“Wingardiam Levio….wait a second…this isn’t Harry Potter!”

Anyone who has read the Harry Potter books, seen the movies or played the games should get my little funny in the top line there, and anyone who hasn’t shouldn’t be reading this, they should be reading or watching Harry Potter! For those of you who have experienced the phenomenon that is Harry Potter, you are about to have one of two very different feelings, you will either squeal like a school girl as you realise that Harry Potter Online is finally here (I‘ve always had a rather girly voice…), or you are going to be furious that someone has ripped of the brilliant works of J.K Rowling in hopes to leech some of her profits. Originally, I was the latter, because KingsIsle Entertainment really have gone out of their way to make Wizard 101 as similar to Harry Potter as legally possible. You start out as a child Wizard who has recently been accepted into Ravenwood School of Magic, and you begin the game by learning how to duel like a Wizard. Soon after you are introduced to your various teachers and settled into the school. This is exactly how I would expect Harry Potter Online to begin, and being the enormous fan of Harry that I am, I was more than a little depressed to see how blatant the similarities were.

Fortunately, the world of Wizard 101 is so amazingly beautiful that any disappointment at all had soon dispersed and I was lost once again in the world of Wizardry. I soon re-adjusted my morals, and came to a very simple conclusion - Harry Potter Online should have been created a long time ago, but looking back at previous Harry Potter game titles, I’m actually kind of glad it wasn‘t. KingsIsle Entertainment have created a world of magic unlike any I’ve ever experienced, and they have done a great thing by all fans of Harry Potter. My only regret now is that with the rights to make an official Harry Potter game, they could have done so much more. Right, that’s enough about Harry Potter, let’s take a look at Wizard 101!

Welcome to Ravenwarts.
It is important to say firstly that Wizard 101 is a game designed for young children. It has been promoted as a great place for kids to begin their journey into the land of MMO’s, and rightly so. Choosing your name will consist of picking from a list of words and combing them into something you like, chatting to other players can be difficult as no chat box seems to exist, and there are several pre-determined phrases for those too young to write. Personally, I found this to be amazingly refreshing, as most of the hardcore players out there will be avoiding this game and after nearly 4 years of “Barrens Chat” I can safely say that I won’t be missing them. Wizard 101 is a safe, friendly, colourful and magical environment, and it truly seems that it will be a great place for both young and old to enjoy themselves online.

What type of Wizard are you?
Creating your character in Wizard 101 is a fun little process, they use the question system, asking you a series of questions to determine what school of magic you are most suited too. Depending on your answers you will be allocated one of 8 different schools - Fire, Ice, Myth, Sorcery, Storm, Life, Death or Balance. I won’t go into detail as most of them are self-explanatory. It is important to note that you will not be restricted to learning spells associated to only your selected school, you are able to learn spells from any school you like, the only difference being that you will have to spend training points on spells not associated with your type. After selecting a school you will be asked your gender, what colour robes you would like to wear, and your name. Unlike many other MMO’s, you are not able to simply type your name in, you must instead choose words from 3 different lists to form your own.

To Duel, or not to duel.
After creating your Wizard you will soon be introduced to Duelling, the battle system used in Wizard 101. Duels are entirely turn based, meaning that you will have a chance to attack, then the enemy, and so on. To fight, you use cards that act as your spells. Each card will have certain properties, like mana cost, damage inflicted, damage type and chance to miss.  The key to good duelling is opposing elements, hitting fire enemies with ice magic and so on. Running into an enemy roaming the streets will form a duelling circle and thrust you into the battle, the interesting part here is that other players can also join the battle. Simply by touching your duelling circle any other player can be drawn into your duel to help you vanquish your foe. The downfall here is that any other monsters roaming the streets can also join the duel, which can make things incredibly tough at times. Luckily, you can only have as many enemies as there are players, with a maximum of 4 each per duel. While originally I found this a superb idea, I soon realised that with the slow animations and already lengthy battles it can soon become a burden. The lack of a chat box really made things difficult here, as any form of strategy is almost completely annihilated.
 
Questing in the World of Wizards.
Like most MMO’s before it, you will be spending the majority of your time in the world of wizards completing an assortment of quests for the cute and lovable characters littering the Wizard City. Apart from some rather vague descriptions there really isn’t much to say here. Kill this, collect that…we’ve all been here before…and for those that haven’t the whole thing is made happily simple in Wiz101 and should be a great place to start.

The Bits and Bobs.
For the most part, Wizard 101 is similar to most other MMO’s, but there are a few things that have differed from the norm. For example, restoring health and mana is a new experience all together as you will need to collect floating orbs that litter the landscape to do so. This can sometimes be a difficult way to restore mana, so they have added a minigame section which will help you along the way. The minigames all have their own scores table, so it can be quite fun to try and beat the best, while restoring your mana for the fights ahead at the same time. This does however have it’s drawbacks as you can run out of mana quickly at times, forcing you to return to town, restock by playing a game you may not enjoy, before walking back to your questing area. Getting to town however is much easier, as all new wizards have the ability to teleport back to town whenever they need, they can also teleport to any members on their friends list using the same system. There is a small style PvP system in Wizard 101 that can at times be interesting too, to participate you simply head over to the arena and join in the duelling circle. Planned duels could also be organised this way and at later levels with a full arsenal of spells at your disposal this could be rather entertaining.

Sound and Graphics were for the most part great. The overall visual style of Wiz101 is magnificent with that childish cartoon look present all the way. The Sound seemed fitting and the Music was great, although it looped…a lot.

From Beta to Release.
Whilst fundamentally a great game to play there is always room for improvement, and there are a few areas in which Wiz101 is lacking. Overall the environments are rather bland, with most sections of the towns being the same textures with different colours, I found that although awesome the spell animations do get a little boring at times, and as they are unescapable I found myself growing tired. The battles themselves come off as very slow paced and as duelling is what wizards do best it takes a  lot away from the game, and at times I found there to be some nasty lag, and detection problems - I would often find myself in a battle with a monster that was on the other side of the road, or joining another players battle from far away.