Bay 12 Games Forum
Finally... => General Discussion => Topic started by: Retropunch on February 17, 2019, 04:26:14 pm
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As the title says, which game makes you feel most like a powerful magic user?
For me, regardless of their flaws, it's the Elder Scrolls series - none really managed it the same way.
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Dragon Age Origins. There's nothing quite like loading yourself up as a minmaxed elf arcane warrior/blood mage and trivially soloing Golems of Amgarrak.
And then there's the ridiculously OP 3-mage party with Wynne acting as the tank by being an arcane warrior/spirit healer, the PC and Morrigan specced towards nuking builds, and throw in an archer rogue as the fourth party member because there wasn't quite enough DPS in that setup as it was. Everything melts within the first 5 seconds of a fight starting.
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Move it into the Other Games forum.
As for my answer, I guess Divinity: Original Sin games, largely due to the robust environment system and a lot of spells to experiment with.
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The Wizards for VR.
You best way to feel wizardy is by throwing fireballs and lightning by actually throwing fireballs and lightning.
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What was the name of that old mage focused rpg again? Arc Fatalis or something? Yeah, I never played it much, but it usually comes up when talking magic games.
Dragon Age Origins. There's nothing quite like loading yourself up as a minmaxed elf arcane warrior/blood mage and trivially soloing Golems of Amgarrak.
And then there's the ridiculously OP 3-mage party with Wynne acting as the tank by being an arcane warrior/spirit healer, the PC and Morrigan specced towards nuking builds, and throw in an archer rogue as the fourth party member because there wasn't quite enough DPS in that setup as it was. Everything melts within the first 5 seconds of a fight starting.
They call me the Magic Metrologician for the frequency of arcane storms ocvuribg where ever I point
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What was the name of that old mage focused rpg again? Arc Fatalis or something? Yeah, I never played it much, but it usually comes up when talking magic games.
Arx Fatalis, yes. It hasn't age very well but it has the most interactive magic system that I know, where you have to draw you spells/runes in the air.
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There's an oooold game, Legend: Son of the Empire, the sequel to one sold in the US as Four Crystals of Trazere.
For the most part it's a party-based dungeon crawler, where you take four characters through a series of dungeons collecting pieces of the amulet of Yendor some amulet.
Where it shines though is in having an immensely flexible magic system. You can create all your own spells for the party's Runecaster, using several direction conditions and a battery of effects.
For bonus points, my brother and I learnt to play it without the manual, and the spell creation menu is anything but intuitive. Slaving away wasting ingredients to figure out an effect, only to spoil it again a moment later is part of the wizarding experience, right?
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Magicka, bar none. The sheer power at your disposal, how quickly it disposes of you if not carefully controlled, the arcane sequences of elemental addition that result in more complex creations, the signature spells people develop and adopt as their preferred ways of handling a given obstacle... It's something truly special.
Unfortunately, all things come to an end... And this is true of Magicka as well. Doesn't help that the underlying game and netcode stability are pretty horrible, so the excellent experience that is co-op tends to be squashed by the aggravation that is getting it all set up.
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Spellbreak (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIRrP2Ts5cw)
Gods willing this game might actually get an adventure mode someday.
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Why aren't you suggesting Counter Spell kagus
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In Verbis Virtus (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMRQOXSi5v4) also deserves mention.
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What about the first Fable game? Sure, it was a letdown in a lot of ways, but going to the ol' guildhall to study and learn more spells could certainly scratch at least part of that itch.
Also I remember the high-level spells being really satisfying.
Oh and there's always Dragon's Dogma! Whether it's swords or sorcery you're after, that is one of the best games every made.
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Why aren't you suggesting Counter Spell kagus
Because that makes me feel like a counter wizard, duh.
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I was rethinking this thread and this might be a bit counterintuitive but Heroes of Might and Magic 4.
I mean in a strategy game where every hero* could become immortal and solo whole armies by just spamming the aptly named and unbelievably easy to get “potions of immortality”, magic users were on a whole different level of broken.
Your enemy has an overwhelming amount of ranged units? Disables each and every one of them for the rest of the combat.
Is your enemy holed somewhere where you can’t target him? Meteors auto hit everything.
Enemy has an extremely powerful unit? Turn it against him.
Castle towers give an extreme buff to the defender? Teleport your units in those towers to get those buffs too.
Enemy has spell immunity? Buff yourself so much you can one shot the sucker
*for anyone who hasn’t played the game: heroes were fully customizable in terms of what skills they could learn.
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It's not strictly making you feel like a wizard, but Dominions 4 and 5 have a great magic system with a lot of strategic depth. The only game which really gave me the feeling of being a powerful wizard lurking in wait to design more spells is Daggerfall, which you've almost certainly played.
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I always liked The Elder Scrolls' approach to magic, where every stat a character has can be affected in a number of ways, you can make your own spells and potions with any number of said effects in a variety of forms (self, touch, area, range, area at range, etc.) I also like how it's presented in the story, with magic being just another field of science that has been studied at length.
I also like games where you cast spells by combining syllables, such as Dungeon Master, The Consuming Shadow and later games in the Ultima series.
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The problem with TES's magic system is that it strictly adheres to the "Gallerion school of magical education" nonsense, when the lore of the world indicates that "Magic is fucking infinitely capable bro. you just have to "think different.""
Specifically, it does not allow you to "think different!" outside of using mods.
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Yeah TES was the only one that really did it for me - there are a lot of games where you get to 'blast things' but that doesn't feel much like being a wizard in terms of the 'gandalf engrossed in magic tomes and potions' style.
There was a great skyrim alternate start mod where you could start as a necromancer's thrall who breaks loose after his master dies. You start in a cave with very little except a few magic bits and can go on from there.
It's the only game I've properly RP'd, and it was quite an experience - building up a proper potions lab, enchanting stuff to sell etc. Unfortunately Skyrim falls apart after a while because it's just not quite solid enough in the simulation department and I hated the College of Winterhold stuff.
Daggerfall is also excellent for that, but sadly a bit dated now.
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What about Fictorum? I got it recently on a sale. You play a wizard from a renegade order of uber powerful mages, which was destroyed by the magical inquisition (kind of magical regulators? I think). That same inquisition tried to execute you by tossing you into the natural disaster which your renegade order apparently caused. They failed and now you're out for revenge.
The game itself is basically a power trip. You get ever more powerful spells and wipe out armies and fortresses by yourself.
I find it really cathartic tbh :P