The truth is that quidditch is not a very good sport, or at least it was not intended to be played. You might as well title it “Harry Potter the Seeker and Some Other People on Broomsticks, I Guess” because its only purpose in the Harry Potter series was to demonstrate how exceptional Harry is. With Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions, the development team at Unbroken Studios had their job cut out for them because they had to both respect the original work and make Quidditch a playable game.
They have done a very decent job at that, surprisingly, with some fantastic moment-to-moment action on the quidditch pitch. However, there is not much off the field for Quidditch Champions to entice you to return after you land between matches.
Quidditch in Quidditch Champions appears to be identical to those of the novels and movies. There are still four positions available: Beaters launch Bludgers to effectively stun opponents, and if that does not work, they can whack them with their bats directly; Seekers pursue the Golden Snitch, a small, elusive winged ball worth a lot of points; Chasers grab the Quaffle and shoot it at the opposing team’s goals, scoring ten points if they manage to get it in; Keepers defend those goals. To improve things, Unbroken has made a few rule modifications, the most significant of which is that the Seeker is no longer the only position that counts in the end.
Games do not only cease when someone captures the Snitch; they continue until one team earns 100 points or until a time restriction is met. Speaking of, the Snitch itself can emerge more than once in a game (typically roughly twice), and its value is a lot more realistic 30 points as opposed to 150. This cleverly turns the periods throughout a match when you can switch to Seeker into a fun little (optional) bonus rather than the game’s crucial moment. Additionally, each team has a single Beater rather than two, which makes sense considering how they can pressure other players to play around them.
To be honest, the game is now better as a result of all these adjustments. It maintains the importance of the Snitch hunt, particularly in close games, while giving Chasers at least as much weight as Seekers. It allows the Beater to be a strong and strategic component of the entire match without fully controlling how it unfolds. The Beater can incapacitate a member of the other side if they deliver enough damage. Most significantly, it guarantees that games do not continue for six months and makes every shot on goal count.
Quidditch has been improved and made more enjoyable with shrewd modifications.
Yes, the intelligent modifications have made Quidditch a better and more enjoyable game, but the way the action unfolds on the field is what drew me in. It is amazing to fly over the field, particularly if you can move like a Quidditch Champion. The difference between unintentionally blowing past the opposing team as a Chaser and faking out a Keeper to land the perfect shot and keeping up with the Snitch during tight turns and taking a Bludger to the skull before thinking about your options while facing down in the pitch for the next twenty seconds is how you manage your boost meter and learn how to dodge and drift properly.
Whether it is Rita Skeeter at the Quidditch World Cup or Lee Jordan at Hogwarts, mid-match commentary will unfortunately often be stilted and generic. Good lines are found here and there, but they are typically saved for the start and end of a match, while the mid-game stuff is, to put it mildly, boring.
Fortunately, there is an enjoyable part for every position. Chasers are always tackling each other to steal the ball, moving up and down the pitch, and I loved playing Keeper because it was like playing a chess match with the other players, responding to their shots, and dropping Playcalling Rings that give my Chasers energy and speed boosts, and competing against the Keeper; a skillfully executed Beater can dismantle the opposition, thwarting a Seeker at the last moment or removing the Keeper from the game to allow a winning goal; and since Seekers are required to stay near the Snitch and build up a meter before they can finally snatch it, every battle for those bonus points is effectively a race against another Seeker. You can also spend as much or as little time as you wish in each capacity because you can swap roles at any time. It is excellent.
Are you against using custom characters? If you save up enough money or, hear me out: level up your battle pass, you can unlock Harry, Ron, Hermoine, Cedric Diggory, Draco Malfoy (ew), Cho Chang, and the others. Even while reading that might have your eyes rolling, the good news is that you can earn everything simply by playing. In Quidditch Champions, microtransactions do not currently exist. Ultimately, this is Warner Bros. – do you think it will not create an in-game store and then demand your payment later on? I am not.
Verdict
Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions can be a blast as you are flying around the field. There is a lot of depth to each position, whether you are the Chaser who fakes out a Keeper to score, the Beater who harasses the other team’s Seeker, or the Seeker who drifts to keep up with the Snitch. Quidditch Champions cleverly modifies the rules to enhance the excitement of this fantasy sport while faithfully emulating the Wizarding World.
You simply will not find anything off-the-field here to keep you coming back for more, and problems with cooperative growth make it difficult to compete in career mode tournaments or expand your collection of unlockables with friends. I just wish this broom had a little more bristles on the end. Quidditch Champions accomplished the almost unthinkable by making Quidditch a real competitive game.
