Harry Potter and the Tragic Adaptation

By Elle Simons

We all remember late nights, sitting criss-cross on the floor, the only illumination from the blue light of the TV. If you were lucky, your parents would accept your negotiations for ten more minutes of playtime. It was those nights, on the floor, in front of the TV, where I remember the hum of my trusty PS2 while playing the digital version of famous novel, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

Though those nights are long gone, and Harry Potter games are far more developed with the release of Hogwarts Legacy, I invite you to dive back into the magic of this vintage game. Beyond enjoying the nostalgia, I aim to critically assess the intricacies of the gameplay and all of its inner workings—finding out if this digital experience was a hit or a miss in the vast majority of Y2K video games.

A unique aspect of the game is that there are five different versions, developed by five different teams, available to play—each on a different console. Each version has a distinct style of gameplay with varying graphics and design choices. It’s important to note that I will be reviewing the version available for PC, developed by KnowWonder and released in 2001.

Another important note is that this game is not available for download anywhere. There are currently no available versions to buy on legit sources, leading me to explore other options. The downside of these “alternative downloads” is that the safety of these mysterious files isn’t guaranteed, and the install process is usually long and tedious.

Although the laborious journey of getting the game up and running and trying to avoid multiple computer viruses may have been harder than the actual gameplay, I do not plan on taking this in consideration for my actual review. After hours of tinkering around with the program, I got the pleasure of seeing that familiar logo appear on my screen, and after finding the optimal controls, it was finally time to play.

Before the actual gameplay, I wanted to set out some guidelines for my review.

I created a chart to help visualize the criteria. There are three categories I will be scoring the game on. Gameplay, quality, and continuity. Gameplay focuses on how enjoyable the missions and challenges are. Quality targets the technicalities such as graphics, audio, and how it runs. Continuity looks at if the game is cohesive to the storyline of the book and if the narrative is entertaining.

Each category has a certain amount of points. If the game scores excellent for all three categories, they will score a grand total of 99/99 points. According to IGN, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is rated a 6.4/10, and according to a younger version of me, the game would be rated a 10/10. But today, I’m here to critically assess the true value of this experience and reveal the hidden features that were left in the 2000’s.

Our journey begins with the turn of a page as we flip through the unique illustrations of Harry’s life. The backstory unfolds, incorporating the heart of the novel and the context for the journey that lies ahead. Guided by the voice of a mysterious narrator, whose old-timey English accent adds an extra layer of charm, we are led through the story until the Sorting Hat’s famous decision. And with the shout of “Gryffindor,” the game materializes as Harry dashes out of the Great Hall, marking the beginning of our adventure into the wizarding world.

GAMEPLAY

If you are a fan of the original Harry Potter books, you should be familiar with the immersion of epic adventures and nuanced storytelling. When playing a game with the intent of mirroring the original novel, you should expect the same level of quality—the same ‘spark’ that envelops you in the captivating fantasy of Hogwarts. After almost four hours of gameplay, the only thing that I can point out about this “magical” journey is that it is remarkably flat.

Paul Bloom, professor of psychology at Yale University and author of How Pleasure Works puts it precisely in an NPR interview, “And I think part of the pleasure of hot chili or a very hot bath or a sauna is that delicious moment when you escape from it. And that delicious moment of escaping, feeling the heat subside, feeling the bath reach its perfect temperature, a little bit cooler, and you start - is so pleasurable that it makes what goes before rewarding.”

Dr. Bloom creates a perfect image of the feelings I have towards Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. It is such an excruciatingly dull trainwreck that the moment my monitor shuts off and my hands ease from the keyboard, I get the reward of surviving four hours of mindless quests and flawed gameplay.

One of the game's main features is the haunting echo of “FLIPENDO,” the first official spell you learn, reverberating through the corridors every time you cast it. The spell, which is not even a canonical feature in the original novel, consumes at least ninety percent of all gameplay. What makes it even more cruel is the developers choice of using the same recording, unaltered, every single cast, burning the phrase permanently in your brain.

Even more painful is the unpredictability of the spell-learning mechanic. Using your shaky mouse, you are expected to perfectly trace the outline of a one-of-a-kind shape while the professors degrade your skills. It takes a tedious, timed task and combines it with the dictation of a stuttering Professor Quirrell commentating your every move. To make it worse, this task shows itself to be unsurprisingly unforgiving for a kids game, as you are forced to repeat the task until you achieve a mind boggling 95% accuracy.

Professor Quirrell's spell lesson.

Amidst the seemingly endless monotony, there are flickers of light in the gameplay that manage to catch my attention. The only redeeming quality is the random battles that you are faced with, a moment of adrenaline in a world of stale gameplay, my favorite being the troll chase. Not only is the mission absolutely terrifying, but it brings back those charming moments in the books that made the Wizarding World that much more magical.

The trolls, who we are introduced to in the books, manage to become ten times more terrifying in the game. The massive beast, armed with a club and adorned in a coat of horrifying graphics, begins to chase you down a corridor that is filled with bottomless pits and broken wood. As Harry, your mission is to run for your life as the giant’s footsteps hasten as he follows. In a span of just one minute, this encounter was the highlight of this four-hour experience.

Another surprisingly not-boring aspect of the game is the battles with Peeves, which brought another element of horror, but mainly brought a break in a series of missions that follow the same format. I think the most surprising part of my experience playing Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone was just how mind-numbing the tasks were. These quests, devoid of any magic, adhered to the same, repetitive pattern while only occasionally being interrupted by random battles.

Peeve's boss battle in action.

In the end, this game scores a “needs work” in the Gameplay category. The lone saving grace that prevented this category from a “poor” rating was the unexpected horror element that briefly rescues the player from the snooze fest that characterized most of the gameplay. If you are looking for an endless list of mundane tasks that are irrelevant to the narrative of the story, then congratulations—this is the perfect game for you.

QUALITY

Arguably the most popular element of this game are the hilarious graphics. Developed in the early 2000s, it’s anticipated to have a certain “lack” of design, but this game manages to take our beloved characters and make them unrecognizable.

It’s obvious that the graphics are a little outdated, but how bad are they really? Two popular games that were staples of their time, and came out in the same year as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, were favorites such as GTA III and Red Faction. GTA III was praised for its open-world design and narrative, while Red Faction garnered recognition for its groundbreaking Geo-Mod technology and unique take on the first-person shooter genre.

Although Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s stone has nothing in common with these iconic games on a narrative basis, it should, at the very least, hold its ground in terms of graphics.

In order: GTA III, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and Red Faction's PC versions being compared.

When we compare this game with others from its time, the graphics may not be the flashiest, but considering it’s from a small team and the first of its kind, they’re not half bad. Sure, there’s a noticeable difference in appearance, but it is nothing unusual for early PC games. Understanding the game's roots, it becomes clear that the graphics, while not stealing the spotlight in a world of new designs and games, carry a certain charm of its own.

In the sound department, it’s surprisingly enjoyable. Each character has their own voice and plenty of lines to keep things interesting. The music alone is a standout, holding up the lack of gameplay in most of the mundane missions. It’s got the same magical feel you love from the books and the movies, and the soundtrack is full of whimsical-childhood feels that are super immersive in a not-so-immersive world.

But here’s the catch—the technical aspect of this game? It’s a nightmare. In almost every mission, alongside the most boring tasks is the gift of a glitch that ruins your entire progress. It took some serious willpower not to quit and call it a day, but for the love of the game (mainly the article), I powered through. From clipping out of the world to a black-nothingness to characters casually phasing through walls, glitches follow you throughout your entire playthrough.

Overall, I would give the quality category an “average.” The graphics were nothing mind-blowing, but they got the job done. The actual mechanics were chaotic, turning the most simple tasks into never-ending disasters. And finally, the music and audio managed to rescue the rating, adding a spark of magic to a lifeless experience. All considered, the quality holds up decently for its time, yet certain elements, especially the technical hiccups, significantly weigh down the overall score.

CONTINUITY

By now, you should be familiar with the storyline of the original book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. If not, in a quick summary, we follow the narrative of a young boy who discovers he is a wizard before attending Hogwarts, school of witchcraft and wizardry, and trying to uncover the mysteries of the Sorcerer’s Stone with his iconic trio with Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley.

So does the game follow the same narrative? Well, kinda. The game begins on Harry’s first day of class, which is a huge time skip from the start of the novel. Then, instead of easing us into the magical world of Hogwarts, Fred and George pop up and throw us into our first task—collecting jelly beans.

This task is not just an odd addition to the story—it’s the whole thing. After almost every class, Fred and George will swoop in, sending you on a journey to enable their weird jellybean scheme. The game is full of these strange choices by the developers that are totally unrelated to the book. An example of this is the bizarre amount of gnome encounters. These creepy little things show up out of nowhere, absolutely hell-bent on stealing your jellybeans.

A "Gnome Hole" from a demo of the next Harry Potter game.

And between gnomes and jelly beans, you’ll quickly realize that the main “plot” of the game is essentially just a class marathon. Forget about epic quests and mystical adventures, you are forced to participate in an endless loop of spell classes, which all follow the same format, just to uncover the mysteries of the Sorcerer’s Stone.

It’s worth mentioning that amidst the boring missions, the game manages to recreate some of the most iconic moments from the novel. The most significant examples being the last three tasks: the potions challenge, the game of wizard’s chess, and the climactic final battle. These stand out as commendable efforts in mirroring the original narrative while still adding some extra pizzazz that is different from J.K. Rowling’s writing.

And after these precious moments that captured the original magic in the novels, of course the developers had to add their own flair. The grand finale involves Snape being pelted with jelly beans in the comfort of his own office before the room floods with them. The culmination of the entire game, which initially started with a plot to uncover the secrets of the Sorcerer’s Stone, takes a turn—with the true quest all along not saving the Wizarding World but, more importantly, collecting enough jelly beans to launch a full scale assault on a Hogwarts professor.

Snape hiding from students pelting him with candy.

Beyond the actual storyline, the other continuities from book to game are the character designs, which although are hindered by their poor 2000’s quality, manage to stand out with their unique designs, matching the memorable images we all associate with the original descriptions from the books. The actual design of Hogwarts is just as magical as the books as well, with secret passages and whimsical designs flooding the corridors.

Considering all factors, the continuity category receives an “average.” We see attempts to throw in the main plot points throughout the game, but about 80% of the actual playthrough is nonsense that seems to have nothing to do with the narrative. The characters and actual design of Hogwarts maintain their original charm. However, the beauty of these elements are overshadowed when most of your time is spent on boring missions rather than immersive world exploration. In essence, the game manages to keep some key elements from the books, but a significant portion of the experience feels like a detour from the actual magic.

FINAL THOUGHTS

After revisiting Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone as it soon marks its 22nd release anniversary, this game's only redeeming factor is the looming nostalgia and pop culture references that have formed around the experience. After ranking each category, the final score, with two categories ranking “average” and one ranking “needs work,” amounts to a 36/99.

Although I had some memorable moments with lots of jelly beans and a plethora of tasks, I can’t admit that I would recommend this to anyone. Some games deserved to be dug up and reevaluated, and some games deserve to remain cherished in our memories. With Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, it undeniably belongs in our memories. On a technical level, this game appears to be a horrendous relic, but its enduring high ratings stem not from nitpicking mechanics, but rather from the emotional associations we have with the experience it encapsulates.

In this case, I can’t help but sense that, for many, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is tied to the magic of being a child and the memory of a time when gaming held a simplicity that transcended the confines of technical flaws.