I really want to like Siralim 3. But I don’t. I’m not sure why. Let’s talk about that.
Some of my most played games overall are Path of Exile, Pokemon, and Disgaea. On my Switch, Diablo clocks in at about 120 hours, and my Disgaea 4 save file has about 160 hours on it, and a few of the endings. We could talk about how much time I’ve got in PoE, but that would involve noting the questionable use of several thousand hours of my life. So let’s not instead, and say it’s my second most played game of all time.
So when I say Siralim sounds like the bastard child of those three genres, I feel like the end result should be, “Hey, I’m gonna play this forever.” And according to Steam, I have played about 8 hours.
I’m not sure why then that when asked how I feel about Sirilim, my answer is sorta just, “Yeah, it’s fine.” But the thing is, I’m not sure I’d actually recommend it.
Siralim 3 is a 6v6 RPG battler. You wander from randomly generated realm to realm, collecting monsters, leveling them up, and fighting forward. The game has extensive scripting and macro capabilities, letting you more or less just automate fights if you wish, and you can even make said scripts conditional. Of the monsters, I’ve seen about 30-40 of them, and they all seem to function pretty differently. Finally, the game has a weapon and spell gem system, and on top of that, you can craft and recraft those items with different modifiers.
So, we have a lot of systems with interesting tactical depth regarding equipment, (PoE/Disgaea), massive variety of characters (Disgaea/Pokemon), and a massive replayability and grind automation to just make the happy numbers go up (PoE/Diablo).
And yet the game still feels very meh. I think this is a two part problem, at least partly based on the artwork and the writing of the game. The artwork is… fine. But it’s not inspiring. I don’t really love any of the monsters in the game. None of the creatures feels like they’re part of “my team”. They all feel pretty interchangeable. In fact, I decided to see if I could name any of them, and uh, I can’t. Not off the top of my head. Despite playing for 8 hours.
The writing ranges from “Yes, this is writing” to “Bad”. It’s not gonna win any prizes, and I don’t think it’s trying to.
If I had to try to pinpoint why I don’t enjoy the game, it would come down to two main things: first of all, the general feel of the game itself is pretty bland. Despite being mathematically and mechanically interesting, it feels dull to look at. This makes it hard for me to ever really get invested, or push through the boring bits for the next cool thing. There’s nothing Siralim is going to show me that I’m excited to see, be it boss, dungeon, item, etc.
The second thing is that Siralim feels a bit overwhelming. I recognize that this might sound a bit rich from someone who claims to love PoE and Disgaea, but in both those games, I’m usually interested enough in continuing to play the game that I end up caring about whatever bullshit system they make me learn. I’m willing to learn how stacks, orbs, auras, etc. all function because I want to see more of the world and story. (Hello, all 10 other people who care about the lore in PoE, whats up?)
So, would I recommend Siralim? No. Would I buy it again? Also, probs no. I don’t think it’s bad. But the lack of compelling writing or interesting things to look at in terms of art means that I have zero desire to continue learning it’s system and mechanics. Siralim is clearly someone’s game, the newest version, Siralim Ultimate just raised $90,000 on Kickstarter. But it’s not my game.