Harry Potter Clue Review

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My kids and I are huge Harry Potter fans, so naturally when we had the chance to review the game  Clue – World Of Harry Potter we jumped at the chance.  Clue is a classic game that we have played many, many times at our house, although we have always played the original Clue, not one of the variations.  I expected this to just be the same Clue game we were familiar with, only with the characters and locations changed to reflect the theme.  But they actually made some additions to the game which made it more fun and challenging.  The premise of the game is that a student has vanished from Hogwarts, and you must unravel the mystery of their kidnapping.

The basics of the game are the same.  You randomly select a villain, a weapon and a room, and hide them in the solution envelope, and then deal out the remaining cards to each player.  The changes to the game are the addition of Floo powder, Dark Mark and Help cards.  The Floo powder allows you to move between open fireplaces in rooms, so you no longer have secret passages just in the corners.  Of course not every room has a fireplace, and there are dials in the corners that turn, so the fireplaces and doors change from open to closed. All this has the effect of making it more challenging to plan where you are going, since your planned route can be blocked before your turn.

The Dark Mark cards are drawn at random times and, as you might expect, make bad things happen to you.  You might be able to counter the Dark spell by using a Help card, or you might end up losing your Floo powder.  I had a run of bad luck and quickly lost all my Floo powder, so I wasn’t able to travel by Fireplace and had to move by rolling the dice, which is slower.  All these changes made the game more unpredictable, and therefore more exciting.

We enjoyed the game, and will be playing it frequently.  The graphics on the board are detailed, and add to the atmosphere of the game.  Since we are big fans it was fun to say stuff like, “It was Snape in the Forbidden Forest with the poisoned necklace,” and of course we loved playing a Harry Potter character instead of something ordinary like Mrs. White.  All in all this is an enjoyable update to a classic board game.

Disclosure: I received a product for review.  All opinions are my own.