Recent reviews by Yoshie

Jumping right into things, this game is awesome, and since I can only think of a couple of negatives that have come up during discussions with other people playing the game but also from watching, I'll state them at the beginning here;
- Your choices have no impact on the story as a whole and only really change the voice lines during interactions.
- Your house doesn't affect the story in any way, it does affect certain side missions and dialogue, however this is minimal.
- The occasional bug does hit you, some are silly like an NPC being invisible, though a couple are game breaking. I once had a bug where I fell through the floor and couldn't get out of it, and since I waited too long it autosaved whilst in the bug and would load back into said bug. Of course, this is solved by going back a bit further in your saves.

The other major issues I have are solved via DLC or other games entirely, this includes the availability of Quidditch and that I feel there are a tonne of opportunities for more content within the game. I'm talking about the Triwizard Cup, the relation of Ominis to Cadmus the middle of the Peverell brothers, the Ministry of Magic, and since the story is set in the late 1800s, there is possible exploration into the Rise of Grindelwald. There is so much opportunity with this game and I truly hope that they take the chance to expand it.

The positives are, in my view, are overwhelming. The music is fantastic, the general atmosphere, the characters and how they interact (I especially enjoy the banter of Ominis and Sebastian), the combat is simple but sleek and truly makes you feel like the magic you're using is powerful, the flying is fun and the challenges are engaging (I just really wish there was Quidditch), the visuals are spectacular, inside and outside of Hogwarts. I don't have that good of a PC, but everything was breathtaking. Maybe nostalgia played a factor in that but it was truly awe inspiring. The developers did a wonderful job. Although it's early in the year I can already imagine this getting at least a nomination for game of the year. Highly recommend.

I have enjoyed every Total War since Medieval: Total War and my outright favourite will always be Rome: Total War. I feel as though, as much as I enjoyed them using the warhammer franchise as a basis for this game and the new characters and the new units and interesting strategies you could use for technologies and combat, Total War has strayed from it's core, the core which made me fall in love with the genre and the Total War series in the first place.
If you're new to the Total War series and you don't buy all the DLC for this game, you can play this for hundreds of hours and enjoy it. Though, it pains me how much they are milking money at this point to be able to play more than just the base races in this game.
If anyone remembers Rome: Total War and how you unlocked factions by either destroying them in campaign or completing the campaign in general, then you'll probably agree with me that this is an absolute pisstake and a real let down for the franchise. Though the campaign is as vast an unpredictable as always, the limited amount of unique battles is annoying considering I had completed all of them for Rome: Total War as I really enjoyed them.

TL;DR:
If you're new to the franchise, buy it on sale with/without the DLC and enjoy it for hours.
If you're not new to the franchise, go back to ANY of the others.