Imagine if Pokemon, Final Fantasy and an assortment of your favorite opioids had a baby.

That’s Siralim Ultimate.

It’s a game about building teams of creatures to fight other teams of creatures. And that’s it. That’s the whole thing.

Why is it so compelling?

You choose a specialization (Monk, Cabalist, Necromancer, etc.), each of which gives you access to a certain set of skills to complement your team of creatures.

Each creature has a unique trait that makes it special and unique. It’s not “+10% damage” kind of modifiers, it’s BIG and interesting modifiers like:

Dark Embrace : After your creatures die, this creature gains 25% of their Attack, Intelligence, Defense, and Speed. Oh ok, that might be helpful…

Cannibalistic Tendencies : After your creatures Provoke (Siralim’s version of “Taunt”), they are killed, and your other creatures gain 20% of their Attack, Intelligence, Defense, and Speed. Ok so we can use this to kill a sacrificial creature and make the rest stronger…

Resurrection Code : After this creature dies, it has a 50% chance to resurrect all allies with 50% Health. Aaaaaaaaaa now we can sacrifice our creature, resurrect the rest of them (at least half of them on average) to make sure that they’re all alive and ready to receive juicy stat buffs.

Annnnd that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

There are over 1200 different creatures and dozens of specializations to choose from.

Did I mention that two creatures can be fused together to create a new creature with each of the traits of its parents?

The number of combinations are staggering.

When I first booted up the game, I noticed a “Notes” feature allowing you to take notes in-game and I said to myself, “Why would anyone need this?”

Now I’ve got a meatspace notepad dedicated to Siralim Ultimate.

Every time I meet a new creature, my single brain cell starts working overtime.

What does this creature’s trait do? How can it complement other traits that I’ve seen? What creature should I fuse it with? Can I use this creature in an existing team or should I build an entirely new one with this creature at the center of it?

Siralim Ultimate tickles a part of my brain that very few games manage to tickle. I have tear myself away from the screen if I want to get anything else done.

Even when I manage to stop myself from obsessively playing the game, a part of me is still thinking about it…

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