Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery vs High School Life
Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery
Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery is a story-driven, “choose your own adventure”-like, adventure-RPG where you get to attend the renowned School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Featuring a whole new storyline but with many familiar characters, you'll get to learn how to cast spells and brew potions, make new friends (and rivals) along the way, and get drawn to the many mysteries that the ancient school hides within its depths. The game even backs up your own adventures with an intriguing story about your missing brother who apparently was expelled as he had broken school rules when he was searching for the fabled Cursed Vaults.The gameplay is pretty casual and straightforward for the most part - as long as you have enough energy points, you can complete actions, tasks, and subsequently quests. However, it's unfortunate that the game doesn't use a more reflex-based gameplay during intense scenes that obviously call for more rapid actions. This is the only thing that truly breaks the immersion of the game.
Nevertheless, Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery is still a very well-made game and it is worth playing for the visuals, the experience of being an "actual" Hogwarts student, and the mystery-infused storyline. The game is free to play and is available on both Android and iOS.
High School Life
High School Life is an interactive story game that might be a bit simplistic. Instead of having a deep and well-hashed-out story, the most you'll be doing in this game is dressing up to meet and flirt with boys, and hopefully, you'll get a date to the school dance, be it Homecoming, Sadie Hawkins, Winter Formal, Valentine’s Day or the actual Prom. You don't get to spend a lot of time in the actual high school setting though, despite being a game titled as "High School Life".The characters in the game aren't very well-designed either. The boys in the game seem to look especially flat-faced and honestly, a bit on the ugly side of things. The "texting a friend" feature is pretty interesting but it would have been nice to have some sort of interaction with your BFF at school, where again, being a high-schooler, you should be spending most of your time at.
High School Life is a pretty shallow version of an interactive story game and hence, is a poor alternative to games like Episodes or Choices, but it might still be enjoyable for some players who like something simple.