• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

What games do magic and spells really well?

Magicka for that fun sense of creativity.

Oblivion for the ability to make your own spells without any regard for how game-breaking they might be.
 
Imo, the only thing that brings the magic system in Baldur's Gate down is that it's full of newbie traps, having played a sorcerer extensively.
It may have a lot of spells but the actually useful ones are far fewer than the amount of spells available.

Still awesome though just for how steep the progression is, you turn from a 4 hp character getting killed by wolves into one that is effectively a demigod by the end of ToB.
A sorcerer by ToB is some of the most ridiculously powerful casters I've ever seen in video games.
 
Warcraft 3.

Between hero spells, tier 2/3 unit spells, you genuinely felt powerful using them or feared your opponent getting them.

I'm hearing the bloodlust scream right now.
 
I really liked the mage battles in BG2.

But my fav is Divinity OS. The interplay between elements is just fantastic. Casting rain to put out fires and then electrifying everyone standing in the puddles that just spawned is great. Teleporting an explosive barrel into a crowd of enemies is great. Creating a smokescreen to lure and funnel archers into a killzone is great. Having half the battlefield constantly on fire at the end of almost every fight is so utterly great.
 
Dragon's Dogma.

giphy.gif

what vocation is that? Summoner?
 
i really enjoyed phantasy star 4 magic mechanism

being able to create macros of spell sets with multi characters to create ultimate spells was awesome when you discovered them randomly
 
Even Mass Effect 1 was kind of amazing with powers like Lift and Singularity that you can feel like a Jedi using the force.

Agreed!!! "Singularity" kinda broke the world at times haha. Also pinging the Geth off the side of the Citadel with "Lift" in the final level was so damn fun!
 
I really like the way megaten games does spells. The kind of offensive magic that usually does nothing in most games (status inflicting, buffing and debugging, death type magic) here is actually and vital for boss fights were nearly nobody has that "boss immune to everything but attack magic".
 
Magicka is probably the best magic game i think, where magic is an actual mechanic and not just the skin of a ranged attack. The game is stupid silly, bu the mechanic is amazing.
 
What people think being a wizard is like:
Morrowind

How being a wizard actually is like:
Magicka

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic also deserves a mention.
 
I think some people confuse spell mechanics vs. magic visuals. Sure DD has great magic visuals but it doesn't have the mechanical depth and diversity that a lot of good RPGs have such as Baldur's Gate and Morrowind.
 
I think some people confuse spell mechanics vs. magic visuals. Sure DD has great magic visuals but it doesn't have the mechanical depth and diversity that a lot of good RPGs have such as Baldur's Gate and Morrowind.
Exactly
except I don't think the visuals in DD are that great either
 
Dragon's Dogma is probably the #1 answer for aesthetics and feel.

I also really loved Tera's take on spellcasting and particularly the Sorcerer class. Made spellcasting more mobile and engaging than 90% of mage classes.
 
Definitely Eternal Darkness. In that game you cast spells by combining various runes, with different combinations resulting in different magicks. It's a great feeling when you can quickly pull off a spell in the middle of combat and be greeted with awesome casting animations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rszOYiPllM

Came to post this, the game has reciepts but once you figure what each rune spell word means you can start crafting spells without them because it's a rudimentary language of [action] [target] [modifiers] [diety].
 
Dragon Age series is solid. Of course Bethesda pulls it off with Elder Scrolls. I may have to pull the trigger on Dragon's Dogma one of these days. It's in my intend to buy and play eventually list.
 
Divinity OS is the best.

The kind of bullshit Yami pulled off in YuGiOh is built into Divinity's system of synergy and self expression.
 
I knew the melee combat was good but had no idea about the spells in this game until I started playing this past week.

I was fighting this group of enemies and this giant icicle sent me launching in the air. My jaw dropped.

Love this game:

Watch and see why!!!!

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U0f2oeTZwOM

Also: Maelstrom twister, if enemies are nearby, the immense suction, will unwillingly drag them kicking and screaming across the landscape into its massive pull - it's awesome
 
First post nailed it,Dragons Dogma.

I'd also include Diablo 3

Would you mind giving some good magic examples for D3?
I mean I have always been playing a barbarian for its seemingly easier control for console version, but definetely want to try spell cast classes.
 
Dragon's Dogma.

giphy.gif

First post wins again. The gifs that were floating around here six months after release are what prompted me to give the game a second look. Really disliked the demo for some reason.

Does space magic count? Because nothing beats the satisfaction of a good biotic explosion in Mass Effect 3.

tumblr_mcpmq6PdCa1ruvnxk.gif

The original Mass Effect was actually the first game that made me feel more like a force user than any Star Wars game up to that point. As much as I think the second game is an overall improvement, I still feel that the original game did "Space Sorcerer" better.

Came to post this. No other game I've played had spells that felt like the ones in this game.

It's ridiculous how poorly the game sold too. So many people are seriously missing out.
 
Yeah, first post nails it, it's Dragon's Dogma. A lot of questions like this are very subjective, but I think the GIFs here really speak for themselves. DD raised the bar big time, and nothing else has come close yet.
 
I don't understand the magic system from Baldur's Gate, i'm lost in all those menu you can only bring a tiny bit of them and you have to sleep in you want to use them (????), the magic is really weak at the beginning of the game. I suppose that mean you really feel like you earned it at the end but i'm not a fan of it.

... maybe it's because i'm more of a J-RPG guy ?

I loved the magic system of Rudra No Hihou on SNES. You could just spell any name you want (like AKUNATE-SU make the rain fall, PIKACHU is actually a weak electric attack and SHI-TA is a quite strong neutral magic attack) and it was really fun to use.
Of course, if you see a strong magic from an ennemy, you could try to add it to your own magics. the only thing that prevent you to use the most powerful spells from the beginning is your number of MP which is very low at this point.

It was just fun to experiment with it. (Like if there is "AKU" in the name, the spell will always be about water, same stuff for Fire, Earth etc)

1068-1-rudora-no-hihou.png
 
For a lesser-known title:

Sacrifice_by_Interplay_-_box_art.jpg


The high-level spells were massive in scale, reach, duration and were just overall devastating and a sight to be behold.

The volcano spell would deform the terrain in the area, and a big geyser of lava would erupt, raining down fireballs on the enemies around it:
https://youtu.be/wkfC42ZHkfQ?t=297

The tornado, also a massive spell, would just sweep everything along its path:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ASQNtVUQDc

The game did some impressive things for the time.

Also, the main character and narrator is voiced by Paul fucking Eiding.


Anyone care to elaborate on this? I've never played the game.
 
Top Bottom