Siralim 2

Siralim 2, developed by Thylacine Studios, is what happens when you mix the grind-heavy heart of classic RPGs with the creature-collecting fun of Pokémon—then crank the complexity to 11. Released in 2016, it doesn’t just lean into old-school aesthetics; it weaponizes them, delivering a hardcore, addictive, and surprisingly rich experience. This is a game for players who want more. More monsters. More loot. More mechanics. More of everything—and it delivers. At its core, Siralim 2 is a turn-based RPG where you summon and control a team of up to six creatures to battle through procedurally generated realms. Your character—the ruler of the titular kingdom—can harness the power of over 600 different creatures, each with unique abilities and synergies. Combat is strategic and fast-paced, but don’t let the simple visuals fool you—there’s a staggering amount of mechanical depth. Each monster can be customized with artifacts, spell gems, breeding combinations, and even mutations that fundamentally alter how they perform in battle. You’ll explore endless dungeons, complete quests, fight bosses, and hoard mountains of loot. There's no level cap. No final floor. It just... keeps going. And weirdly, that’s the appeal. The real magic lies in Siralim 2's endless progression systems: -Creature Breeding: Combine two creatures to create powerful offspring that inherit abilities and stats from both parents. Breeding isn’t just for stronger creatures—it’s for building entire team strategies. -Artifacts and Spell Gems: Equip monsters with customizable gear and magic. Every item can be upgraded, enchanted, or transformed. The combinations are nearly limitless. -Castle Building: Upgrade your kingdom to unlock new features, vendors, and mechanics. The castle evolves with your choices, turning it into a hub of power. Graphically, Siralim 2 is unapologetically retro—think 16-bit era pixel art. It’s functional, not flashy, but the visual simplicity allows the gameplay systems to shine. Animations are basic but snappy, and UI design, while dense, becomes intuitive once you settle into the rhythm. The soundtrack is atmospheric and loops comfortably in the background, doing its job without stealing the show. Like the visuals, it’s more about utility than flair. What separates Siralim 2 from other monster battlers or dungeon crawlers is its freedom. You can min-max until your brain melts or casually explore new realms and experiment. There's no wrong way to play—just infinite ways to tweak your build until it becomes absurdly broken. That said, it’s not for everyone. There’s minimal story. The learning curve is steep. And the grind? Absolutely real. But if you thrive on number-crunching and system mastery, this game is a dream come true. Pros: -Massive roster of customizable monsters -Deep and complex combat system -Endless progression with no true “endgame” -Great replayability and team-building experimentation -Ideal for fans of min-maxing and theorycrafting Cons: -Graphics may be too dated for some -Minimal story and character development -UI can feel overwhelming early on -Grind-heavy progression loop Siralim 2 is a monster-battling sandbox that rewards curiosity, experimentation, and obsessive tinkering. It's not about saving the world—it's about bending it to your will through strategic brilliance and absurdly optimized teams. If you're the kind of player who enjoys finding broken combos and watching your enemies melt, Siralim 2 might just become your next obsession. Hardcore, nostalgic, and ridiculously deep—Siralim 2 is a genre-defying gem for players who love systems over spectacle. Rating: 8/10

Lots of depth to the systems in the game. However, it is too repetitive and it takes too long to get the resources you need. I stopped after needing 75 attempts over 3 battles to get just one core for making a creature. This was the third time I went over 50 tries before a success. This is the type of thing that ruins games for me when the other systems can be just as tedious. I got this on sale to try it out before getting Siralim 3 as I have read it takes even more effort to make creatures. Won't be buying that one now.

Was interesting at first, but it just doesn't go anywhere from here.. It's too repetitive, and, in fact, can't believe saying this, but it has too much content. And I'm not talking about story, nah, I'm talking about monsters, artifacts, synergies, which become sooo broken cause of yeah - too much content. I imagine this being a small little indie gem for a hardcore geek, who checks every ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ creature special power and artifacts and takes it into strategic consideration, but apart from that, it's just generic grinding from a fight to a fight.

Went into this one expecting a Pokémon like dungeon crawler but gave up after spending a good day with it. My major complaints with the game were that it's repetitive, lacks overall polish and that the battles rely too much on random outcomes. You can probably read about the upsides in other reviews, so I'll focus here on what turned me away from the game. [b]many mechanics, too many perhaps?[/b] The game has very many, perhaps too many, different mechanics, terms and concepts that you need to learn, most of which can be scaled or modified numerically in some way by yet other mechanics. Basically anything that you encounter in the game at first has multiple better versions of it. Some pruning and refining would go a long way. It's start off nice and gently with a tutorial but then quickly resorts to just leaving you to read a bunch of manuals. These would be nice if they were supplementary, but the UI lacks basic functionality like hovering over an icon for a status effect like "poisoned" or "shielded" to get an explanation of what it does. Instead you have to resort to memorizing effects and consulting said manuals [i]after you encountered them in a fight[/i]. [b] too many random effects [/b] While all the different monsters and mechanics make for a combinatorial explosion of team compositions, I found myself wondering how much of it is really meaningful – many of the effects are random and thus harder to build a strategy around. In addition the effects themselves often seemed negligible: what does a 10% chance to hit for 10 additional damage do if my monster's base attack is already 50? The pervasive reliance on randomness in battle effects is a deterrence for me more so than an upside. The only time I was ever challenged in my playtime was when I came up against a gang of monsters that frequently turned invisible, and thus ravaged my party because I couldn't retaliate against them. On closer inspection it turned out that the monsters had a mere [i]chance[/i] to turn invisible after each attack and I just got unlucky for multiple turns in a row. [b] repetitive, but not so engaging [/b] Traversing the actual (randomly generated) dungeons feels lackluster and samey. The floor layouts do not differ drastically from floor to floor and the different tile sets (forest, beach, crypt) do very little to disguise this. Basically it's the same endless dungeon that just goes deeper and deeper with no overworld or connecting parts. There's are many different flavored events (read: different text boxes) that all just put some stuff in your inventory. The dungeon floors are strewn with collectibles and treasure chests, but picking it all up is just busy work for the sake of busy work. And there's never a reason to not pick anything up. In fact anytime you collect even a minor resource, it brings up a menu instead of simply adding it automatically to your collection by walking over it – just one small example of how the interface could be improved. In my entire playtime I didn't even lose a single battle, in fact the encounters seem to become (relatively) easier as my monsters grew in level. The enemy AI didn't seem particularly clever, but it's hard to judge with all the random effects and my team always having the numbers advantage. I could of course dive one dungeon level deeper and the hopes of encountering a challenge there, but ultimately, I just don't see a reason to come back and keep exploring. [b]obnoxious Steam achievements[/b] This is one of the games where the developers uses achievements to meticulously track your progress through the game, so be prepared for a lot of annoying pop ups. Unfortunately I couldn't just turn off the Steam overlay because I was playing with the Steam controller :(

Same as the first.

Another part of the Silarim serie - monster collecting and RPG with rich mechanics and complexity. obviously the game was further and further developed each title - coming from Silarim 1 there is lot of upgrades and gods are good Idea. There is even story but very very simplified and writing is quite meh.. so as to previous title I do not recommend play Silarim 2 - no reason grind too much in it over successor titles and story wise it bring very little to the table (though overall it was addicitve and enjoyable especially over Silarim 1)

Bought the whole bundle cause i love collection/ training/ random stats etc type of games Think Pokemon in terms of catch creatures by extracting cores from weak monsters, train em, breed em, level em, give em gems to let them use spells, give them items to boost abilities and grant some extra skills. Got a helmet that granted a random ally a boost to attack and intelligence every time the monster wearing it attacked, planted that bad boy on a monster that would retaliate against any enemy that caused damage... so my entire party got damage buffs throughout the enemy turn. These buffs stacked. Long story short - A monster whose base damage was 30... hit for around 1140 at one point. Its worth every penny if you enjoy pokemon with some more depth and a fair deal more customisation and randomisation "Story" took me about 79 hours and a load of new stuff just opened to me....

I played Siralim 1 for over 60 hours, and while it was great, I recognized that it was getting repetitive (that's probably fine after 60 hours!). This one reignited the addiction I felt for the first game all over again. It's improved in every way. The systems, castle map, story, balance, are all improved or completely expanded. Looking forward to another 60+ hours and then moving on to Siralim 3 and Ultimate where I'm sure I'll go through the same loop all over again.

Nice game. Reminds me of dragon quest, but , many more customizations and perks to keep things exciting. Great game, loads of gameplay hours. have not even scratched the surface yet.

I like it a lot. Good entry into the series. Better than the first game, and this game also has some advantages over Siralim Ultimate.