this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2024
98 points (97.1% liked)

Patient Gamers

10291 readers
12 users here now

A gaming community free from the hype and oversaturation of current releases, catering to gamers who wait at least 12 months after release to play a game. Whether it's price, waiting for bugs/issues to be patched, DLC to be released, don't meet the system requirements, or just haven't had the time to keep up with the latest releases.

^(placeholder)^

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

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!

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Katana314 1 points 14 hours ago

Theoretically, Immortals of Aveum could be good for this. It’s basically a shooter, but with spellcasting for the shots.

[–] [email protected] 51 points 1 week ago (3 children)

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

[–] StrongHorseWeakNeigh 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Also, there's actually an egregious amount of content in Noita. There's so much to explore

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] SteveNashFan 34 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind lets you fly around, jump over whole cities, and kill most NPCs with one high powered spell. It's a very unique game, but if it clicks with you there's nothing quite like it. Vibrant modding scene too.

The base game is certainly playable, but if you want modern resolutions and some vanilla-friendly bug fixes OpenMW is an open source recreation of the engine, there's instructions on their website.

[–] zib 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Morrowind was always my favorite Elder Scrolls game, but I'm probably biased since it was my first. The tech, while good for its time, was always the #1 thing holding it back for modern times. Hadn't heard about OpenMW, but now I'll have to check it out.

[–] SteveNashFan 5 points 1 week ago

Check out Tamriel Rebuilt too! It's a mod to add the mainland that, while incomplete, already has 100s of quests. Good quality control too.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Badass wizard eh? Try Magicka! 😁

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago (7 children)

This was going to be my recommendation. Probably not what OP wants, but definitely what they asked for!

load more comments (7 replies)
[–] caut_R 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Fair warning that when I played it with a friend (two-ish years ago), it was broken and abandoned. Couldn‘t play in co-op for more than 30 minutes without a disconnect, some DLCs didn‘t even start, singleplayer you had to downgrade to an older version or else it crashes every so often. Every loading screen had me praying the game doesn‘t poop the bed. It was probably fun at some point, but it needs engineering attention and hadn‘t gotten that in years when I last tried it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Oh man, that's really sad :(

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

I loved wizard wars before it went down. RIP in peice

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Skyrim has some mods that go really deep on magic and combat strats.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

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

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 week ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Kingdoms of Amalur is a great example of a perfectly enjoyable, mid action RPG. It's not going to like define a generation, but every time it comes up I think back on it fondly.

I would like another like it.

[–] Zahille7 4 points 1 week ago

Maybe less open environments to make it feel less like an MMO. But yes.

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 week ago (1 children)

ARPG: Path of Exile, Last Epoch, Grim Dawn.

Also consider the survivors/bullet hell kinds of games: Vampire Survivors, Soulstone Survivors, etc.

[–] Cashmere 5 points 1 week ago

Last Epoch is so good ! It's less chaotic than PoE

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

Yeah that's a horrible sentence my bad. You're not the only one who's not fully awake.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Thank you, but now that I'm more awake I'd have to disagree with you there. You did some magic reading that.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago

I just estimated how much space I needed and channelled the right spell :p

[–] 9bananas 15 points 1 week ago

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

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago (2 children)

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)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

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.

[–] tan00k 3 points 1 week ago

As someone who came into the series at elden ring, I agree with you. I initially tried a mage and it felt quite a bit more difficult than sword and board.

The game felt like it was designed for physical weapons and shield, whereas with magic the difficulty was all over the place - easy time with one boss, nearly impossible on another. If you aim for a boss cheese build maybe magic is easier.

[–] Apeman42 4 points 1 week ago

DS3 and Elden ring do magic best of the Fromsoft game IMO. An MP pool works much better in an action game than the Vancian "casts per rest" of the earlier games.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago

If you are cool with CRPGs may I suggest Arcanum? Probably has one of the most weirdly in depth magics systems.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago

If you never played Magicka you should give it a shot.

[–] Archelon 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I’ll give a shout out to Fictorum, which is kinda janky but is a physics-heavy wizard simulator with on-the-fly spellshaping and some real wild spellslinging combos. Between the combat levels, there’s a travel/encounter-type rpg thing vaguely similar to FTL as you try to stay ahead of a wave of Bad Things^tm^

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Have you played Dragon Age Inquisition? I hadn’t until someone here recommended it, so I grabbed it for $3 and am deep into it. As a mage, it’s full-throated magical glory. You can use lightning, fire, and ice magic, get badass staffs, and have a good combination of AoE and normal spells. I definitely feel OP after crafting some custom armor and weapons. Lots of fun.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago

Fictorum is the game that most scratches the wizard itch for me. It's an indie game, so don't expect AAA polish, but what is there is absolutely what you might call a "hidden gem".

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Hogwarts Legacy. Combat is fast and brutal.

The side stuff feels kind of bland mechanically and something about the open world doesn't capture me like I want it to, but it's pretty good pure magic combat.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Sanctus 6 points 1 week ago

Its kinda different but maybe Two Worlds, I remember killing everything in the world and resurrecting literally everything so that every NPC was friendly to me. I killed the whole world and brought it back.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

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.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2516550/Margoqs_Lair/

[–] SomeGuy69 5 points 1 week ago

Terraria has some really fun mage gameplay.

[–] absquatulate 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Wayfinder. Recently discovered it and i've been having quite a bit of fun with it. It's a former live service converted to singleplayer/coop, so the story kind of blows. But it's a good ARPG - a Torchlight meets Warframe sort of thing.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Two Worlds II

Story is generic and it's a little bit jank, but has one of the best magic systems in any game I've played.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

You should try Oblivion

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'll go a different route. Control.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

Btw, have you played something like Hades? You're not technically a wizard, but close enough. And there's other hades-like games which might be more "wizard-like".

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

wizard and blast spells all day.

Runescape flashbacks

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

For just a solid combat system, hogwarts. Was really surprised. They had some solid people design and build it. Really stood out against the rest of the game which wasn't bad by any stretch just repetitive. There are some serious combat challenges too. Just make sure you play on hard. It really needed one difficulty higher tbh.

load more comments
view more: next ›