If you're played Years 1-4, then you will be instantly familiar with how everything works. Neither the core gameplay nor the controls have been tweaked. Going with that, if you felt bored by the end of Years 1-4, then Years 5-7 is probably not for you. At the risk of overgeneralising it, this is more of the same. They've even reused Hogwarts environments in the early parts of the game (as well as various hubworld areas) so it feels more like an extension/expansion rather than a sequel. Although I think that this was always the case from the get-go. One of the most noticeable additions is that you can now duel characters and it reminds me of the battle between Harry and Voldemort from the Goblet of Fire. Why? Well, it's because two players' wands are connected by a beam of light and you end up mashing a button to win. While this may sound simple, it's actually quite fun. Sadly, they didn't seem to fix up some of the more awkward Lego manipulation sequences from the first game. It's not as frequent or prominent but when they do appear, it's not fine-tuned enough to be quick and painless. Another thing is that the camera is still fixed which is a shame. I would have loved a freely rotating camera to sift through and enjoy the environments.
The story follows from Order of the Phoenix to Deathly Hallows, through cutscenes done in the trademarked Lego style, no voice acting (just grunts and the like) and a dose of humour. In some of the more serious moments, there would be some stupid fun added to them to alleviate it. It can feel at odds sometimes but it's also strangely fitting. There are a few clever pictorial messages/charades, I loved the half-blood prince one. It should be noted that as the last few books are rather long and complex, it doesn't translate as well into this drastically shortened version. You have to read the books, or at a minimum, watched and thoroughly understood the movies, to have a hope of knowing what each scene is representing. With that said, the game does an amazing job of capturing the most iconic moments for you to live through, it feels as much a Harry Potter game as it is a Lego game. It feels more refined and polished, like more effort has been put into the game to at least make the game more coherent. The increase in the number of cutscenes help a lot and it is impressive at how much stuff outside of the traditional levels there are which adds to the understanding and immersion.
The game builds up to a grand finale, thanks to the epicness of the source material and the way the game fleshes out the final book with twice the usual number of levels, it's a lot of fun. From the fiendfyre level to the dragon level, it's visually spectacular. The music lends itself well in the last few levels too, grand enough for you to notice and enjoy. However, the final boss fight against Voldemort failed on many accounts and felt rushed. They could have put in an epic battle as the finale but instead it's even worse than many of the boss battles before him. To be truthful, I enjoyed Years 5-7 levels more, it's hard to pinpoint why as the puzzles aren't extraordinary clever or hard. I did find some environments to be too cramped with objects blocking your view, so it makes it slightly harder to find what you're looking for. There were various points in the levels where you would have to scour the environment to try and figure out what you need to do or get to advance to the next room, when it turns out that the camera angle or the blending of the environments (especially the levels with dark lighting) was causing you to overlook it. I found that I did get lost a lot more compared to the first game.
Something the game needs is a map of the hubworld because it gets confusing and if you're going to try getting 100% of the collectibles without a guide, good luck to you. It will take time especially when you're going to overlook one or two places. Continuing on with the tradition though is the huge amount of collectibles to get. This will take up most of your time, you have something like 200 gold bricks, 20 red bricks, 60 students to save, 200 characters and 24 house crests (each is obtained by four pieces, effectively meaning 96). This is crazy and some feels arbitrary and is there for you to collect just for the sake of it. The stud collecting is back but it's not as interesting or addictive, you can basically just smash everything in the levels. Platforming isn't as large a focus now (although camera angles will still cause you to fall to your doom) and I feel the variety of spells that you can use isn't as great as the first game. This is probably due to the fact that there aren't many new ones so reusing the ones you've already played with doesn't give much "wow" factor. The graphics are good and lends to the Lego style well, it feels as if this game will never age in terms of aesthetics. Overall, a solid game but is treading on the "overly familiar" line.
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