Post Games with an interesting magic system

I'll start with one of my favourites.

You have runes you need to find throughout the game. They are like a language. You can combine them according to spells you learn with your spellcasting level, which will be written into your journal, but also some spells aren't written down and if you understand the logic of the spell system you can figure them out.
The runes are basically an alphabet.

Kinda like if Skyrim was made in 2001 instead of 2011 and actually followed their idea of the dragon language and shouts to their logical conclusion instead of being casualised.

I have that game on Steam but still need to play it.

Make sure to play a character capable of casting spells.
Being a pure fighter sucks and is boring.

End yourself.

great job, now forget you own it and pirate the gog version

The concept of learning dragon words and combining them into spells sounds cool. I wish they did more with it and you actually had to combine them.
And being able to improve your shouting abilities so it's not just a neglectable bonus.

I remember that there was this game with it's own symbol language you had to learn. Forgot its name.

It's in the OP.

Eternal Darkness had a great system. You didn't have to draw the runes, but you could get spells early and some you never got scrolls for at all, so experimenting let you learn some useful spells.

pargon pargon pargon pargon pargon pargon pargon

I got stuck in the crypt where you have to align the runes, I followed the symbol directions you find on the the floor but it did nothing. Told myself I wouldn't look up a guide to beat this game and it's been over a year and I haven't beat it. This game can be incredibly challenging.

Pretty sure it was this, Captain Blood. Like the entire game uses it. Check it out.

Two worlds 2 aside from being a shit game has an interesting system of cards that always satisfied my magic runs.


Orientate yourself. North, east, south, west, how the sum travels through the day and it's representations in the symbols. Or look in the previous chamber with the coffins. The side rooms have the proper sequence.

lmao

Arx is far from perfect nigger

...

Forgot Magicka.

The game Magicka shamelessly stole it's magic system from. It also has an important branch point in the plot just past the middle of the plot and you can become the villain. Unfortunately any serious play will destroy your touchscreen.

I know, I know, but it's still fun

What is a post-game?

It's the exact opposite which is even worse, they're effectively cooldown-only spells (some of which have effects which are way more useful/powerful than any spell) so if you aren't using them all the time then you are objectively bad at the game because you aren't taking advantage of a free spell ability. The reason they seem so forgettable is that Skyrim is so easy you never need to use them to beat the game. Things like this set off my autism because I like to feel that I am utilizing everything that the game offers.

Looks and sounds neat
So is it actually any good?

Pretty interesting system but the game was severely broken and not just by bugs. I don't know why they decided it would be a good idea to not add magick cooldowns or limits, you can spam thunderbolt and nuke everything on the screen very quickly.

Wild Arms 3. If you cast a Fire based spell on an armored target, then cast an Ice based spell afterwards, then the armored target is weakened.

Once you figured the death steam ray it became pretty much a cakewalk.
IMO it's wad since the game didn't take itself seriously and went for the multiplayer massacre.

The controls are akward as fuck


what about thief?

I have a hybrid for when the magic runs out and it's pretty good with various buffs.

Well Skyrim can't into dept.


Compared to Skyrim it is perfect.

Treasure of the Rudras

I don't know if other people would count this, but Lichdom: Battlemage what came to my mind.
It's more or less a corridor shooter, but you're a fuck-off magician. You build your own spells components you loot off corpses. The system is based around building synergies between your spells and the different effects of the elements.

I was thinking of that, and Ziggurat. But I don't actually know if they're good–I've only seen videos.

But they are neglectable. It's impossible to build a character around using "shouts". It's not doable. It's always just a bonus to whatever character you want to play, but it's never your primary consideration, when considering which character to build.

And on higher difficulties destruction sucks, unless you stack mana-reducing gear, which then makes it bearable. But the shouts that do damage just SUCK.

It's criminal that there are no shouting perks.


just temporary like -20% armour for 30 seconds or is it actually interesting?

I don't know, but I can't imagine it's better.


Aren't you always casting the same 2-3 spells or am I thinking of something else?

That's some fancy enemy design.

There's some mod that makes your Speech skill affect your shouts, which seems like a great idea.

They merely distributed it.
I just can't get my head around it. I remember 2006 like some sort of alternate reality where not everything was fucked but it was only 11 years ago.

-10% to shouting cooldown

yeah … amazing

I used to play Skyrim. Here's how I made shouts usable.
>install dragonfire tactically enhanced shouts for the fire/ice breath turns the shout into essentially three different shouts. One word is same effect as with normal use. Two words causes a ball of the element, like the ones the dragons use, also has extra debuff and stagger. Three words activated a full breath like the dragons do, usually when they hover. This made it actually kind of fun to shout at shit, having to think about when and how to apply the different effects. My favorite part was using the two words Yol Toor to burn down the spider webs which require hacking through normally.

Still had to eventually go into Creation Kit to adjust the damage levels because at 50+ it does fuck all. Still fucking remember like half of the dragon words. Still a shit game.

how well does this work?

Quarter of a second of lag, but quite reliable and only issue I had was that it included a "call your horse" shout, by giving it a name in the program. When you didn't have a horse, the game crashed. So I just named my horse "please close the game now".

Or it might have been "by saying this I will make the game crash". It was something cheeky that I would never accidentally say. Shouting Yol, Foh, Iz, Tiid, Feim, Wuld-wuld-wuld-wuld nah kest is actually pretty fun.

Also, Strun Bah Qo actually felt like it did something when you got to shout it.

Also, that was the reason I bought In Verbis Virtus, which was fun for a while but it got annoying really quickly. The spellnames in that game are not nearly as reliable or easy to remember and while the first cave was fucking awesome, the temples and shit later just got boring.

The variety and usability of magic in In Verbis Virtus sucked and the platforming just got boring after you got done being impressed with the scenery. The enemies are all retarded because you're combat ability is ass and your spells rarely work. Puzzles, just like the boss fights, will often just end with you googling for solutions after an hour of trying to figure out what you're supposed to do.

Fun idea, but poor execution.

I don't know if that's how it works, since I haven't used it.

Some of them are pretty useless, also pretty lame. Only a small pool of shouts are worth anything.

Does it come with a manual or something?

ULYAOTH SENTEK MASTOREK PARGON PARGON PARGON PARGON

It was pretty underwhelming when you actually looked at it, but the concept was really cool. It was also funny jamming four pargons together since the order didn't matter.

Or just use the game files to install Axr Libertatis.

Look to the left. Dev's Taito.