Having come across videos of that new Dragon Age game and its (by the look of it) cool looking combat I’ve gotten the urge for something similar. Action RPG of some kind, being able to rock on as a wizard and blast spells all day. Some tactical element to spell slinging and comboing would be nice.
Love me some recommendations!
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Play Skyrim with ordinator mod that adds more spells.
I’ll go a different route. Control.
Control has been really good so far, but the pacing of the difficulty is really wonky. Everything is a breeze, right up until something is damn near impossible. So I keep starting and stopping it.
This one is completely different from your typical ARPG, but I’m going to recommend Noita.
It’s a 2d game where you play as a wizard off spelunking. The magic system is rad as heck, you find wands with spell slots in them, and spells that you can put in the wands. You can rearrange and combine spells to get some truly bizarre effects
I’ve killed myself in a dozen hilarious ways trying to make the perfect wand. It never gets old
I advice people to not install invincible mods right away. But the game is full with content and you often die instantly. I personally had to use a respawn mod to see all of its content. The game is really hard, probably the most difficult game I’ve ever played. Souls games are a cakewalk in comparison.
Read the title of this post and immediately thought Noita. It’s such a fantastic game both stock and modded and even after 100 hours in it, I’m far from an expert.
You definitely will feel like a badass wizard.
Magicka comes to mind but it was utterly unplayable single player. Maybe the sequel is better.
It feels very wizard like because you don’t have a static list of spells. You have 8 elements you.can combine into spells. (It does have unlockable spells but those are sort of secondary.) So using the fire and shield elements makes a wall of flame, for example.
Skyrim has some mods that go really deep on magic and combat strats.
Honestly with the amount of mods built up over the years Skyrim has become the ultimate fantasy RPG.
I’m so thankful for every modder out there
noita is insane and has absolutely zero handholding. it’s truly hardcore and kinda souls-like in difficulty/lore, but truly excellent!
magicraft is the king in casual spell crafting, very good game to play a bit after work, can call it quits anytime and pick it back up again. just had it’s full launch as well and might still be -20% (about 12€)
fictorum is fairly unique, because it’s first-/third-person and 3D, and also very good with an intuitive spell system and a little bit of indie game jank
Heretic and Lichdom: Battlemage
Badass wizard eh? Try Magicka! 😁
This was going to be my recommendation. Probably not what OP wants, but definitely what they asked for!
Is it good solo? I don’t have a lot of time for games but this looks like it might be able to scratch my (MMO)RPG itch a bit without being too much of a time sink.
In my opinion, no, it was too hard.
I enjoyed it solo, though it did become impossibly hard at one point. I don’t know if you need to have friends to help or if I just needed to be better at the game!
What’s important is the combos. There are very powerful combos that render the game very easy.
What are your combos of choice? I remember having a few good ones committed to memory at the time.
I definitely completed it solo. Finding spell books definitely helps, but just crafting spells with the given elements can be more than enough to muddle through.
You can give yourself armor to assist in your normal squishy wizard self that definitely helps with the tougher bits.
I loved wizard wars before it went down. RIP in peice
Kingdoms of Amalur has very fun, very flashy combat. The rest of the game is really ehhh, but if you just want to blast magic and have cool skills then it’s a great choice.
Agree on KoA. Playing a mage is super flashy with plenty of cool looking spells that make you feel like a badass wizard. The chakrams (one of the main wizard weapons) flying around look awesome, too.
The Excellent YouTube channel TheStellarJay has a small series (3-4 Videos, ~10min each) about the state of wizard games.
This is part 1: https://youtu.be/quPKQIVEX5A
I’m sure you’ll find something that piques your interest
It is mayor jank but Dragons Dogma was the closest to feeling like a mage I’ve ever experienced. There are no cool downs in the game but channeling spells takes some time and upholding a continuous spell drains your stamina. In this setting the art of a mage was reading the battle and estimating how much space you have to channel spells, several of which can easily break the encounter wide open.
Edited since neither my English nor my autocorrect were working as intended.
In this setting the art a the mage was reading the battle and estimating you much space you have to channel which spell
Am I just not awake yet or is this incomprehensible
Yeah that’s a horrible sentence my bad. You’re not the only one who’s not fully awake.
I mean you only have to change a few words to figure out what they intended to write so I’d say not awake fully?
“In this setting the art of the mage was reading the battle and estimating how much space you need to channel each spell”
At least that is how I read it
Thank you, but now that I’m more awake I’d have to disagree with you there. You did some magic reading that.
I just estimated how much space I needed and channelled the right spell :p
Dark Souls. If you play a mage, you’ll be on easy mode, which very much does feel badass in a game so full of terror.
For a new player sword and shield is the easy mode. Magic tends to make you squishy, and if you aren’t great at not dying getting your souls to the spell merchants is rough (if even know how to do their quests)
Hard disagree. Having nearly infinite ranged attacks and being able to run away while attacking made it way easier for me.
Maybe in 2 and 3 what you’re saying is true, but sword and board was way harder for me than playing a mage with a shield in Dark Souls 1 and Elden Ring.
Magic damage felt spikier than other classes to me in Elden Ring, to the point early and mid-game where there were segments where I would run out of magic before getting through crowds even with all blue flasks.
ARPG: Path of Exile, Last Epoch, Grim Dawn.
Also consider the survivors/bullet hell kinds of games: Vampire Survivors, Soulstone Survivors, etc.
If you never played Magicka you should give it a shot.
Yeah lots of recommendations here but let me give you some that I think answer your request more specifically.
Wizard Of Legend is a top down roguelite where you play a wizard that can equip different spells and upgrades. The combat and strategy is very focused on spells and how good you are at slinging them between dodging enemy attacks.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/445980/?snr=1_5_9__412
Margoq’s Lair is a top down roguelike where spells are cast by composing them from elements, for example fire + shield casts the spell fireshield. It makes for a much more satisfying experience than pressing a button to cast a spell.
