Harry Potter: The Last Riddle

Alright well, the last HP fanfiction I played was in French and incredibly annoying, so there's no way this one can be worse.

From a presentation standpoint, it's quite decent. Grammar and spelling are okay, I found a very small number of typos (example: you only notice one who seems to be somewhat at east). But I found a huge one, that being Alonso (or whatever the fuck that guy's name was) telling me there were 9 screaming infants. The dream at the start references 8, and it's 8 in the rest of the story, which makes sense given they're pieces of Voldemort's soul. But I was quite confused for a while, and that's a pretty major plot point to fuck up.

The story is inconsistent in places, the "Hogwarts letter" says they're expecting my reply by July 31st, but then it turns out today is September 1st already, given that I just immediately go to Diagon Alley, and then to the school the very same day. I assume that the text was just literally copied from the books, but it's tiny details like this that break my immersion.

The characters are pretty flat and boring imo, with the exception of James. He's quite fun and obviously rational, unlike most wizards. Reminds me of HP and the methods of rationality (which is a lengthy fan-fic I recommend to anybody that likes Harry Potter, which you probably do seeing as you're on this page, reading this comment).

An issue with this game, though not one I let affect the rating too much, is that it REALLY REALLY doesn't follow the canon. There are many examples and I'll just list some of them:

- It's 1 year after the defeat of Voldemort, but Hermione's apparently already well known in the wizarding world and invented a groundbreaking method of wand selection, that nobody ever thought of. I know she's like "the smart witch" but as far as I know she actually went back to finish her last year at Hogwarts, so I highly doubt she was experimenting with that stuff.
- How the hell did anybody but Harry (and Malfoy I guess) find out about Sectumsempra, let alone the fact Snape created it?
- Slytherin common room is BELOW the lake, not above it.
- A first-year at Hogwarts cannot brew the potions listed. Hell, nobody can make those in an hour.
- A first-year also cannot cast those spells successfully immediately upon learning them. I like the fact you included Flipendo, though. I really liked those HP games.
- Care of magical creatures is a third-year elective, not a first-year class.
- How do a bunch of first years find out about, and actually FIND the room of requirements on their very first day?
- How in the actual goddamn fuck did Emilie find all the Horcruxes? She also apparently just ripped off Harry's hair for that last one. [This was the most unrealistic thing about the story, by far.]

I can go on and on. As I said I didn't tank the rating down, but it was quite jarring... My suspension of disbelief was not strong enough to not complain about these.

As for the "branching" aspect, I'm not going to replay the story as a different kind of wizard, but befriending the drake aided me later. Not sure how I'd beat the last monster if I hadn't done it. I wonder what would happen? Seems the story makes decent use of the variables... in SOME places.

There are some obviously "flavor only" choices, such as the robe color or the choices of the house. I liked the dark brotherhood reference on the Slytherin choice, well done :)

A fair amount of the choices felt kinda pointless, though. I understand that the point of Diagon alley was to get sectumsempra if you're a dark wizard (which I obviously was, being a Chad Slytherin rather than a gay ass Hufflepuff), but the rest of the choices were just kinda... there? Seemed like a waste of time, imo.

To complain about the choices a bit more, what the fuck is the points of the sorting hat test if it doesn't even let you know what you were supposed to get, and just lets you choose instead? It was done properly when selecting your wand: do your quiz, get your wand, and swap it if you don't like it. I find it odd that the first instance was done in a proper way, yet the second wasn't.

Another choice issue, quote from the story: >"I don't blame you, little cub!" Says the werewolf, "I must say, out of all the students, you got reasonably far, but others got further still."

I literally failed on the very first link, quite intentionally. How the hell did I get "reasonably far"?

This choice discussion brings me to a question I have: Is there actually a way to get the "good" (under massive quotes, since I don't consider freeing Voldemort from his suffering good) ending? I picked the option to find out more about him both times, in the RoR and with Snape, yet my dude wasn't smart enough to remind the fucker how much he likes the school... despite being told that exact thing twice. So the entire wizarding world had terrible nightmares for a year.

Overall, I did not hate myself for playing through this and have left this lengthy review so I obviously enjoyed it to an extent. Nice job, fluttershy. If you're a HP fan, I recommend this game.

I'll preface this by saying I've never been big on Harry Potter, and while I am aware of its more well known aspects and characters, I'm not too sure of some other details; as such I'll be rating this as any other storygame rather than how true it is to its source material.

The writing was good. There were a few spelling errors here and there I would try and fix. Story-wise, the setting is vividly pictured in good detail. It would've been nice to have a bit more atmosphere to fully immerse myself in this world, but I still found the descriptions being offered to be very clear and distinct. I feel like the characters made this world fall flat more - there is some variation in the characters and their personalities, but it doesn't fee enough to make them fully stand out from one another. There's not enough distinct characterization for me to really care about the individuals I come across.

Apart from that, the story was decent enough. The whole wand and House selection aspect was neat, even you can just ignore your assigned wand or House altogether and choose your own regardless of how you answered their corresponding questions. My biggest issue with this story is the ending: I feel like each ending could've been written in as a continuation instead of just being a blurb at the end of this one story. It would've been far more interesting to take us on the adventure being described rather than simply condense it into a few sentences and abruptly end it at that.

Overall, I think this is a decent storygame (and certainly one of the more well written Harry Potter fan fictions I've seen), and while I did have a good time playing through, I really do wish there was more to it - there is a whole lot of unused potential. 5/8.

I like this. It is lighthearted, but also has a mysterious undertone. It really feels like the FIRST Harry Potter book

Big fan since it captured the story of Harry Potter and gave us the ending we wanted.

Great story, I love it, but I hope this story can be expanded more.

10 stars! Yay! And....I made peace with Voldemort or something for another ending!

Wait, why did it suddenly end the game when I succumbed to the final rhyme and song? Wondering if there are other endings...

Pretty good storyline, but there should be some more choices for some of the pages.

It was a lovely little spin-off to HP!

Great story just wished that it was longer