Siralim is a retro style turn-based RPG with a 1980s feel to it, but it’s a different kind of Role Playing Game. On the surface, Siralim may look like a short RPG, but it will surprise you to know it’s not – it’s a much bigger game than you expect. This release from Thylacine Studios is a very polished game that will keep you busy for many hours thanks to the way its content is presented on PlayStation 4 and Vita.

 

Siralim initially started life as a freemium mobile phone game. After being a success on said platform, the game was reworked and ported to console standard. I was a little sceptical at first – a Pokemon-style mobile phone game on consoles will probably have a ton of microtransactions, right? Wrong ! Siralim is a full price game free of microtransactions – a one-time purchase gets you the whole game. Sound good?

Upon booting up Siralim for the first time, you can choose to be King or Queen of Siralim. As a monarch, you have a duty to protect your Kingdom and your subjects by any means necessary. Siralim features randomly generated dungeons and quests. Is it a roguelike with permadeath? The answer is yes, but permadeath is a choice – you do not have to switch it on if you don’t want to.

The tutorial for Siralim is pretty great, but it’s not nearly enough to cover everything you need to know. For this game, it is better to learn just by playing and experimenting and exploring to gain a better understanding of how everything works.

As a randomly generated dungeon crawler, you jump into a dungeon and will be given a random duty to complete – think of them as quest. Said duties vary and you may get some involving killing a set number of enemies of a specific type or collecting X number of objects within the dungeon. Once you have completed a duty you can jump to the next level of the dungeon or you can do some level grinding and explore the entire floor killing all enemies in the area – extracting their cores, collecting treasures and materials before moving on to the next floor. As the dungeons are randomly generated, each time you visit you will find the layout will differ from the previous visit, making it easy to replay over and over again with possibly different enemies and loot to find. It certainly keeps the game interesting!

 

Siralim is not your average RPG. You only cast magic in the background and heal up your monster allies, but it is your tamed monsters that do all the damage dealing. To acquire new monster allies, during battle you need to select ‘Extract’ in the battle options menu on the left-hand side of the screen – you might not always extract a core on your first try, but often you will get it on your second turn.

Armed with monster cores in your inventory you can head over to the monster summoning circle and bring them to life. Each monster you bring to life will have abilities unique to them, so it is wise to experiment with the monsters you have and develop them to their fullest potential, so that you can find the best team for your journey.

Siralim has a deep perks system in which you can put points towards the development of your character. Choosing perks can be a tough task due to the many options and variables at hand – fo example, you can put points into finding better loot or obtaining bonus experience. It’s a fun and clever system, and it gives players an incentive to grind for levels.

It is pretty important to fully explore each floor of the dungeons for resources so that you can upgrade your castle and unlock other dungeon maps. Your castle also serves as a hub from where you can enter the different dungeons, visit the summoning circle, visit the library for info, and it even includes a Tavern!

Siralim is a brilliant and fun game with lots of content. This release is worth every penny, and if you like Pokemon-like games then this will scratch that itch on PlayStation 4 and PS Vita. The randomly generated content means you can play this one over and over and not be bored.

[review pros=”Great retro-style graphics.
Deep perks system.
Lots of content.” cons=”Nothing to complain” score=90]

Disclaimer
This review is based on a PS4 copy of Siralim provided by X Thylacine Studios.