Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Nintendo DS)

**What Is It?**
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix DS is the Nintendo DS game to accompany the film (and book) of Harry Potters 5th year at Hogwarts. This will take you through different adventures and challenges.

**Age Group**
On the box it says 7 years and up which is true enough as it wouldn't really be suitable for children under that age. This would probibly mostly appeal to teenagers and adults more than ...
.../> You start out as Harry in Grimald Place (where Harry's godfather Sirius lives) and you have to find different characters and speak to them. Ok, simple enough you then have to run around and find Ron's prefect badge which is very easy but you have to follow a confusing compass (which is used throughout the game) You then get lots of pictures that appear and tell the story directly from the book. As I have read the book again and again I found ... more

**What Is It?**
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix DS is the Nintendo DS game to accompany the film (and book) of Harry Potters 5th year at Hogwarts. This will take you through different adventures and challenges.

**Age Group**
On the box it says 7 years and up which is true enough as it wouldn't really be suitable for children under that age. This would probibly mostly appeal to teenagers and adults more than children. The storyline is a lot darker than previous books so watch out for that.

**The Story**
You start out as Harry in Grimald Place (where Harry's godfather Sirius lives) and you have to find different characters and speak to them. Ok, simple enough you then have to run around and find Ron's prefect badge which is very easy but you have to follow a confusing compass (which is used throughout the game) You then get lots of pictures that appear and tell the story directly from the book. As I have read the book again and again I found this very boring. So you get to Hogwarts and have to go to lessons. This is quite cool, making potions, doing spells and doing Harry Potter quizzes. So you do classes in between mini challenges which are usually with Ron and Hermione. This can involve duelling with Malfoy and his cronies or finding something. This can be very boring at times as you have to run down passages and it feels like forever by the time you get there you have to go back! So oddly I would say it was frustrating. Eventully after all this you get to go to the ministry of magic and fight the death eaters but again a big let down. You just have to duel using the same spells again and again. So basically in the game you run around, use boring spells which require no effort and listen to the story of the Order of the Phoenix. Very tiresome, no thought at all in this game, and there is so much they could have done!!!

**Graphics**
There not good but there not bad either. The graphics of the characters are not to bad but are very un-life like (e.g. Hermiones hair stays dead still when she runs?) Harry is done quite well up but i think the creators have made it a little obvious he has glasses as they are jet black and very noticeable! The rest of the characters are average, you could tell who they were but some of them looked a little unfinished. Voldemort was very good in my opinion, and actually quite scary!
The castle and backround graphics were again average. You could tell where they were but they were not great. The colors seemed to be in little squares that were quite noticeable, in the color change. There were quite boring and unnoticeable and if i'm honest the reason i noticed the backround properly was because of writing this review! Seriously!
The story graphics are pretty bad. When the DS is telling you part of the story, pictures come up to accompany it and they weren't great at all. They are usually pictures of characters that the story is talking about like when there in a DA (Dumbledores Army) meeting they show characters.
Overall the graphics are average and could definately be improved.

**Sound/Effects**
I was quite impressed by the sound effects. When you start up the game it plays a 'funked' up version of the Harry Potter 'theme tune' which is quite catchy. When your in the game there is always backround music playing, either a Harry Potter theme or a dramtic tune if your duelling. There is even one for when you are sitting your 'OWL's. So i was quite pleased with that. The sound effects aren't bad either when your doing spells it makes different sounds for how powerful your spell was. EA got something right!

**Difficulty**
Very easy at times and frustrating at others. In general the game could be played easily. A lot of it involves runnign around (which can be very sore on the thumbs!) So that is easy. Spells, very easy to do. Dueling however can be quite complicated and can take a couple of times to win if you don't have the right spells. So yes it can be a little complicated at times but it in general is a very easy game.

**Multi-Player Mode**
I have had a go at this as my best friend also has a DS. So we did single card play which meant we only needed one DS card. On this you can make potions, play gobstones, wizarding snap and choclate frogs. It is quite fun and found this one of the best features of the game. We both found it fun and i was pleased with it.

**Is It Addictive?**
One word answer. NO! I was bored within a couple of days and had completed it within a week. I played it for a couple of hours and found I had to turn it off out of sheer boredom, so I put Nintendogs on instead! I think a lot of people will be bored with it once they have completed it, like me and maybe bring it out to play muliti-player mode or have another bash at it.

**Price/Where To Get It?**
I bought mine at HMV for £29.99 which is not value for money. I noticed a lot of DS Lite deals is if you buy the console you get the game free. I would choose another one unless you wanted to sample it for yourself. You can buy it any where HMV, Woolworths any shop that sells DS's. It is a popular game but i think a lot of people who have played the game would agree it isn't value for money.

**Whats Right With It?**
The reason I bought this game was that Harry Potter is my favourite book ever. So this game does reflect on the book a lot, and hasn't added or taken away much of the ideas of the book. It even recounts the story which is good if you haven't read the book as you will get the general idea. The graphics aren't bad and you get a general idea of what enviroment like the castle and the grounds. The sound effects and backround music are good and give it an extra Harry Potter feeling. There a little mixed up but I think that is good. The fact it's Harry Potter is a good thing as well! But sadly that it about it.

**Whats Wrong With It?**
There are a lot of things wrong with this game which could be easily fixed. First the story and the amount of gameplay. A lot of the story is told and you are unable to do anything. The gameplay is quite boring a lot of the time as a lot of it involves running about looking for stupid things (like a picture to ask for a password for another picutre frame!) So you can get bored very easy. It is not an addicive game because of this and I felt I could get easily distracted from the game by doing something else like watching TV. The graphics could be improved a bit more to make it more life like. It didn't in my opinion use both the screens well as it could of. The touch screen is only in use when your doing spells or doing lessons but a lot of the time isn't in much use. This is a big disadvantage and EA could have thought up better ideas. And this is what I believe is the root of the problem. EA and creators of the game have not put a lot of thought into this. This is the longest book in the Harry Potter series and in theory should have the longest game play. I was highly disappointed by this game :(

**Conclusion**
This I believe, could have been a fantastic fun game which would have teenagers and adults alike addicted for weeks in challenges and battles. I think that it could have been great but I and other DS users and Harry Potter fans have been failed. I was disappointed with this game.

Janie x

P.S. It was hard for me to write a negative review about a Harry Potter product but i was so let down by it! I'm a big Harry Potter fan and had even saved up for this game, what a way to let you down ay? 

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