How was the mage playthrough in comparison with the others?
Easy and OP, but fun. If this were my first playthrough, the game would look silly playing with magic. Having already fought all of them up close, now it's fun to delete them from afar. There's just something cool about magic. But everyone should definitely experience the game with a melee build first. Otherwise, you miss out on some amazing fights like Godfrey and Placidusax, that are well designed and telegraphed, but I just deleted them with spells. Placidusax didn't even get to phase two, even though he's such a cool boss to experience.
Spells I used the most, in order: Rock Sling, Glintstone Pebble, Night Comet, Stars of Ruin, Adula's Moonblade, Carian Slicer, Shard Spiral. I know there are some powerful spells like Comet Azur, Ranni's Full Moon, Loretta's Mastery etc. but I really didn't feel the need to use them, which means that the game has great spell variety.
Enemies my mage struggled with the most, in order: runebears, Malenia, crucible knights, misbegotten warriors, and those grafted shits that spew poison and move around like crazy. Everything else was either first try kill or dying due to being careless. It was a fun playthrough, overall.