Posted in: Games, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, Mobile Games, Niantic | Tagged: harry potter, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, hpwu, Niantic, Niantic Labs, Wizards Unite

Harry Potter: Wizards Unite New Mauraders Part Two Review

The New Mauraders Brilliant Event Part 2 has now wrapped up in Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. This narrative event tasked players with a Special Assignment that focused on a surge of the Calamity involving James Potter's time at school. Let's take a look at how this event, which was shorter than usual due to Harry Potter: Wizards Unite's truncated March 2021 schedule, played out.

What worked in this Harry Potter: Wizards Unite event

• The narrative: While Niantic has a fun app on their hands, the best part of the game is the story — and that's by a huge stretch. Outside of events, I can generally go days without playing the game which is largely, when divorced from the narrative, collecting images and placing puzzle pieces. The Brilliant Events, though, give the gameplay context that makes it feel as if the player is part of a grand war against evil alongside of Harry Potter himself. Here, things ramp up as the event ends with a surprising cliffhanger that seems to have actual implications in the Wizarding World.
• The artwork for the Registry page: As always, the Brilliant Event Registries is always impeccable.
• The gameplay: While I didn't love the fact that the Briliant Events were much shorter than usual in March, the Special Assignments and even the spawn rate for Brilliant Foundables seemed to be adjusted to make the event easier to complete. This was a necessary change that made the event playable, so kudos to Niantic for keeping this game dynamic.

What didn't work in this Harry Potter: Wizards Unite event

• Missed opportunity: My one issue? The narrative is so focused on the threat of the Unforgivable and what Harry's defiance of them means that the dialogue regarding the Foundables lacked the emotion I expected, especially with Sirius. It makes sense that Harry has come to terms with his loss and he did speak of Sirius with love, but Harry Potter: Wizards Unite can usually be relied on to bring some poignancy which was a bit lacking here.

Overall

Harry Potter: Wizards Unite closed out March 2021 with another stellar Brilliant Event, with a cliffhanger that makes me, and it seems the larger player base, more excited for April's events than I've been about anything in the game for quite a while.

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