Siralim 2

[Humanity has risen!]

Thanks to Lone Wolf for the recommendation



Nowadays pretty much the only time I have to play games is when I use a mobile phone. This game is indie and available on multiple platforms, Android/iOS as well as Steam, and others.

Imagine a game with Shin Megami Tensei's combat and monster collection/fusion and Disgaea's emphasis on character building, plus a lot of clever improvements to the combat system and interesting features, and you have Siralim 2. It's only 5 $ on Android, and quite cheap on Steam too.

Like Lone Wolf said, the amount of content is simply incredible. While the generic nature procedural games get old quickly (Siralim 2 can go on and on infinitely), the devs have added enough features and variety for it not to matter.

If you like customizing your party, fusing monsters together and crafting, you're really in for a treat! It's perfect to play in small chunk of times when you just have 20 minutes to play too.

 

[Lone Wolf]

It's a rabbit hole without end.

I mean that in the best possible way.

 

[Naraya]

I played through the whole demo of Siralim during the last week (it allows to get to level 15). While it felt really nice in the start, I was definitely beginning to feel the grindy and repetitive nature of the game in the end. Despite never using any consumables/boosters, combat was way too easy and boiled down to spamming E key over and over.

Don't get me wrong - I like the overall idea, graphics and atmosphere but in the end I can't find myself playing the game in the long run - it's just too repetitive.

FWIW, I never was the "gotta catch them all" type, I despise achievements and I never played any Pokemon game, so maybe that's why...

 

[Lone Wolf]

You're right, it gets very grindy. But goals never feel out of reach, which makes a big difference.

Definitely a niche game.

 

[Naraya]

Of course. I can easily imagine there are people who like this kind of stuff. Funny thing is I remember to love mindlessly grinding mats or killing mobs over and over in WoW (for example vanilla crusader enchant or general stuff in TBC like mining/herbing). But nowadays I find to have way less time for such activities - simply because my game backlog is way too big and I would feel like I'm 'wasting' my time playing this game while I could be playing more engaging stuff.

Nevertheless - I think developers of Siralim did a really good job and I was pleasantly surprised by the game in general

 

[Hobo Elf]

My main issue with this game, which I consider to be pretty huge (I refunded the game because of it), is that the individual monsters didn't have enough flavor of their own. For the me the carrot on the stick in these games is finding new cool monsters but also discovering their move sets. Since customization is so open in this game (might be good for someone else!) it means that monsters don't really have a unique move set. For those who don't know: all abilities that monsters have are learned via equips. The only thing that truly sets the monsters apart is the one passive ability they have (I think they can get more from gear?), and that wasn't enough flavor for me to care about the monsters.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

I'm not bothered by the fact that monsters don't have many upgradable unique abilities, SMT style, because I think otherwise the complexity would be much too overwhelming. Also another advantage of that is that in SMT, monsters that you spend a lot of time and effort leveling up quickly become obsolete and you never use them again. Whereas you can keep the same monsters in Siralim 2 for a very long time, and the ability they have can be extremely useful for a very long time.

For instance I had a creature that receives defense points every turn, and a double bonus of defense points every turn, through an ability called "amalgamy". In difficult boss fights that lasted long, he became almost completely invincible, even though my party could hardly harm the boss because it wasn't very powerful and the boss regenerated every turn. Toward the end of the fight my character was getting a bonus of 250 000 armor points on its last turn!

Also they did such a fantastic job of spicing up the old blobber combat, that the strategies and possibilities are endless. I really have to give it to them. It always remains entertaining.

 

[Naraya]

I'm not bothered by the fact that monsters don't have many upgradable unique abilities, SMT style, because I think otherwise the complexity would be much too overwhelming.

I wholeheartedly agree with you.

 

[pakoito]

http://thylacinestudios.com/forums/...f-the-gods'-is-now-available-on-all-platforms!

Expansion's out

 

[Humanity has risen!]

This game really doesn't get enough credit, it is really sad. Yes the levels are prodecurally generated but the developers really did as much as they could to add variety so that exploration always remains interesting. You could play for hundreds of hours and not get bored. The combat system is never dull with all the different monster feats that you can experiment with. It is more of an RPG and offers more content than all other RPGs of last year combined. It is a true labor of love. And they offered a good expansion, completely free, in an age where all other developers nickel and dime you constantly.

 

[Naraya]

^I disagree, combat gets *really* boring really fast, at least for me. FWIW, I prefer Siralim 1.

 

[pakoito]

I played less than 10 hours and got bored. The grind isn't worth it.

 

[Galdred]

I used to think so too, then I used the cheat engine file for the game, and it allowed me to skip most of the grind (you can get unlimited resource, and can also cheat engine deity favor).
http://forum.cheatengine.org/viewtopic.php?p=5694702&sid=bb43c646972b676cbf9b9c6dc5dd7455

The file doesn't work with deity favor anymore, but you can do it yourself easily:
count the total favor you have with a god (so 500 for lvl1 + 1500 for lvl2 + 3000 for lvl 3 + you current favor at lvl 4 for instance), and scan for the double that matches this value. update whenever it changes, and it should very quickly converge, provided you did this in said deity's realm.
You can only get one level increment at the same time (as you need to see the deity whenever you reach next lvl-1), though, but it should be more than enough.

I also used a manabomb artifact (spend up to 50 mana and deal damage equal to spent_mana * int *3/100 to everyone whenever you provoke) so I could one shot my way through most easy encounters. You can do it without the artifact with one of the djinns, but you need to buff his speed and int to stratospheric levels (I used it on an Imling, which was much more efficient, as it has awesome int and speed, and can be buffed by several redlstone imlers).
The number of things you can try is quite insane, so it is a shame it is hidden behind such a slow grind.

 

[Galdred]

I have gone further into the game, and it now takes several minutes to get control back during fights as my creatures autocast stuff forever when a battle starts (I have 1 ashmouth cerberus + the nether creature filled with start of battle spells in my party).
More often than not, the battle ends without me inputing any command, but I wish I could completely get rid of animations and just read the log to see what happened.
I guess I'll have to wait for an update that does that, as it is getting pretty frustrating. For some reason, I cannot get the CheatEngine speedhack function to work on Siralim2.

 

[Siveon]

At that point you're barely playing the game at all.

 

[Rahdulan]

It's apparently free on Google store. Temporary?
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.thylacinestudios.siralim2

 

[Damned Registrations]

Just discovered this yesterday. Literally played for 15 hours straight without even stopping to eat. Can't remember the last time I was dragged into a game this badly. How the fuck have I never heard about this for so long? I primarily play games for two reasons: I like exploring to find powerful upgrades that change the way you play, and I like trying to break systems. This game is perfect on both fronts.

For instance I had a creature that receives defense points every turn, and a double bonus of defense points every turn, through an ability called "amalgamy". In difficult boss fights that lasted long, he became almost completely invincible, even though my party could hardly harm the boss because it wasn't very powerful and the boss regenerated every turn. Toward the end of the fight my character was getting a bonus of 250 000 armor points on its last turn!

I had a boss do this to me, had a party of highly regenerating creatures the boss couldn't kill, but his last remaining unit was this creature that stacked it's defense so high I couldn't hurt it and I had to just forfeit. That was the moment I fell in love, I think. Currently running around with a party that is incredibly broken- every time they use the provoke command, the fortress (of which I have 3) heal themselves and increase their own defense, and 1 of them buffs the entire party's attack and int, while another does the same for speed and defense. One of them has an artifact that makes each of these effects trigger twice. Another member of the party has a 75% chance of putting each enemy to sleep on the start of the battle, while another counters with a party wide silence whenever an enemy casts a spell. The synergies already here are insane, and I know based on the progression of monsters and features I've unlocked so far that I've barely scratched the surface. Not only this, but the party isn't even truly broken- I've encountered 3 different mechanics so far that could pretty much entirely shut it down without even dealing damage.

The monster fusion is amazing. While there are a ton of relatively basic variations of thing (like a priest for buffing every stat, or an angel that inflicts each status on attack, it seems) there are also plenty of higher level changes and even unique combinations. Fusing a giant with a gargantuan made a tower giant, and a giant with a fortress made a wall giant, both good creatures in their own right with types of passives that let them deal damage based on their own hp instead of their attack. Fusing those two specific monsters together (there was a visual cue this would work) created a new type of giant I doubt I could have gotten another way. Fusing new monsters also unlocks them as enemies, so falling into this rabbit hole of tying to discover new monsters makes the combat more varied too. If you've got enough of a level advantage you can general just alpha strike things, but the appropriate level of enemies can be a real threat, with the same sort of synergies the player can use, including unexpected ones based on their spells and artifacts, which diserve their own TLDR post, tbh.

TLDR: Game is amazing, and has dethroned Labyrinth of Touhou 2 as my new favourite dungeon crawling murderathon.

 

[Naraya]

This game is THE definition of a grind. If you enjoy this kind of games, you will love Siralim 2. For me it was too much of a chore - I preferred Siralim because it wasn't such a massive grindfest.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I suppose that depends a lot on what you think of as a grind. I had more party/mechanical progression playing this for a few hours than you get out of an entire playthrough of your average infinity engine game. I suppose it also depends on how you play- you could go dicking around on the early floors trying to unlock all the monsters and that would indeed take forever and a day. But if you keep taking on the bosses when they're still really difficult, you gain power and new mechanics very quickly.

 

[LESS T_T]

Third game is coming to Early Access:

The King of Siralim, tainted by an unknown force, has brought war to the lands of Rodia, capturing all of the country's kingdoms and slaughtering their people in the process. Now, only one kingdom remains that can stand against this unlikely adversary: Nex. As the king (or queen) of Nex, it is your job to fight back against Siralim's tyranny and return peace to Rodia once more.

If you're in a hurry, we've written a short list of features Siralim 3 has to offer. You can read about each feature in more detail by scrolling down past this list.

• Collect and breed over 700 different creatures to fight for you.
  
• Explore randomly generated dungeons with 15 unique tilesets.
  
• Craft artifacts and spell gems to equip your creatures for battle.
  
• Infinite playability - there's not even a level cap. New features are introduced well-beyond the 100-hour mark. You'll never run out of things to do!
  
• Rich end-game content, including Itherian Realms, super-bosses, arena battles, asynchronous player-versus-player, and much more!
  
• Content updates and patches are planned for after the game launches.
  
• Take part in our community, contribute your suggestions, and let's create the ultimate monster taming game together!

Your primary goal in this game is to collect creatures to fight for you. There are over 700 in total, and each one has a unique trait that improves its abilities in battle.

You can acquire new creatures either by finding them in the wild, or by breeding two of your own creatures to make them lay an egg. For example, you can create a Gula Sin by breeding together a Wyvern Sonicscreecher and an Aaxer Apocalypse.

Keep your eyes open for ultra-rare "Singular" creatures, which are creatures that have a unique color scheme compared to their normal counterparts.

Each creature also has its own lore that you can read about in the library. In total, our creature lore contains more than 55,000 words. That's the size of a novel!

Take your creatures into randomly generated dungeons called "Realms". There, you'll fight against enemies that can be killed to increase your creatures' experience points, as well as drop resources and items that you can use to further improve your party.

There are 15 different tilesets for Realms, and each Realm offers exclusive creatures, quests, events, and much more.

Your creatures can equip items called Spell Gems, which allow them to cast the spells contained in these gems. You can enchant these Spell Gems to add new properties to them which change the way the spell works. For example, you can customize the type of damage the spell does, or cause the spell to activate an additional effect after a creature casts it.

There are over 300 Spell Gems to find in the game, and over 20 properties that you can add to each spell. The possibilities are endless!

Each of your creatures can also equip an Artifact. Artifacts are items that grant the equipped creature a wide array of bonuses. These bonuses range anywhere from a simple boost to their attacks, all the way to granting them new traits and spells.

Artifacts have randomly generated properties, but you can also utilize over 1000 different crafting materials to add, remove, or modify these properties. Different creatures work better with different properties, so you'll need to experiment to figure out what works best for your team!

There's an insane amount of rare items and accomplishments to collect. Here's a brief list... and believe it or not, this doesn't even begin to scratch the surface.

• Cards - these rare items have a small chance to drop from enemies after you defeat them. They grant bonuses to you and your creatures just by having them in your inventory. It will take a long time to find all of the 700+ cards in the game!
  
• Talismans - these work a lot like Cards in that they provide you with passive bonuses. However, by completing certain end-game content, you can upgrade your Talismans to improve the bonus and even unlock new powers!
  
• Favor - There are 15 gods in the game, and you can increase your favor with each one. As you do so, you'll unlock new game features, creatures, items, and more!
  
• Knowledge - the more you defeat a certain creature, the more knowledgeable you'll become about it, which unlocks new bonuses when you're fighting against that creature. Eventually, you'll be able to see a creature's health/mana bars in battle, view their lore in the library, deal additional damage to them, gain more experience points and resources by defeating them, and increase their chance to drop their Card.
  
• Singular Creatures - each creature in the game has a "Singular" counterpart. Singular Creatures are extremely difficult to find and have a unique color palette.
  
• Achievements - the game has hundreds of achievements for you to collect. When you earn an achievement, you'll gain some Achievement Points which improve the quality and quantity of loot you'll find during your travels.
  
• Wardrobe and Titles - you can unlock new costumes for your character to wear (such as a chef's uniform), as well as titles that change your name (so you might go from being called "King James" to "James the Drunk"). Wardrobes and titles can be seen by other players when you participate in asynchronous player-versus-player battles.

Don't you hate when a good game comes to an end? We do too. That's why Siralim 3 never truly ends.

There's not even a level cap. You can continue leveling your character and creatures forever, all while still finding new challenges waiting for you just around the corner. We've crafted every game mechanic around players who want to someday accumulate hundreds, if not thousands of hours of playtime.

Completing the game's main story quests is just the beginning. After that, you'll unlock countless new systems to keep you entertained for hundreds of hours to come.

Here's a brief list of some of the game's end-game content, but again, there's so much more to this game than we can possibly write here.

• Itherian Realms - these work like normal Realms (as we described earlier), except these have randomly generated properties that change the way the enemies or even the Realm itself behaves. You can acquire and upgrade Talismans in Itherian Realms in order to bolster your party. You can even find the elusive Itherian Creatures here, which are rare creatures that have unique traits you won't find anywhere else.
  
• Tavern Brawls - fight against other players' creatures in asynchronous player-versus-player combat. You can earn exclusive Spell Gems and other items if you win!
  
• End-Game Quests - a never-ending supply of quests and missions for you to complete long after you experience the main storyline quests.
  
• Super Bosses - we can't spoil what these are or how they work here, but rest assured that you'll face plenty of grueling challenges by fighting these bosses... and you'll be handsomely rewarded if you manage to win.
  
• Arena - draft a team of creatures and see how many enemies you can take down before your party is wiped out.
  
• More is on the way! We're committed to bringing content updates that include tons of awesome, end-game content after the game launches.

Q: Do I need to play Siralim or Siralim 2 before playing Siralim 3? Are the stories related in any way?
A: Siralim 3 is a completely standalone game, and for that reason, you should have no problems playing it without playing the other games first. While the stories in Siralim 2 and 3 are intertwined, they can still be enjoyed independently. In short, there's something for new and old players alike!

Q: What platforms is Siralim 3 available on?
A: It will be available on Steam (PC/Mac/Linux), Android, iOS, Playstation 4, and possibly Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. We'll release the game in the following order: PC, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS, PlayStation 4, Xbox/Switch. We do not have any ETAs on release dates for any of these platforms, but we will make an announcement when we do.

 

[Abu Antar]

 

[Naraya]

http://www.thylacinestudios.com/introducing-our-newest-game-siralim-ultimate/

Saves you 1 click and going to twitter.

 

[LESS T_T]

Coming soon to KS:

 

[pakoito]

And don't worry - none of these creatures are re-skins or re-colors!

huh

is the gameplay tactically deep now, or just grindy deep?

 

[Damned Registrations]

Eh, the gameplay was always tactically deep, provided you were facing sufficiently difficult enemies. The problem was there wasn't a lot of incentive to do that. It's much faster to roll through 20 maps with +50% loot you can handle easily than it is to roll through 10 maps with +200% loot you can beat if you carefully rejigger your team in between each one. There's probably not a good way to solve that.