How cool and fun is it to play a wizard in games?

[StrixLiterata]

Personally, I place great importance in how good the experience of playing a pure caster is in rpg games. This has made me appreciate games that others find disappointing and be disappointed by games most people gush about. What About you?
Here are some examples from the games I played.

 

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning - GREAT

This game might be disappointing in a lot of ways, but fighting as a wizard has the same good game feel and breadth of options as any other class: this is an action game at it's core and as such a wizard protagonist feels evasive and dangerous rather than a wimpy glass cannon.

 

Roadwarden (DEMO) - DISAPPOINTING

I was expecting magic to open special routes to solve problems, but what I got is the ability to detect that obviously magical things are magical, scare away some animals and rest better in some, but not all, uncomfortable places. Maybe the full game is better on this front, but the first impression really disappointed me.

 

Dark Souls 2 - BAD

I got the idea to play a pure caster after learning that there was a special staff that allowed a charachter to cast spells of all types, but this game clearly treats magic as a secondary system to be used sparingly in abuild mostly focused on melee. Not only is the interface for selecting spells clunky and the number of uses limited, the magic itself is inflexible: all you can do is heal, fire various flavours of pewpew lasers or awkward projectiles, and buff a piece of equipment.

 

Elden Ring - MID

The spell selection controls might still be awkward, but at least the actual selection of spells is much better and more useful. Unfortunately playing a pure caster still feels worse and isn't as deep as playing a melee fighter, but playing a hybrid is plenty enjoyable and it was clearly the kind of build that the game pushes you towards. Honestly I think From is very close to getting how to make playing a wizard fun in their system: the various casting focuses already have bonuses for certain group of spells, so why not allow players to assign a different spell to different slots in the weapon's moveset?

 

King of Dragon Pass / Six Ages: ride like the wind - GOOD

these games aren't really RPGs - more like management games with rpg adiacent elements - but magic is an essential component of managing your clan, and it can make it better at virtually anything: you can aquire magi artifacts that give bonuses in specific situations, build temples to get the gods to make your clan better at a certain type of action, bargain with spirits to get temporary bonuses, perform rituals that are mysterious and difficult but give you big payouts if they succeed, and even spens magic before an important event to give yourself better odds of success. And even the way magic is aquired is intresting: you primarily get it by behaving according to your traditions, but it can also be aquired from particular events or by getting other clan's shamans and priests to help you.
As a result, making you clan better at magic is always a good investment, and it's not a boring process either.

[kerdios]

One of my biggest disappointments when playing wizards in games is that you can't cast none line of sight spells around walls or corners (like blizzard)