I love magic systems in games that feel impactful, and especially love them if the mechanic is unique and different.

What are your favorites?

      • TellumSiege@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        I’m posting this again because I may have accidentally made a new comment instead of replying to you. I’m still working out the kbin kinks…

        I haven’t played Magicka so I can’t compare (although reading the comments I feel like I have to play it now) but for me, what makes DD great is its smooth combat system. It’s real-time action with varying casting times, so you need to be strategic about how you cast spells and when. Your character can switch classes pretty much whenever you want and you gain access to different spells the more you play certain classes. I could go on, but the last thing I’ll say is that I’ve never played a better version of “magic Archer” in video games.

        One massive downside to the game is its story; It’s pretty much non-existent. But if you like awesome combat and party management it’s one of the coolest games out there. And I haven’t even mentioned the pawn system yet lol

  • Xariphon@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    In video games, I think it was Magicka wherein you could craft your own spells more-or-less on the fly.

    In TTRPG, Mage: the Ascension, for much the same reason.

    The issue for me is that I want to feel like I know Magic. I want to feel like a wizard, shaping the power of the cosmos to my will. If all I have is a collection of pre-scripted tricks… it really doesn’t matter how many pre-scripted tricks I have, the feeling of creativity in spellcasting is lost.

    • jontique@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Seconding Magicka (and the sequel).
      The spells have hilarious effects especially when playing the game in co-op.

      • RealM@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Magicka is amazing for short burts of coop fun.
        However, at some point you find that one spell that is just too busted and trivializes everything, until the DLCs decide to chuck a billion enemies at you.
        From a technical standpoint, it’s also a bit rough around the edges and likes to crash to desktop.

        Definitely a decent investment if you can pick it up on sale.

    • HidingCat@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Magicka is very interesting, definitely one of the more unique spell-casting systems (and it feels like a real system). Unfortunately I’m not good at it, it’s pretty fast-paced and I die so much. xD

  • WadeTheWizard@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Tyranny had a fun system where you could create custom spells based around combining a Core Sigil with Expression, Accent, and Enhancement Sigils to modify the spell’s behavior. So you could have a Fire core sigil, combined with an AoE expression, fast cooldown accent, and a bleed enhancement. Of course the spells have a cost attached to them so you couldn’t have your mages casting ridiculously powerful spells on rotation until you ran out of magic, but you could pop it off once or twice then fall back on weaker, faster spells. Unfortunately like with most flexible magic systems like this, mage characters are overpowered as hell, as long as you have your party tank camping a chokepoint.

      • dedale@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Tyranny is underrated. It was incredibly ambitious, with an actually dynamic story, and inventive story and gameplay elements.
        It was very flawed, partially because of the engine I believe (it doesn’t allow large maps at all), but it held so much promise!
        I feel like the ideas it introduced have never been exploited fully.

      • Skray@kbin.socialOP
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        1 year ago

        It’s definitely worth a play.

        Only real complaint is that the last half of the game feels a bit rushed and it seems to setup for a sequel that may or may not ever come.

  • Darkonion@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Morrowind was amazingly versatile. You could combine any effect, and they weren’t any safety mechanisms. Want to jump 2000 ft in the air? Don’t forget your feather fall spell. Hundreds of ways to kill or die amusingly. My old husk of a brain is having trouble remembering, but maybe some others have a fond memory of their best spell or enchanted item combos.

    • TealKat@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      One of my faves was reflect 100% on self for 1-2 seconds. It acted as a low cost, timed parry and was mega fun to fight mages with.

      You can do the same with sanctuary, but any % of sanctuary is useful, and people really sleep on it imo.

      ETA: Just remembered another old fave, very low damage fire damage on target, enchanted on something. Because there’s no cooldown for the animation of casting from an enchanted item, it was basically a little flamethrower. I liked to put it on my gauntlet and feel like Boba Fett.

  • stopthatgirl7@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I loved the combos you could do in Dragon Age Origins. My favorite was creating a giant oil slick under enemies so they fell down, casting a fire spell, which set them AND the oil on fire, then summoning bees to attack them.

  • Narrrz@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    The spellmaking in oblivion was pretty great too, you could make multiple spells which applied weakness to magic and to specific elements in enemies, and since they were applied by different spells they would multiply each others’ effects. Then you hit the enemy with a damaging spell and annihilate them.

    I never saw it mentioned anywhere, but for me, hiring enemies with sufficiently powerful magic would ragdoll them, a bit like if you hit a corpse or a paralyzed enemy. So doing a 4-3-2-1 combo, 3 different spells that applied 100%weakness to magic and lightning, then hitting them with a lightning spell, would always send them flying. Sometimes it would be like they just vanished because the amount of damage applied by the spell threw them so forcefully.

  • Madison_rogue@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Master of Magic was an old MSDOS/early Windows era turn-based strategy game similar to Civilization. I came across it in 1996, and I spent a ton of time playing it. There a few different types of magic that you farmed from natural areas. As with Civilization, you created alliances, did research, and expanded your power. Once you took over the world, there were portals to the dark world where you faced your true adversary, a lizard-like race.

    Fun stuff…miss that game quite a lot.

  • Strayce@lemmy.sdf.org
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    1 year ago

    I never got into it because fantasy isn’t really my jam, but the Arx Fatalis system always struck me as interesting. You cast spells by drawing runes with mouse gestures.

  • Diskolikewhoa@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Noita. You can spend hours tweaking out and testing spell combinations. Make eggs summon more eggs that summon giant worms, turn a lighsaber into a bubbles held, disintegrate the moon. Feels like anything goes in that damn game

    • DocSophie@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      God, I wish Noita wasn’t so impenetrable for me; from what I’ve played, it seems like the wackiest shit possible and I do love me some wack. Any recommendations on how to overcome the difficulty curve?

      • JBloodthorn@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        There’s a mod that lets you modify your wands anywhere, and another that respawns you at the last ‘holy mountain’ area you got to when you die (the rest area between levels). Playing with those mods will get you used to the spells and enemies you encounter, and let you experiment.

  • wagesj45@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    OK, hear me out. I suspect this isn’t quite what you had in mind, but the NES classic Crystalis has interesting magic weapons and spells. The game is similar to Zelda as an action RPG. Your main weapons are collectable swords with different elemental infusions. Each one has three levels of power that you unlock by finding special items. Enemies throughout the game are often only susceptible to certain types of elemental damage. There are also map barriers that require you to destroy them using a specific elemental power, like knocking down a rock wall with wind, or creating an ice bridge.

    Beyond the basic combat, you unlock lots of different magic spells. Some are familiar staples of the genre like Refresh which heals you and Paralysis that freezes enemies and puts NPCs to sleep. But it also has more unique spells like Telepathy that lets you get information from far away NPCs, and Change, which allows you to take the form of NPCs and enter areas and get different NPC interactions.

    Plus, it is just a good game. I sank so many hours into it as a kid, and I recently finished the game (with cheats on this time, the game is Nintendo Hard™).

  • Skray@kbin.socialOP
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    1 year ago

    Gonna throw one of my own in here, I recently played an indie title, Mages of Mystralia which allows you to customize spells by adding runes that modify the spells behavior, and can modify elements in the late game.

    It has essentially what is a board to build your spells where you have to place and chain the modifying runes by their connection points, which serves as the balancing, and part of the limiting factor of what can be combined and in what order.

    Very interesting concept, but unfortunately the game is rather short, so you have very little time to experiment with the spells before the game ends, and while a sequel was announced, it seems the studio may have gone under during COVID.

  • Potatomache@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Divinity: Original Sin 2 has a pretty robust magic system. The chaining status effects are fun and there are multiple ways a player can turn a fight into their advantage.

    • RedditExodus@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Yeah came here to say the same thing. The interactions between the different spell schools is incredible and they can also interact with the environment.