Recently I wanted to play a magical combat game and Hogwarts legacy seemed to be mostly what I was looking for so I ethically acquired a copy. Unfortunately even with DRM removed it runs very poorly on my laptop.
Looking through steam games tagged magic, I didn’t manage to find something similar. Most of the games I saw were either top-down/side-scroll (I’m looking for FPS/TPS) or had magic systems simpler than in Skyrim (I want magical combat to be the main focus).
Does anyone have any suggestions?
Edit: Specs Ryzen5 3550H (2019) 8gb RAM Radeon RX 560x 4gb VRAM
Apart from being a sidescroller, it sounds like you might really like Noita.
Divinity: Original Sin 2 also has incredible magic co.bat, but that’s top-down, turnbased tactics.
Or maybe Psychonauts? Not a wizard, but an assortment of ESP powers gained at a summer camp like boy scout badges as you go through the game. 3d platformer. But the powers and their variety are really fun.
And there’s Witcher 3, which is 3rd person. But it’s close 3rd person at least? Might not run on your machine though. Maybe the 1st game might? Though it has its flaws.
For first person… Hmm. A surprisingly tough call. Most of the 1st person games I know have really straightforward battle magic, the wizard game included. Which is kinda weird now I think about it.
The Dishonored games? If you’re okay with steampunk setting (very well done steampunk though!) 1st person immersive sims. Stealth or kill everyone however you like with a nice assortment of magic powers. I’d put this on top of the list honestly. It’s old and stylized enough it might run alright.
Prey, like dishonored, also allows you to learn (optional) magic powers and use them in a variety of situations, but it’s also set in space, if that’s a dealbreaker. 1st person though!
Or the Persona games? It’s not strictly speaking classic wizardry, but it’s definitely magic of a sort, and I think it should run on most anything, especially Persona 4 Golden. But the fights are turn-based strategy. And 3rd person. Goddamn.
Legend of Grimrock? It’s an odd duck, and you learn magic slowly, but maybe it’s the right odd duck for you? First person, real time but you and enemies only move along a grid, old-style dungeon crawler.
I’ve played Noita. It’s fun but not exactly what I’m looking for.
Divinity isn’t a magic game I’m looking for, but it is an RPG I want to play at some point, I’ve only heard good things about it.
With Psychonauts, I’ve heard of it as a cult classic that every True Gamer™ has to play, but I’m not really into platformers.
AFAIK Witcher’s combat isn’t really about magic, it’s an RPG with some magical abilities that help you win swordfights, which is not what I want to play at the moment. It’s a maybe, but I think there are better fits.
Legend of Grimrock 2 looks very interesting, it looks like the RPGs that were made before I was born and I wanted to play one for a while. A game in that style that can run on modern PC? Sign me up!
I have conflicted feelings about Persona. I’ve never played one, I haven’t even seen the gameplay. From what I know of the gameplay it’s unique and interesting to me. Visual style looks cool. But I also know that some of the story and character decisions made by the devs are really weird even by Japan weirdness standards, and very weird to me personally. Considering that the story and characters are the main part of that game, I would rather wait for the next one, and hopefully they’ll stop doing that weird stuff and fix it.
I’m playing both Prey and Dishonored 2 right now. I really like them both, which makes me think that the game I want is an immersive sim with extensive magic system. Given that an immersive sim is a rare genre, I don’t think a game like that exists. Still, thank you for all your suggestions.
Can confirm, Grimrock 1 and 2 are super tight. Extremely true to their inspiration while modernizing basically everything. Slower, Not a slog. Tough, Not cruel.