-down, you'd almost thought it was a port of a Gameboy Color game. This is exaggerated, of course, but just look at this! They wanted to go so realistic without any means to do so and this is the result. It looks like cell-shaded dread on a screen! This game is so boring, you'd think they wanted to novelize a game of a novel but didn't know how to novelize, so they just put pictures on the screen. There is no point to the point and click gameplay, but the game seems absolutely stern on the fact that you need to go to the place and you need to push the button to get people to say things. That's the gameplay, and if you don't walk all the way to the part of the screen you need to go to, you will stay on that screen no matter what.
They even have Dudley say "Help! Daddy! Boohoo! Dementors!" Seriously! Someone was taking the piss, and we all know it was the customers who bought this utter rubbish! It is a serious red flag when you gloss over the gameplay of fighting off Dementors in favor of repairing tables with absolutely horrific controls and mechanics. By this time, I was entering hour 4 of Harry Potter on the Gameboy Advanced and it was quite telling of what was in store for this title. Clearly, Order of the Phoenix was the worst of the bunch.
While some of the reviews were rather harsh, it's mostly because there was potential here that was never tapped into. With tentative steps made into gameplay and lore along with clear burnout after releasing a game every single year, EA was obviously running out of ideas. The games weren't selling after a while and while the fourth installment had a small burst of inspiration, the fifth book was just their way of throwing up their hands in surrender. There is no real judgment on this front, because there should be no reason that these become annual releases. Game development is very complicated and not every idea can be translated into a game.
The Gameboy Advanced is a handheld console that deserves its own series, so our execs at the higher up Tribunal of the Virtua Tribunal have decided to make this so. Harry Potter is a fandom that has lasted for years, and the legacy of the GBA should also be investigated as a clear bit of nostalgic treasure for all to revel. Be ready to learn this important bit of gaming lore, but do not visit the forbidden section! It's called the FORBIDDEN SECTION!
