Played Magicka 2 because everyone requested it. On the list is Elden ring, Divinity original sin, and Rift wizard. Probably gonna make a part 2 to this video eventually

Smh the hypocrisy of modern Wizard enjoyers.... You are telling me you want a cool wizard game... without having to spend 30 years of your life figuring out how to do basic spells? How do you think Dumbledore managed to make that epic fight scene? Props to Noita

6:29 there are two types of noita players: -new players -players that fear polymorphine

A little while ago I started learning game development in order to make my own "fantasy wizard game" and I eventually stopped due to college and work and not having enough time to myself with everything else piled on top. And after removing one of those from my life I suddenly have more free time. This video reminded me of why I started learning game development in the first place: everything else is garbage so I'll just do it myself to the best of my ability. I'd just like to say thank you for reminding me to get back to what I originally wanted to do and just discovered your channel and love it so far. Sorry this was so long lol

Susprised Magicka and Dark Messiah weren't looked at.. Magicka for the combinations and versatiñity of mixing elements to create spells and DM for the ability to interact with the environment in creative ways (IE: run down a hill, aim your tipical ice beam at the ground to freeze it, make your enemies slip off a cliff)

noita is unhinged but it does have the most wizard vibe to me. games like dnd and pathfinder make me feel like wizards are scientists taking a magical programming language to create spells and that’s basically what noita is. a brutally difficult roguelike with hundreds of hours of content and a spell creation system where you create magical phrases using the spells given to you and pray you don’t blow yourself up

I will not tolerate any purple lightning slander. I hate piss lightning, whys it even yellow? Whens the last time youve seen yellow lightning? Yellow is reserved for healing, holy magic and other boring piss spells.

I actually found Noita's magic system to be shockingly intuitive considering how scary it looks on the surface but I get why it could be considered a bit overwhelming fr

"Do NOT let yourself fall into the purple lightning pipeline, yellow is CLEARLY superior." INCORRECT

In noita every time you think youve figured the game out it keeps getting deeper. Once you think youve explored everything you find a new area, you can attain imortality, create the sun deal quadrilioms of damage and even create a wand that utiluzes dear to transport you exactly 1 parrelel universe.

in noita's defense i think it got it completely right when the devs decided that high level wizardry would actually just be programming, complete with *recursion* and all-

You forgot Magicka! A pretty old, very buggy, impossible to play online w/friends without crashing game. But an amazing game none the less. Unlike in the sequel, there wasn’t a limit to how fast you could cast spells so it was absolutely nuts. The speed at which your fingers and brain could string elements together to make spells, then combo those spells is how powerful you are. Creating an electric shield then starting a thunderstorm was definitely one of my favorite combos

Noita is the closest i’ve come to feeling like a glowing brain genius when I figure something out, like a proper mage making strides in my own personal understanding in the art of magic. Once you begin to learn wand building and begin to get your bearings with the games ROUGH early game? Well, I think Mage The Awakening said it best. “I’m a Mage, I can do anything.”

As soon as he said “is it possible for a wizard game to be too complex?” I knew he’d talk about Noita lol. Such a great game

that entire noita rant was like a warlock trying to explain to a wizard why their also a good magic scholar while their demon god nibbles their fangs into their noggin.

6:40 Yeah, no. Noita is fun exactly because there are things to figure out. You are treding the line of LEARNING sorcery, each run gives you a better idea of what each spell does, and little by little you start to feel like a REAL wizard, that LEARNED some arcane knowledge by constant trial and error, deduction and ocasional hints. The base game is simple enough, you can beat it in like 6? hours, 2 if you will just stick to first powerfull wand combination you discover and slowly just tread forward. Noita is interesting and captivating because there is so much to learn about it, to get all the knowledge on the game you will probably spend good chunk of 100 hours, even with wiki. It is fascinating to keep discovering things even when you think that you are immortal being worthy to contend with gods themselves(yes you can become VERY powerfull, like a few millions of hp, taking zero damage from anything, anihilating bosses with single cast, teleporting through parallel universes with a single cast, etc.)

holy SHIT im so glad you brought up Wizards of Legend. i played that game a ton with my brother a few years back and could never beat it. its such a stunning game and i have so much love for it, it just makes me so happy seeing other people enjoy it as much as i do!!

there is a criminal absence of Magicka in this video. Literally the best magic game I've ever played, lets you combine elements to make different spells on the go, while also having set spells you can do at any time with the right combination of elements. And even the same spell reacts in a different way depending on whether you cast it forward, you cast it on yourself, or you cast it on your weapon.

What if I told you, were living in a simulation created by a spell in noita

If you do feel like giving Noita another try, the Spell Lab mod provides the tutorial on wand building that the game was lacking

I quite enjoy souls games magic, I think what goes hard about elden ring magical combat is the fact that you also have the option to pair magic with a physical weapon that compliments your play style

"Blade and Sorcery" as well as "Rumble" are both incredible. Both VR games, so I guess it's kind of cheating, but having to move your hand to cast spells really adds to their power.

My ideal magic system would be somewhere between the runemage class from 'Outward' and the spellcrafting of 'Mages of Mystralia.' Where you can have great, intuitive spells that make you feel powerful, but challenges you by splitting your attention between combat, and correctly casting your desired spell.

This doesn't only apply to wizard games, these are good rules of thumb for any combat system and why I like roguelikes so much, because they typically do them pretty well overall.

Noita doesn't need a tutorial. Every run is a tutorial and death is the lesson. Its definitely my favorite wizard game.

In Noita the tutorial is the descent down to the final boss. Beat the final boss, lose the game, and then it really opens up. You now need to descend, then once you're able ascend back up and explore beyond the artificial boundaries in your way. Climb the mountain that clearly doesn't want you climbing it, fly over the tree you're not supposed to dig through, etc.

Magicka is the best wizard/magic combat game ever made. Because you cast different spells by combining 10 elements in different sequences, cast with the QWERASDF keys, your prowess as a wizard is directly proportional to your skill at the game (hitting the correct keys as fast as possible) and your creativity (combining elements and magic types in different ways). It's amazing. If you combine the wrong elements during a panic, you're liable to blow yourself or your allies up instead of the enemy. PvE makes you feel like an absolute unit as you combine steam and fire elements to hose down legions of goblins flamethrower style, or freeze a troll solid with ice then smash them with a boulder. But the short amount of PvP I played is where the magic system truly shone. It becomes a literal battle of skill and creativity and always reminded me of the fight in Order of the Phoenix. You don't even have time to move your character. You just face each other and tank different kinds of magic at each other, looking for an opening. People complained there was one combo of lightning and arcane elements which was OP in Magicka and yes it was powerful but in PvP the first thing you would put on is a lightning shield which makes you immune to that spell. So then your opponant has to use other elements to damage you. And in PvE there'd be enemies which were immune to lightning damage too, so you couldn't always use the same spells. They did make a sequel, Magicka 2, and a MOBA style version called Magicka: Wizard Wars. But I felt that by making the spells super balanced in those sequels they made the game less fun and chaotic. Magic SHOULD feel powerful in my opinion, that's why it's magic. They also dialled back how impactful the spells felt too. So, definitely give Magicka 1 a try though. It's clunky, a little buggy, but it's a really funny game too and yeah the magic is so well done.

The most amazing magic fight I always think about was in Fairy Tail during the Magic tournament arc when that lady with gravity powers from Mermaid heel fights that celestial wizard from Saber who uses Pisces, Virgo and frickin Ophiucus! Something about that fight was so entrancing because it was made up of two opponents with similar power levels

At least Noita is purposefully complex lol It's meant to be a chaotic roguelike where research and exploration is key. Not that those need to be tedious like it is in the game, but the bizarre interactions and complexity add to the overwhelming sense of awe one feels when things go RIGHT.

I like how he showed the ichor being used on the destroyer, which happens to be one of the only enemies that are immune to all debuffs

I'm surprised no mention of Outward...it has one of the most unique (and fun) approaches to magic.

Your description of some Harry Potter duel as the peak of wizard fights makes it obvious you've never seen the fight between Mannimarco and Morihaus in AllinAll's THLMR Ep. 5

Dude Noita is brilliant. Suddenly, magic is both a creative expression of gameplay and a science that you can finetune. It's what magic should feel like. Wow this comment was before I knew Noita would be in the video

The problem with a Wizard video game is that the infinite power of magic is chained the hell down by the fact that need to be coded. You have to code not only the spell but also all the interactions with not only other spells but also every entity that would be affected by the spell. This is why magic users in games have always felt incredibly limited to me after I first got into Pathfinder.

Noita is so deep that there is a puzzle which contains a hidden message still not decoded to this day.

I loved Fable 1's magic. It felt like I could do so many types of builds. Breath of The Wild also had some cool ideas for magic in that the environment could be altered.

Have you tried Magicka 1 & 2 ? These were the best wizard games of the early indie era

as a noita player who has done basically everything there is to do in the game, i am so glad it was included here. hands down the best roguelike of all time.

Stellar jay doing the explosion line is the single best thing that has happened in my life

I would actually really recommend “One step from eden”, as it is a really fast paced deckbuilding roguelike were you build your deck of spells, and then battle it out on a 4x4 grid, in real time

“I think it’s hard to argue that Noita wouldn’t benefit from simplification” Me: Prepares to argue

I like how in Divinity Original Sin magic interacts with the environment, and combining the right magic can have incredible effect. You could make it rain, throw a fireball to create steam, then electrocute everyone inside that cloud of fog.

What do you think of that Guantlet game on Steam? Not the original, kind of a reboot I think but the wizard is SO fun to play in that, being able to combine two different magic types for an entirely new move and the mixing and matching allows for a lot of variety in what you can do, each one having its own use with none of them feeling objectively better than the other except in certain situations. Also after playing awhile you get to unlock two other spellbooks that replace one of the schools of magic with another one.

"The tutorial video an hour!" Thank heaven you're into wizards and not dwarves.

What I've learned with this video: Add Wizard of Legend to your Steam wishlist

- "I do not wish to spend 8 years of my life learning how to cast magic." But then referring to the Dumbledore vs Voldemort fight and accessibility: - "They just did it." Yes, they just did it after spending their life learning how to cast magic. I think an hour beginners guide sounds good for a magic game.

I was really thinking you were gonna mention path of exile at some point, it's a bit overwhelming at first but once you cut the stuff that's not important to you it's super fun and they have thousands of spells that can synergize with each other, I'm not sure if they combo like mix but idk. But yeah try path of exile

Hi Jay it’s my first time coming across your channel but I really liked your comedic elements and the fast paced editing style that’s a SUB :)

"Why do wizard games fall flat?" Noita Enjoyers: *Gentlemen, the time has come.*

instead of the (normal) mana or cooldown mechanic for magic, theres this game with an really cool mana mechanic in which you have 0 mana until you hold g to charge it which sounds relatively simple but the key point that makes it fun is that spells have different cast percentages you need to aim for mid-mana charge. so, something like a ice spear slamming down from the sky creating a small iceberg on contact with the ground needs you to have your mana between specifically 85-90%. this results in having actual fast paced timing based wizardry instead of "wait for your mana to recharge or cooldown to reset so you can click again"

In my life I have played exactly 1 phenomenal wizard game and it was a minecraft server called PotterworldMC. The spellcasting was complex, as well as diverse and interesting. There's probably still some tournament videos floating around on the internet. I believe a channel called Rhizio has some of them uploaded still.

God I love when you feel like a genius making a build

Noita was one of those games that took me over 100 runs and 100 hours to beat, then I finally looked up a guide and saw that the game can be beaten in mere seconds and felt almost embarrassed.

”Magicka wizard wars” was insane before they shut servers down. Like 6^3 spells and everything has a specific counter that you have to figure out in real time pvp. I went nuts playing it but it was really impressive people who played it well.

This is the equivalent of that Gajin Goomba video where he reviewed a bunch of ninjas in videogames and then found out about mark of the ninja but for wizards

Wished he would've talked about magicka. Controlling were a bit confusing but i liked the magic system and all the different combantations

I'm glad someone talked about Wizard of Legend. The drip, the spell animations, the variety is just MMMH.

I can't believe you haven't mentioned Magicka. Magicka is literally the best wizard game ever.

The problem is that youre looking at modern action games. CRPGs from the '90s and '00s have way deeper and more interesting magic systems, Morrowind's spells turn the game into an immersive sim and break the balance by level 13.

That was hilarious, insightful of game mechanics, ended with a solid game recommendation, and clocked in under ten minutes. Nice!

I feel like Magicka at least deserves a special mention for innovation, YOU control how fucked up the spell you are casting will be AND you get to accidentally blow up your friends while doing so. What other wizard game lets you do cool wizard shit at your friends?

The Guild Wars 2 elementalist class might be right up your alley

I've never identified with a video so hard. HP wasn't my first moment but everything else is spot on. Dragon's Dogma isn't perfect but idk that any game has made me feel more like an actually powerful wizard. Ok yeah WoL was really damn good. My friend would come over multiple times a week to play that together. I'm in my 30s that's not something that happens very often at this point lol.

Bro speaks like eminem raps

I disagree with your take on Noita, the game is wonderful imo. And you really need to try out magicka and its sequel, as others have pointed out. That's another actually good wizard game that lets you cast "your own spells"

If it didn't crash every 5 minutes (only slightly exaggerating) then Magicka 1 would be my vote for the best wizard game ever. It's a game all about combining elements into spells that's incredibly simple but still has loads of depth and room for experimentation. Magic is powerful, varied, and comes in various levels of complexity. And it's co-opable with up to 4 players and has PvP too. It's actually hilarious too, which every good wizard game should be.

Note on Dragon's Dogma's mages: Mages as a class are basically support, they scale poorly for the player character but are fine on your NPC companions. Sorcerers are the ones casting the flashy spells and they scale great throughout the entire game

I'm surprised you haven't talk of Magika, the wizard game about combining elements to create spells on the go

Over 300 hours in Noita. Took me 60 to fully flesh out the spell system. Goddamn I love that game

yes this aged well

Crazy thing to think about for a while the terraria mage class was probably the best wizard expirence lol

based on your comments on noita i would strongly suggest giving 'magicka' a try - just kinda vanished after release but basically you get 8 base elements, 5 slots to use them in and get to just craft your own stuff from there. also it has a proper (/linear) storyline and some really nice humor :)

Fundamentally magic should be interesting, which is where I think a lot of games miss. You should be able to get a spell and go 'this is how it works', and as you continue to use it you realise 'it can also work like this', and then you get another spell and realise 'it can also work like this if I use this' and so on. Each time building a layer of complexity and choice, but at its core it's still a simple spell.

I love a video that's 9 minutes of setup, all just to threaten someone with a truck. You have earned a subscriber bird man.

I recently became aware of a game called “Magicraft” which is pretty much like Noita. You get a wand, you stick spells and modifiers on that wand and have to basically guess how the different spells and modifiers will interact with each other, as well as the relics you pick up on any given run. Examples: The relic that lets you shoot through walls invalidates the upgraded laser spell and the snake spell because they won’t bounce anymore. Ghost Flames actually become viable if you get spell penetration because then the flames won’t disappear after touching an enemy once. And “tracking” on (almost) any spell, which means the spell will follow your mouse cursor around, is an automatic “I win” button.

Wildermyth has a pretty cool magic system; involving interacting with the environment to cast spells. Torches in the dungeon allow you to blast fire, wooden doors allow you to fire off splinters, chains and trees and bushes let you restrain enemies. Game definitely has other flaws, but that's the closest I've ever felt to interacting directly with the environment as a wizard.

i find the mystic class from wildermyth to be the most interesting mage i've seen in a game. you mentioned in the d vs v fight how environment was used to fight? well mystic literally only fights by using the environment, whether it be using trees to constrict enemies, turning nearby fires into balls of fire and hurling to the enemy, or just causing anything near the enemy to break into splinters to deal damage

Cooldown based magic also means you can have really powerful spells without needing to make the player drink a potion to recover some secondary resource to use it again. Which is why making Avada Kedavra a 1 shot kill spell and also making just a cooldown spell is exactly what makes it so badass and worth sacrificing your soul to dark magic to get(If im choosing the "Easy but evil" way, then let me get the strongest abilities

Finally someone who loves magic in video games just as I do ❤

Wizard of Legend was a really fun game. It also runs really well on old hardware. It's not expensive, and it even has local coop, a feature I miss in many games nowadays.

Even though it's technically not a "wizard" game, Transistor does a great job checking off each of those boxes as well. Made by the same people who made Hades. Great game.

I have 313hrs on Noita, to me it's one of, if not the greatest pixel game of all time... And it is that because of the depth to the gameplay, you can have a 3 min run or a 30 hour run. But you do have to be prepared to spend some time watching some videos on it or be prepared to die even more often and miss out on all kinds of tips and tricks... There's so many mods available for it too, so experimenting with wand builds is made easier.

03:08 little did he realize how complex cookie clicker is

Wizard of legend deserves more attention honestly. It's the game that really got me into the rougelike genre and is always a blast whenever I revisit it from time to time. Highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't tried it out yet

You want to be a sorcerer, not a wizard. A wizard incorporates science into their magic. The theorycrafting is part of what it feels like to be a wizard. Slinging spells around is one thing, but slinging spells around in such a way that you can then create something new is wizardry. Its why Magicka, Noita, and maybe some modern games like Elden Ring do it right. Experimentation is everything!

i know this probably doesnt count, but blade and scorcerys magic system being able to merge spells and imbue weapons is gold, the fact that you can also mod the game to add MORE oppertunity to magic like a pro makes this game in my top 10 for magic

thank you for this video went through a run on steam for a game with basically these exact parameters, you basically nailed what a wizard game needs, found I wasn't able to find like one game that was good enough and was like wtf, where are the good wizard games, so i came to KZfaq and found your w vid, dont often truly like and comment on videos all the time but i fw this video, thats a sub and like from me. also funny. gotta up the standard of wizard games man

What do you think about Divinity Original Sin 2? This was my first magic game in a long time, where environment can be used (water puddles can be frozen to become slippery or turned into steam to block vision, oil is sticky and can burn, fire can be put out with water to become steam again, poison is poison but can explode, any fight taking longer than 2 turns leaving a burning hell, but hey!) For me, this was so much fun to cooperate with different magic focused characters ❤️

Divinity Original Sin 2 has a really fun magic system with good bits of variety and complexity (spells have tons of unique interactions with each other and the environment), but it never feels too overwhelming!

The thing about WoL is that there are no God runs outside of very, very few cases. Unless you get something perfect, Sura can still mess you up if you relax too much.

I personally really enjoy mana based magic, when its done right. I think that if a spell is twice as strong as another, it should use thrice the amount of mana

You should give Dark Messiah a go. It is basically source engine with magic. It does not have endless variety, but it promotes creativity thanks to the physics engine.

YES. Wizard of legend has been hands down my favorite rouge like for so long. I’m so a Glad it got the attention it deserves

I tried out the forspoken demo the other day and was really surprised at how fun the combat was with casting magic and dodging/dashing around with the game's cool movement system. Don't know if it's your kind of game but, hey, that's what demos are for after all... Great video btw.

You should totally play gauntlet(2014). The wizard class in gauntlet is the most fun magic system in any game. Basically you have 3 spell elements mapped to the face buttons. You select a spell by pressing any combination of two elements(e.g. fire/ice lightning/fire or ice/ice). This means you have a total of 9 spells available at anytime. You fire and aim a spell by moving the right analog stick. All spells each have a separate cooldown meaning you’ll have to switch between them constantly to keep output up. This culminates in you switching from spell to spell feeling like a master wizard.

Your point on scale is a big one for me. Most wizard games have you fighting extremely close, but I feel like it would be amazing and would make a lot of sense to send your fireballs flying over a mile away and burn whole forests with it. Obviously that's gonna be more difficult to do in a game, but it would be a lot cooler.

I loved Magicka and Magicka 2 when I was younger and it first came out, I must have beaten them both around 5 times each. I wish there was a 3rd one

in dragons dogma what you simply need to do as a spellcaster is get right cards from other clases and then level solely in mage or sorcerer because for some reason there is no asignement of your atributes they increase based on class you use so if you want to have efective magic you must use only mage/sorc class for almost entire time

When you want to play as a wizard but you brain explodes when you see the spell system:

To me the biggest problems most games have when it comes to magic is often that they focus mostly or even exclusively on combat. Hitting an enemy really hard with a sword or a fireball often becomes a matter of visual flavor with the same result in the end. What many games miss out on is to have spells that can be used outside of combat to make your life easier or even progress through quests or the stories in ways a non-magic user cannot replicate by themselves. If you look at Tabletop games most combat spells are actually kinda boring, the real fun is in all the utility spells (or summons that provide utility) that can then be used in clever and creative ways to overcome obstacles or just do cool stuff. There's just so much more to magic than flinging fireballs and lightning bolts and not enough games really tap into that other side.