Off the Shelf Media

JK Rowling made a physical sport where men and women play on the same team—just saying. Take that fact and do what you will with it. 

Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup is fun but gets old fast and isn’t worth the price. Here comes my first stinker review, so mount your Nimbus 2000 and don’t fall off because this will be a bumpy ride. 

Gameplay: 1

If you’ve never seen any of the Harry Potter movies or read the books, first off, fix that immediately and then come back. I’ll wait. 

For everyone else, here is a quick recap of how the game of Quidditch is played. 

• Each team has seven players: three Chasers, two Beaters, a Keeper, and a Seeker.
• All players fly on broomsticks 
• Quidditch is played on a large oval pitch (or field if you’re normal) with three hoops of different heights on each side. 
• Teams score by throwing the Quaffle (a big red ball) through the opposing team’s rings. If you score, you get 10 points
• The Keeper defends the hoops 
• Beaters use small baseball bats to hit the Bludger at opposing players to knock them off their brooms. 
• Have you ever seen The Wild Thornberrys? Imagine Donnie Thornberry as a ball. That’s what a bludger is. They are wild and unpredictable. If you get hit with a bludger, you have to drop the quaffle and go back to your side of the field (or pitch if you’re weird)
• Quidditch ends when the team’s Seeker catches the Golden Snitch. The snitch is a small gold ball with wings that is nearly impossible to see with the naked eye. 
• Catching the snitch awards your team 150 points. So yes, you can catch the snitch and still lose the game.  

The game is fun, and at the end of the day, that’s the most important thing gamers want. The problem is that fun only lasts a few hours. Flying around on the broomstick and pulling off combos is smooth, and satisfying, and immerses the player into the Wizarding World. 

The problem is how easy the game is. I’ve played over 100 Quidditch matches, and I’ve never been behind, let alone lose. There isn’t any challenge to this game. A 9-year-old could play this game on the hardest difficulty and have no problem winning by 300 points. It’s hard to re-play a game with little to no challenge. 

The controls are easy to learn and the game has you go through a Hogwarts season to teach you how to play. It’s helpful and the refresher is needed after playing the game for the first time in 15 years. 

This game had a lot of potential but they blew it – hard. There is no difference between playing as Gryffindor or Ravenclaw in terms of skill. The players have no stats or names and it doesn’t matter which brooms they use. The Fireball is supposed to be the fastest broom ever made, but it’s just as reliable as the Nimbus 2000 in the game. 

There’s nothing to unlock besides the wizard cards, but they only unlock Team Bulgaria once you reach the World Cup. Unfortunately, unlocking Bulgaria is pointless because they are no better or worse than any other team. 

They could have added stats like speed boosts, buying better brooms, or cosmetics to give the player something to play for. Back in 2003, games used to do that all the time before game executives had the bright idea of microtransactions. 

The foundation for greatness is there, but the game falls short and phones it in for an EZPZ arcade game. 

Story: 0

It’s a sports game, so there isn’t much story. The lack of a story doesn’t take away from the game. We’re here to fly around on broomsticks, not vanquish Voldemort. 

You start in Hogwarts with a new season on the horizon. You play through practice sessions and eventually face every other house. The winners of the Hogwarts Quidditch Cup get tickets to the World Cup. That’s all it is, and that’s all it needs to be. 

Once you make it to the World Cup, you pick a team. You can play as England, France, the USA, the Nordics, Bulgaria, Spain, Japan, Germany, and Australia. Again, the only difference between these teams is their team move. 

At least you get to play as the Weasleys, Draco Malfoy, Cho Chang, Victor Krum, and of course, Harry Potter himself. It’s cool, but the game doesn’t give me a reason to care about the characters because they are all a copy-and-paste recreation of each other. 

A lack of a story doesn’t hurt the game, but not caring or investing in any of the characters certainly does. So it’s a big ole goose egg from me. 

Atmosphere: 2

The atmosphere in this game is top-notch. The best part of this game is the sound design. The horn sound of when the quaffle goes through the hoops, the whoosh of the broom, the smacking sound of a bludger, and the roar of the crowd give the player an immersive experience that’s unique to other sports games. 

The character models are solid and the graphics are pretty to look at as the colors pop on the screen. Each team has a unique uniform and the animations during a team powerup are a sight to see. It’s worth playing as every team at least once to see what their move is. 

Hands down the best part of the game is the Quidditch stadiums. My lord, each of them looks great. The tundra of the Nordic team is my personal favorite with Japan coming in as a close second. Luckily, you get to play in each of them at least once whenever you play through the World Cup. 

The bottom line is the game is technically brilliant, but that’s not enough to carry it to victory on the scoreboard. 

Value: 1

I remember buying this game for $50, and I can’t say I was disappointed. Under today’s standard, this is a complete ripoff but under the 2003 standard, I say this game is fairly priced. It’s 2024 and here we are talking about it, so that has to count for something. If this was on sale today, I wouldn’t spend more than $20 on it. 

Duration: 1

Some of the Quidditch games take a long time to finish. It’s a long and grueling World Cup season since you play each team twice. I never finished a complete season as a kid because I lost interest and went to play something else. 

You could spend hours and hours playing through the World Cup with each team. You could spend hours and hours collecting every wizard card to 100% the game, but there’s no reason to. The game makes no effort to incentivize you to do that. 

I had fun for the time I played it, but since I finally won the cup as an adult, I have no reason to ever pick this game up and play it again. 

Total Score: 5/10

The game is great if you do everything once. Play as each team once, play in each stadium once, and win the World Cup once. Unfortunately, you’ll only want to do each of those things once. Quidditch is a boring and repetitive game with a lot of pizzazz and shine. 

The game needs more connection with the characters and something to play for other than a short cutscene of your team holding up a trophy after a long season. 

That’ll wrap up this review my fellow Potter-heads. Next up is a review of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. It’s a good one, so I’ll see ya there. Until then, y’all take care.