Siralim

Over 80 hours in the game, and all I have to say is... Don't judge this upon the graphics of the game or how the gameplay looks. This game has a lot to offer. I recommend this game!! 10/10

I'm beginning the Siralim series here, well aware that there are obviously later entries in the series with likely a greater number of features, greater experience for the developer, etc. Now that that's out of the way, onto the review in proper. I originally grew interested in and picked up Siralim because (as I suspect is the case with many), it had obvious visual and mechanical features that immediately resemble the oldest Dragon Quest Monsters titles. Indeed, that clearly seems to be what Siralim is going for, though I think it misses the mark in a lot of ways. One of the greatest characteristics of DQM was how vibrant the kingdom was; the way the kingdom constantly changed as you progressed through the game with new NPC positions, dialogue, and options. None of that richness is present here, nor does the random world design and generation particularly capture the feeling of isolation that was prevalent in the old DQM games as well. The midgame/endgame feature of Nether Eggs also fails to capture the breeding mechanics from DQM, with the closest parallel to that instead being enchanting equipment, since the single item each monster gets is where it can get its second core ability from, more closely mirroring that functionality from DQM. This makes it far easier to create a powerful team and pass on your best abilities once you get the right rare material, but that also means there's less investment in the monsters themselves. That lack of investment and commitment is a real detractor; the items are more special and valuable than your monsters, and there are even incentives to make the item the source of your best abilities instead of the monsters themselves, so you can bypass monsters with copy abilities. These are largely nitpicks, though. The abilities are fun, the core gameplay of Siralim is solid if grindy (which is also true to the original DQM, so I have no complaints). The spell system for the player character is one of the most fun elements of the game, and I loved curating my spellbook and collection of scrolls for it. Likewise, the passive player upgrades are great and offer a nice degree of selection and customization for how you want to progress. Expanding the number of combatants on your team from three in DQM to six in Siralim also allows for much deeper team-building. I have mixed feelings on this, since it also causes battles to last much longer, but I think on the whole it's a positive change. While Siralim is definitely not a pure replacement for DQM, it brings a lot of worthwhile ideas to the table, and has unique, original gameplay elements that stand on their own. I'll be very interested to see if future entries in the series have actual characters and story to fill in some of the gaps that I feel are most missing from Siralim. I would recommend this game only to people looking for a very grindy creature collector focused on late-game progression and team composition built around ability synergies.

gut

Whoever implemented that walking speed should be fired.

I've installed and played Siralim several times, always coming to the same conclusion: the game appears to have many mechanics, complexity, depth of customization, and lots of monsters to collect and power up... but in reality it's just a lot of the same thing with different descriptions. For example, there are multiple damage over time status effects with a variety of interesting names - Poison, Blight, Burn. In reality, they might as well just be folded into one status called 'DoT', as they all just inflict a certain amount of damage each turn. You have myriad character stats in which to invest your Royalty Points (skill points for your caster leveling up), but they all boil down to unimaginative "increase chance to do X by Y% for each rank". Many creature unique abilities are heavily reliant on RNG, and some are just utterly useless. Delving further into a particular realm increases rewards, but also increases the tedium of fighting monsters - fights last longer due to most enemy packs tossing out spells that decrease your attack or defense power, can stun or hit the entire group, on top of just having higher health pools and stats. Might as well just grind yourself up on the first level of a given realm until you accumulate BIG NUMBER. And that's what this game is - a giant grind. That's not bad if you're just looking for pure gameplay with a sprinkle of thought required, but unless you're into that hamster wheel, you'll probably brain yourself after completing a few castle quests. If you want to get information on any particular game subject you'll need to traipse over to your library and search all the bookshelves for the one containing the appropriate info. There's no in-menu database or info collection - if you're not at your castle, too bad. On top of that, the castle has no options for teleporting to your various structures, so you're stuck walking at a snail's pace from place to place. There's no run or speed up button, either - tedium, tedium, tedium. Maybe these problems were fixed in the later games, but it's moot for me.

is good

Siralim series is quite good. This is probably the worst entry in the series, though. Not really much story, and it doesn't have a compelling progression, especially since enemies level match you. I recommend getting Siralim 2 over this. You won't be missing much plot, not much happens in this game.

This game is amazing. Great job.

Functional, but not particularly interesting. There are many other creature collector games that are worth one's time and money.

If you like pokemon but want horror versions, this is the game for you. 8.7/10