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Hey there everyone, it's Michi coming at you with another review series!  This May, I'll be reviewing a favorite book series that was turned into a movie series, and in the spirit of the time period also had an adapted game series as well.  I speak to you of course about

click for the surprise

For those who don't know, this is quite a unique game adaption set.  Not only is every title adapted including Deathly Hallows being split between 2 games like the movies, but it's also the only adapted game set I can think of where the first couple of games (Sorcerer's Stone up to Prisoner of Azkaban) had multiple versions.  Sorcerer's Stone on the PC was vastly different than Sorcerer's Stone on the PS2/GC, which was vastly different than the PS1 version, which was vastly different from the GBA version, which was vastly different than the GBC version.  This trend would follow Chamber of Secrets as well, and despite the death of the GBC and PS1 when Prisoner of Azkaban came out, this trend would continue up until Goblet of Fire when the game versions between console and PC were perfect copies of each other (and the games themselves beyond GoF even in handheld form were identical aside from graphical differences).

Prisoner of Azkaban would also specifically mark a time when the game adaptions would stop following the books and start becoming more of a movie clone, with Prisoner of Azkaban bordering the two areas while Goblet of Fire and onward would become straight movie adaptions versus adaptions of the overall source material.

On top of that, aside from the subtle shifts in tone and not so subtle shifts in what it was adapting, this was a series that also adapted its overall game genre/style as the series progressed, or depending on the version played.  Whereas Sorcerer's Stone and Chamber of Secrets was much more of an overall adventure/platformer type with puzzles on console and GBA, the GBC versions of both were straight up RPGs in every way.  Likewise, Goblet of Fire was much more action oriented to where it removed a lot of the free movement that the games had been known for at the time...something that would come back in a bit more of an action form in Deathly Hallows Part 1.

Overall, it's a lot to look over, and I'll be doing so.  For this upcoming review series, I'll be going over:

*Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: PC versus PS1 versus PS2/GC versus GBA versus GBC
*Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: PC versus PS1 versus PS2/GC/Xbox versus GBA versus GBC
*Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: PC versus PS2/GC/Xbox versus GBA
*Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: PC and consoles versus GBA versus DS and PSP
*Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
*Harry Potter and the Halfblood Prince
*Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt 1
*Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt 2

I'll also be doing a bonus review of the LEGO Harry Potter Years 1-4 and 5-7 games as well.  A sillier take, but was it better? (The answer is yes, yes it was).

I won't be reviewing the mobile titles nor look at Pottermore aside from saying that it's...fine.

Alrighty, as an update:
I'm going to have to push this back slightly.  I was planning on pushing this out right on the first (aka today), but since I had to send my laptop in, I basically lost the document I was writing to start this off.  So the schedule for the reviews is going to be as followed:

May 5th: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Consoles vs Handhelds versus PC)
May 9th: Harry potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Consoles vs Handhelds vs PC)
May 16th: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Consoles vs Handheld vs PC)
May 20th: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Consoles + PC versus Handheld)
May 23rd: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix + Half Blood Prince
May 29th: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 1 and 2
May 31st: LEGO Harry Potter Years 1-4 + 5-7

If you're wondering why the weird amount of set days between, it's because for the first 3 games, I'll be reviewing 4-5 different versions of the game so I'll need a little extra time for them, whereas Goblet of Fire and Order only has 2 distinct versions, so they need less time to really get into to write up.  Likewise Order of the Phoenix and Halfblood Prince are both super straightforward, super easy, and mildly short-ish games with some side stuff, but not much...so they also won't take up time (and are similar enough to be reviewed together, with the handhelds being purely downgraded mostly-exact clones).  Deathly Hallows 1 and 2, while being in the same boat as OOTP and HBP are however a different, slightly more difficult style since they went slightly more action/3PS-esque, so they'll take a bit more time.  LEGO Harry Potter won't actually take that long since I've beaten it more than enough times to get a good enough idea for a review, but it'll be kind of a refresher course on the story (in the sense of how LEGO told its stories since this was before they threw in actual voice acting).

Alright, so unfortunately I'm going to have to hold off on Magical May for the rest of the series.  I have to send in my laptop again since the clods who did the repair didn't fix the actual problem and in fact made things worse somehow...and my dad's laptop won't run the later titles for their PC/console versions.

So apologies to anyone who was actually waiting for these, but it'll be stopping at the Chamber of Secrets review, and I'll just review the other games on different dates.

Talk about some PC misfortune. Sorry that you're having so much trouble out of your laptop.

It happens.  I wrote a pretty detailed letter this time with my laptop issues, hopefully they actually get addressed.

If not, I'll have some choice words for ASUS, and will just steer anyone I know away from their products.

I mean, I don't think it actually happens all that often.