It is mayor jank but Dragons Dogma was the closest to feeling like a mage I've ever experienced. There are no cool downs in the game but channeling spells takes some time and upholding a continuous spell drains your stamina. In this setting the art of a mage was reading the battle and estimating how much space you have to channel spells, several of which can easily break the encounter wide open.
Edited since neither my English nor my autocorrect were working as intended.
Yeah that's a horrible sentence my bad. You're not the only one who's not fully awake.