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Harry's hot takes: The only way to make a Harry Potter game any good is to make it in FMV

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Harry's hot takes: The only way to make a Harry Potter game any good is to make it in FMV
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Everyone is going doolally over something called Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery. Apparently it's a game set in the Harry Potter universe where you get to interact with characters from the series and have "fun".

Well, I'm here to tell you that this is an abomination. There's no way that this game should be being made the way that it is, because it's an insult to the original movies. Yeah, I said it. I said what everyone is thinking but is too afraid to say out loud.

And what everyone is thinking is this - unless the new Harry Potter games are FMV and star actors who look a bit like the lead characters from the films, then they're a complete waste of time and effort and should be completely ignored.

Why are people thinking that? Well, here are the hot takes that you need to clarify this far from controversial misunderstanding of what Harry Potter is all about.

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They were films first

As everyone is aware, film is the greatest art form. That's not an opinion, that's a fact. All games want to be films, it's just that some people like poking films when they're watching them. That's why games were invented.

To protect the integrity of the vision of the filmmakers is paramount in this case. What, are we doing some sort of adaptation? Adaptations are always rubbish.

To save Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery, the developers should be finding people who look a bit like Daniel Radcliffe and recording shoddy video footage of them.

Polygons are stupid

The more I hear people talk about polygons, the more infuriated I become. If you love polygons so much, why don't you go and marry them? Because you can't, obviously. Because polygons aren't real. Well, some of them are, but not these ones.

Do you know what is real? People who look and sound a bit like Alan Rickman. There's loads of them out there, so why not give them a break and let them star in a hastily cobbled together selection of video clips? Then let people occasionally poke those video clips. Gaming gold.

No one likes reading

Do you know who definitely doesn't like reading? Fans of the Harry Potter films. You think they're going to enjoy reading text? Of course they're not. They love films, you dummies, and not films that have subtitles.

That's why the game needs to be FMV. Find a ginger kid who sounds like Ron Weasley, get him to say stuff like "bloody hell", and then make those videos play when you go to specific places in the world. Honestly, I can't believe why I'm having to explain this here.

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There hasn't been an FMV game for ages

I mean, I just realised you might not even know what I'm talking about when I say an FMV game. I of course mean things like Night Trap. And, well, actually that's the only I can think of right now. Can you say gap in the market?

Sometimes FMV games are called interactive movies. If you want to stay true to your source material, then putting the word "interactive" in front of it is the only way.

If you just made movies, they wouldn't be games. They'd just be the movies. The original movies that came out first. Originally.

Only losers like using their imagination

If there's one thing that the original Harry Potter films set out to show, it's that using your imagination is boring and rubbish. Why conjure up incredible worlds in your head, filling in the blanks in a story with your own ideas and concepts, when you can just use special effects?

Do you know what makes special effects more special? It's when they look completely different from the world around them. That's how you know they're special, because you can spot them a mile off. The best way to do that? FMV. You know it's the right thing to do.

Need more hot takes in your life? Click here to read Harry's column from last week about why Monster Hunter World is complete rubbish
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.