If you like your RPGs mechanically deep, extremely challenging, and don’t mind if the visuals are a bit antiquated, Siralim (Free) is one of the best games you can get on the App Store. I liked it quite a bit when I reviewed it back at its launch last summer, and developer Thylacine Studios has been diligently updating it ever since. The improvements were significant enough that I named the game one of the top “sleeper" games in the RPG Reload 2014 wrap-up, and the game maintains a healthy fanbase in the TouchArcade forums. The game has a really fair pay model, letting you try it out for free until you advance your character to level 15, at which point you can unlock the full game for $4.99.

The game has been a regular fixture in our weekly “Update Mondays" feature, but I recently noticed that there hadn’t been any updates in almost two months. For any other game, that wouldn’t be odd, but for Siralim, I can assure it’s not normal. It turns out there’s a good reason for that, however. The developer has been working on a big 2.0 update to the game, and it’s due to hit iOS as early as next week. It’s described as “absolutely game-changing in every way", and looking at the list of improvements, I can’t disagree. First of all, almost all of the graphics have been upgraded quite a bit. Only the monster graphics remain largely untouched, but I never had much of an issue with that element of the visuals anyway. A new skill point system is being implemented, allowing you to further customize your team. Over 100 new monsters are being added to the game, and the engine itself is getting a complete overhaul to vastly improve performance. There are a number of other changes in the new update that you can check out by hitting the forums on the official website of Thylacine Studios.

I’m pretty excited about this update. It’s addressing a number of issues that were probably very difficult to resolve and adding significant new content to a game that is already embarrassingly rich in things to do. Knowing Thylacine, this is just the beginning of a new string of crazy updates to the game, too. Whether you want to jump in now to really develop an appreciation for the upcoming changes or plan to hold off until the update to get started, you’ll definitely want to check out Siralim soon if you haven’t already.