Its gameplay differed greatly from the other versions, followed the film far more closely than the other games, though it was criticised for reusing the spells and world map from the Chamber of Secrets version of the game.

Instead, Ron reveals that he and Harry missed the train while they are still at Flourish and Blotts. In 2009, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince became the first Harry Potter to appear on mobile devices. Fortunately, the follow-up, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets for the PlayStation 2, manages to come far closer to capturing the franchise's appeal. The following year, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire offered a new spellcasting system that allowed for collaborative and context-sensitive charms.

The game's audio offers a more consistent experience, with a solid level of quality throughout the game. It is possible to play with the Xbox buttons' textures by replacing the files, but the spells assigned to the X button will be visually assigned to B and the spells assigned to B will be visually assigned to A (spells can not be assigned to button A in the GameCube version). Players become Harry Potter and delve not only into Harry's world, but also into his personality, via an internal "voice.

There is a file named DuelPupil; it is a duel opponent (like Malfoy or Goyle), the data of this file indicates that it is more than one student of Hogwarts (as in, the file contains all the alternative forms of the students). The game file has a dedicated screen of when you lose or win a game of Quidditch, it shows the screen of when you face Slytherin by default, or Gryffindor on winning. These challenges are all based on events from the book, for example, travelling into the Forbidden Forest and gathering ingredients for a potion Hermione is making.While the game does take some dramatic licence, fans of the movie and book will be pleased to be able to participate in many of the key action sequences integral to the story. Hermione is present during the House Point ceremony at the end since she, unlike in the movie/book, recovers much earlier. It was probably deleted because the sequence of Harry's accident and his subsequent stay in the infirmary in the original story is omitted here. Harry stabs it himself in the book and movie, while the Basilisk itself lands on the diary in most other game versions. It is likely that these are remnants of a deleted challenge, or the old location of the portrait for entry into the first challenge.

The potion classes with Snape should have been present in the game as also implied by Ron in Diagon Alley. The timer of Madam Hooch's exam is represented by a clock graphic, however the game code has a timer in minutes and seconds that would have been displayed.Making the most of new technology, the locations in and around Hogwarts and Diagon Alley are displayed in 3-D. After retrieving a remembrall while riding on a broomstick, for his classmate Neville Longbottom, Harry is appointed seeker of the Gryffindor Quidditch team.