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

Harry Potter: Wizards Unite September Makeup Community Day Review

Today's September Makeup Community Day in Harry Potter: Wizards Unite comes at a critical point for the game, at a time when the community seems frustrated with Niantic's events to the point where many are claiming they're done. Niantic proclaims that they are listening, but does this Community Day show evidence to support that? Let's take a look back at this Ministry of Magic-focused event.

The good:

• Registry: If you are a casual player with the goal to complete the Ministry Atrium page, which was the focus of this Harry Potter: Wizards Unite Community Day, you will have easily been able to do that. If you're more of a grinder who is invested in prestiging pages, that would have taken more work but would've still been possible.
• Portkeys: These were fine for the event, offering great rewards and allowing players to passively collect a good amount of the Fountain of Magical Brethren for the Atrium II page.
• Severe/Emergency Foundables: The Veil and Ministry Employee Newt Scamander was somewhat challenging but not as daunting as previous Foundables of similar threat levels in events.
• The time: Running Harry Potter: Wizards Unite Community Days from 12:01 AM – 11:59 PM is a great touch from Niantic that sets these apart from the company's far more popular Pokémon GO Community Days in a nice way.

The bad:

• Special Assignment: This was, again, egregiously difficult and time-consuming. Completing this is an exercise in wasting time for both casual players and hardcore, long-time Harry Potter: Wizards Unite players. The XP-focused tasks and the call to complete Wizarding Challenges was fine, but the three tasks that called for players to return three different Foundables 30, 30, and 20 times is laughable. For Niantic to release this Special Assignment after confirming that they're changing events following the backlash to the Darkness Rising Brilliant Event Part 1 special assignment is some real Dursley type shit. It would be nice to see Harry Potter: Wizards Unite take a page from Pokémon GO's book with this aspect of the game. While Pokémon GO's Special Research is sometimes challenging, it's never tedious and it never feels impossible. It feels, instead, tailored to the time-limit of the event, which is what Niantic struggles with most on Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. The Special Assignment shouldn't be so easy that it becomes boring, but it should be possible in a way that doesn't make it feel like a blatant attempt to make people buy Spell Energy.
• Existential Issue: There's an existential issue in Harry Potter: Wizards Unite Community Days. Niantic's Brilliant Events in this game are well-constructed, as they offer narrative and have their own, event-specific Registry page. These Community Days don't have that. Instead, they boost certain already-existing Foundables on the map, which can be fun for a while, but makes gameplay grow quickly tedious. Plus, there is no narrative element to the Special Assignment. This, again, begs comparison to Pokémon GO Community Days, a game that is generally non-narrative. The Special Research told a story for today's Charmander Community Day, and the gameplay offered players a chance at Shiny Charmander, featured increased Stardust so players could power up Pokêmon, and offered free Mega Energy for temporary evolution. Compared to Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, the Community Days in Pokémon GO offer a much more well-rounded experience. It would make sense of Brilliant Foundables from the past, even one or two, were possible to find so there was at least something more than just completing a Registry page over and over again. Niantic needs to work out something to make their Harry Potter: Wizards Unite Community Days stand out and offer more rewards to players because, as is, it's not an event that feels worth completing.

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