2001 video game
2001 video game
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
(released in the United States as
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
) is a 2001 video game developed by
Griptonite Games
and published by
Electronic Arts
for the
Game Boy Advance
. Based on
the 1997 novel of the same name
, the player controls
Harry Potter
, who must navigate his first year in the
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
and eventually confront the villainous
Lord Voldemort
.
The Game Boy Advance version was released simultaneously with the
PlayStation
and
Game Boy Color
versions and received mixed reviews from critics. While the visuals and faithfulness to the novel were praised, the gameplay was criticized as shallow and repetitive. In the United States, the game was among the highest-selling titles released for handheld consoles between 2000 and 2006.
Gameplay
[
edit
]
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
is an
adventure game
with
puzzle
elements in which the player controls
Harry Potter
, guiding him through a narrative reflecting that of the novel.
[1]
[2]
The game is viewed from a
top-down perspective
,
[2]
and Harry can explore his environment and communicate with other characters.
Throughout the game, Harry learns
spells
by engaging in a
Simon Says
-like exercise in which the player must match the movements of Harry's professor with the
D-pad
. This is followed by a segment in which Harry must use the newly learned spell to collect a number of certain items while fending off creatures and solving puzzles.
[2]
[4]
Harry's
health
is represented by a series of lightning bolts. It can be restored by collecting
Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans
, and Harry's maximum health can be increased by collecting three "Pumpkin Pasties".
Points where the player can
save their progress
are represented by floating books.
In some segments, Harry partakes in the game of
Quidditch
, in which he flies on a
broomstick
and must locate and catch a Golden Snitch fluttering about the arena. Upon approaching the Snitch's vicinity, the player must maneuvre Harry through a series of rings in order to catch it.
[7]
Plot
[
edit
]
The novel's first 100 pages ? covering the giant
Rubeus Hagrid
leaving the orphaned infant Harry Potter with his maternal aunt's family, Harry's invitation to attend the
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
, and his sorting into the
Gryffindor house
? are summarized in a storybook-like introduction.
[4]
Harry befriends
Ron Weasley
and
Hermione Granger
and they partake in a competition between the houses of Hogwarts to win the House Cup upon the year's end, in which points are granted for satisfactory performance and detracted for infractions.
Harry is tricked by the arrogant
Draco Malfoy
into wandering the halls of Hogwarts post-
curfew
. During this time, he discovers a great three-headed dog,
Fluffy
, guarding a trapdoor. When a mountain troll infiltrates Hogwarts, Harry and Ron notice Professor
Severus Snape
behaving suspiciously before they go to rescue Hermione from the troll. Harry and Hermione learn from Hagrid that Fluffy can be soothed with music and that
Nicolas Flamel
is involved in what is being guarded. One night, while secretly obtaining ingredients for Snape's class, Harry happens upon the Mirror of Erised, in which he sees his parents. The headmaster
Albus Dumbledore
appears and explains that the mirror reflects a person's deepest desire. He says that the mirror will be moved to a new home the next day, but warns that Harry may soon see it again.
Hermione, after an arduous research period, learns that Nicolas Flamel's creation, the Philosopher's Stone, can produce an
elixir
that grants immortality. Harry determines that Fluffy is guarding the Philosopher's Stone and concludes that Snape must be after it. Harry joins Hagrid in an investigation of an attack on a
unicorn
in the adjacent forest and encounters a figure drinking a dead unicorn's blood. He is rescued by a
centaur
, who explains that unicorn's blood can maintain the life of someone close to death, and Harry realizes that the figure is his parents' killer,
Lord Voldemort
. Assuming that Snape is trying to obtain the Philosopher's Stone for Voldemort, Harry, Ron, and Hermione pass through the trapdoor and traverse obstacles put in place by the school's professors, but ultimately only Harry can proceed. To Harry's surprise, Professor
Quirinus Quirrell
stands in the final room trying to extract the Philosopher's Stone from the Mirror of Erised. Before engaging in a battle with Harry, Quirrell reveals Voldemort's face manifested upon the back of his skull.
Following Voldemort's defeat, Harry awakes in the school's infirmary, where Dumbledore discloses that the Philosopher's Stone has been destroyed, but shares Harry's concern that its loss will not prevent Voldemort's return. At the school's end-of-year banquet, Dumbledore announces that Harry's acts of nerve and courage have won Gryffindor enough points to win them the House Cup.
Development and release
[
edit
]
At
E3 2001
,
Electronic Arts
announced its license to publish video game adaptations of the
Harry Potter
franchise, with titles for the
Game Boy Color
, Game Boy Advance,
PlayStation
, and the
PC
scheduled for November 2001.
[8]
The Game Boy Advance version of
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
was developed by
Griptonite Games
,
[9]
under the creative direction of Phil Trumbo and with J.C. Connors acting as producer. Stephen C. Nguyen and Jim Verhaeghe designed the game with Randy Briley as lead artist.
[10]
Michael Humes adapted the novel's story for the game.
[10]
Mark Yeend, Drew Cady, and Ian Rodia produced the audio using tools licensed from
Factor 5
.
[10]
[11]
The Game Boy Advance version, along with the Game Boy Color and PlayStation versions, was designed with input from
Harry Potter
author
J.K. Rowling
and the producers of the
film adaptation
to ensure that all three versions shared a consistent presentation.
[4]
The Game Boy Advance version was released with the other two versions in North America on November 16, 2001, and in Europe on November 23.
[12]
[13]
Reception
[
edit
]
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
received "mixed or average" reviews according to
review aggregator
Metacritic
.
[14]
Michael Lafferty of
GameZone
said that the game lived up to his expectations as a fan of the book series and figured that it would be appealing to casual gamers as well, but warned that the initial puzzles would be too simple for veterans and that the enemies'
artificial intelligence
(AI) was predictable.
[17]
Nintendo Power
was pleased by the variety of quests, and approved of the difficulty and level of detail.
[18]
Dan Amrich
of
GamePro
and Gerald Villoria of
GameSpot
regarded the game as a run-of-the-mill adventure title, but considered it to be more challenging than expected, which Villoria attributed to the delay in Harry's Flipendo spell and the erratic enemy AI. Both were frustrated by the necessity of starting an entire segment over upon falling down a bottomless pit.
[11]
[16]
Chris Baker of
Electronic Gaming Monthly
cited the delay in Harry's spells as a mark of unresponsive controls,
[15]
and Skyler Miller of
AllGame
felt that it rendered combat "more of an annoyance than a sincere challenge".
[1]
Miller and
IGN
'
s Craig Harris commended the game's faithfulness to the source material,
[1]
[2]
though Harris and
Electronic Gaming Monthly
'
s Baker and Jeanne Kim were annoyed by the repetitive and abundant nature of the puzzle segments, which Harris compared to
Golden Sun
and
The Legend of Zelda
.
[2]
[15]
Harris described the nighttime sequences as clever but faulted the characters' inconsistent line of sight, and noted a similarly faulty
collision detection
throughout the game.
[2]
Miller respected the direction of creating an adventure game as opposed to a platformer as was common practice with handheld film tie-ins. However, he opined that the game's adherence to the source material's narrative deprived it of energy and a sense of adventure, explaining that the personal nature of the story's conflicts made for little action that could be easily translated into a video game.
[1]
Amrich and Harris lamented the scarce save points, with the former claiming that "you should expect to play for an hour or two each time you pick it up if you want to make real progress".
[2]
[16]
On the Quidditch sequences, Harris and Villoria concluded that they lacked ambition and were not as exciting as they could have been.
[2]
[11]
Baker criticized the broomstick's excessive speed, which made turning difficult, and Kim said that the Quidditch sequences were too infrequent to affect the game's feeling of repetitiveness.
[15]
The visual presentation was cited as a strength,
[18]
with reviewers praising the smooth animation,
[2]
[11]
lush and colourful backgrounds,
[1]
[11]
[15]
cutscene illustrations,
[17]
and stylized likenesses of the characters to their film counterparts.
[1]
[2]
Harris remarked that "it's almost as if the artists actually digitized [
Harry Potter
actor]
Alan Rickman
in his deadpan stroll for his game representation". However, he faulted the overhead camera perspective in relation to the objects and
sprites
, which he said were drawn for a side-scrolling environment and made judging the position of some objects difficult.
[2]
Baker and Amrich complained that the nighttime sequences were rendered too dark by the Game Boy Advance's lack of a
backlight
.
[15]
[16]
Lafferty regarded the audio as solid but standard for the console.
[17]
Amrich opined that the "happy storybook music [...] is sometimes just plain incongruous with the onscreen action".
[16]
Villoria perceived a strong quality in the musical themes and sound effects, which he attributed to the licensed audio tools used by the development team.
[11]
Both Amrich and Harris remarked that the console's sound quality caused Harry's cry of "Flipendo" to resemble the word "
Nintendo
".
[2]
[16]
Sales
[
edit
]
By August 2006,
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
sold 690,000 copies and earned $26
million in the United States, making it the 36th-highest-selling game for the Game Boy Advance,
Nintendo DS
or
PlayStation Portable
in that country.
[19]
References
[
edit
]
Citations
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
Miller, Skyler.
"
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
(GBA) ? Review"
.
AllGame
. Archived from
the original
on 13 November 2014
. Retrieved
19 June
2015
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
j
k
l
m
Harris, Craig (20 November 2001).
"Game Boy:
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
"
.
IGN
. Snowball.com. Archived from
the original
on 20 February 2002
. Retrieved
22 April
2023
.
- ^
a
b
c
Bettenhausen, Shane (December 2001).
"Fantasy Star: Harry Potter on Game Boy Advance"
.
Electronic Gaming Monthly
. No. 149.
Ziff Davis
. p. 226.
- ^
Bettenhausen, Shane (December 2001).
"Fantasy Star: Quidditch: The Wizard's Sport"
.
Electronic Gaming Monthly
. No. 149.
Ziff Davis
. p. 228.
- ^
Walton, Marsha (21 May 2001).
"Video game makers conjure up first
Potter
title"
.
CNN
.
AOL Time Warner
. Archived from
the original
on 6 June 2001
. Retrieved
10 April
2023
.
- ^
"Griptonite Games: What We Do"
.
Griptonite Games
. Archived from
the original
on 16 December 2002
. Retrieved
9 April
2023
.
- ^
a
b
c
Griptonite Games (16 November 2001).
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
(Game Boy Advance). Electronic Arts. Level/area: Credits.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
Villoria, Gerald (13 December 2001).
"
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Review for Game Boy Advance"
.
GameSpot
.
CNET Networks
. Archived from
the original
on 26 June 2003
. Retrieved
22 April
2023
.
- ^
Ahmed, Shahed (13 November 2001).
"
Harry Potter
games ship"
.
GameSpot
.
CNET Networks
. Archived from
the original
on 20 November 2001
. Retrieved
9 April
2023
.
- ^
"Bienvenue a Poudlard"
[Welcome to Hogwarts].
Jeuxvideo.com
(in French). L'Odyssee Interactive. 2 November 2001. Archived from
the original
on 17 February 2004
. Retrieved
9 April
2023
.
- ^
a
b
"
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Critic Reviews for Game Boy Advance"
.
Metacritic
.
Archived
from the original on 25 April 2014
. Retrieved
25 January
2014
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
Baker, Chris; Kim, Jeanne; Bettenhausen, Shane (February 2002).
"Review Crew:
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
"
.
Electronic Gaming Monthly
. No. 151.
Ziff Davis
. p. 172.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
Amrich, Dan
(20 November 2001).
"
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Review for Game Boy Advance"
.
GamePro
. Archived from
the original
on 18 January 2005
. Retrieved
26 January
2014
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
Lafferty, Michael (26 December 2001).
"
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
(GBA)"
.
GameZone
. Archived from
the original
on 2 January 2002
. Retrieved
22 April
2023
.
- ^
a
b
c
"Now Playing:
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
"
.
Nintendo Power
. Vol. 151.
Nintendo of America
. December 2001. p. 170.
- ^
Keiser, Joe (2 August 2006).
"The Century's Top 50 Handheld Games"
.
Next Generation
. Archived from
the original
on 10 October 2007.
Bibliography
[
edit
]
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Game Boy Advance) Instruction Booklet
.
Electronic Arts
. 2001.
External links
[
edit
]