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What games do magic and spells really well?

For me it's got to be either Fable or Elder Scrolls, at least they are the ones I enjoyed the most.
I'm sure there are others better just none that I've got around to playing.
 
Dragons Dogam, hands down. The high level spells there are the most impressive and awesome feeling I've ever experienced in my years of gaming. Nothing else comes as close to making you feel like an insanely powerful magic weilder than hurling a tornado at your enemies.
 
golden-axe.png
 
I like the system of Wizardry 6-8. Different spells for different levels and classes and you can select the power levels when casting them. The higher it is, the more mana you use and the higher the risk of failure (and therefore hitting yourself with a nice Acid Splash).

I think I should play Wizardry 8 again :)
 
+1 to Dragon's Dogma, but I thought Kingdoms of Amalur had some pretty neat spells!

Can we count Final Fantasy summons as a spell? ;)
 
Black desert online has some pretty great magic. And all the shortcuts to use the different spells really make you feel badass if you master them rather than using a hotbar.
 
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.

Came for this. Thread is complete.
 
Came for this. Thread is complete.

Not surprised it took this long for someone to mention it. As much as I played Sacrifice back in the day, tried to love it and was enamoured with the idea of a third-person RTS, the game is fundamentally flawed, and it lacks that hard-to-define special spark that would just make it click.

Still a very ambitious title with interesting characters, lovely voice acting and an aura of coolness around it though.

[EDIT] Those Dragon Dogma gifs make it look like Sacrifice spells done in the 2010s. Might have to pick that game up. The combat gameplay looks stellar, unlike other big RPG titles of the last decade *cough*Skyrim*cough*The Witcher 3*cough*
 
Holy shit, I really need to play Dragon's Dogma.

I have to confirm this by actually playing the game, but in my mind and from the looks of it, the best fantasy RPG I can imagine has Skyrim's lore and world, Witcher's size and Dragon's Dogma's combat gameplay.
 
I really like the magic effects in Dragon Age Inquisition. Frostbite really looks pretty.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8320894/DAI_MAGE.webm

Too bad that this is just a dull, three-second animation cycle that you'll be doing for over 40 hours in that game, it's no different than standing there shooting arrows. The magic in DA:I is goddamn boring as can be.

It looks good though, but the shine wears off immensely quick.
 
Anyone care to elaborate on this? I've never played the game.
It's an adventure game where instead of an inventory, you learn spells of sorts that you trigger by playing four-note melodies targeting objects on the screen, and with the melodies that aren't palindromes, you can get the opposite effect by reversing them.
 
Too bad that this is just a dull, three-second animation cycle that you'll be doing for over 40 hours in that game, it's no different than standing there shooting arrows. The magic in DA:I is goddamn boring as can be.

It looks good though, but the shine wears off immensely quick.

It depends on how you play and what difficulty + trials you pick. Auto attacking is just filler the actual spells (thunder in this case) are the bulk of the damage and strategy. CC, weakens, combo effects, and so on. While I didn't like their damage mitigation over curing system, the magic was still varied enough. That webm was about the graphics, the way the magic looks (It was originally posted in the DAI PC performance thread a long time ago to show off the zone and how it ran + tessellations).

Grabbed a recent video from a good DAI player after he explained some stuff and takes the build into a demonstration fight.
https://youtu.be/cl4OAVfW8Dw?t=568

Mages are awesome in DAI, especially MP, though warriors, and rogues got some nice balance buffs eventually.

I played Dragon's Dogma, and had to play Sorcerer for a lot of levels for my Assassin. I remember sticking to 1 or 2 magic spells, doing the big tornado type nuke seem to be very situational, but I was in exp grind mode wanting to get to assassin asap, killing skeletons from that necromancer.
 
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