RPGM - Star Knightess Aura [v0.46.0] [aura-dev]

tl;rd: Mixed bag, rpg elements are very good but all characters are unrelatable and I don't like anyone.

Game offers quite novel structure - de facto those are two games in one. One part is typical RPGM corruption game where main heroine does quests and gets corrupted on way. This is quite standard but I enjoyed difficulty, plot and quests. 5/5 for this part.

Second part is corruption of schoolgirl. You spend points earned in fantasy world to change subconscious of main heroine and then watch results passively - scenes from her school life. This part seems quite random and lacking. I often unlocked some part and nothing happened or something was locked because some other corruption had to be unlocked first. Scenes are written well but because it's all passive I bet in long run this will be just linear VN pushing forward by unlocks (with "pure" route as just skipping this completely).

The weakest point imho is characterisation. Antagonists are irrational and scheming convoluted plots to achieve their goals, but this is typical for all genres, we can live with it. On the other hand main heroine is stereotypical nerd with superpowers (in real world she is self-defence master), she is cool, has a lot of friends, reads a lot of books, top grades, always protects weaker (resorting to violence at slightest provocation). On the other hand is super prude getting "corruption points" even when pretending to be someone's girlfriend. I feel motivations behind her are arbitrary or she is just emotionally immature. This character reminds me protagonists from movies like Karate Kid who are "good" even when bullying or beating shit out of others because writer's license. Also adults are absent in school, rape threats seems something normal yet our heroine laughs at them, there are few scenes like this and for me it's unbelievable even in games.

Novel concept, novel execution, and very fun writing. Currently, the erotic content is still somewhat minimal, but this is the kind of game that does in fact make up for it with fun gameplay. Looking forward to every update.

The story for this game is well told and interesting the gameplay is fun and balanced well the characters are well written and unique like the d guys are clearly bad guys and the hero is character who changes based off the decisions you make this game has loads of potential but is early in development definitely needs more lewd content and draw out lewd scenes but as far as gameplay its solid support the creator if you can would be 5-5 if there was more lewd content but still a good play

Pretty decent game. So normally in this kind of game I'm pretty much "How fast can we turn this girl into a raging slut?" But man, the villain protaganist (Alicia) and main antagonist (Richard) are SO IMMENSELY HATEABLE that I'm defaulting to a purity route.

Anyway, so as you'd expect, the game is mostly about doing things the easy way (which progresses corruption) or the hard way, which usually involves either some trial and error, strategy, or coming back later with levelling up to succeed at. It's worth noting that a purity run on story mode is still not 'faceroll' easy until you've levelled up some, and even then you can lose fights if you're completely afk braindead'ing on them.

In normal mode, you really have to work at it to avoid having to use the corruption increasing IWIN button. Some of the fights are pretty hard if you don't know the strategy or if you just aren't properly prepared.

Anyway, so there's not much lewd content yet - The farthest it can get is you give a handjob to a rando basically. The art where it exists is pretty good, but most of it is just dialogue descriptions currently.

I believe this is either a single or very small dev team, but I hope they implement a 'turned slutty but still kicks the shit out of the 2 villains" route.

I have played around 6-8 hours of Star Knightess as of update 0.9.1 and I can safely say that is a very good RPGM game with a lot of potential.

Positives
- The worldbuilding. The universe that exists within the game is fun and interesting enough to explore that I almost didn't mind the complete lack of 'real-life' content at the school. The Demon King Richard and his horde are a solid threat to the world.
- Female Protagonist/Mind Control. This seems to be the main hook of the game that differentiates it. You're basically playing as two female protagonists. The main character and the secondary main character who is attempting to corrupt them and alter their mind. It's cool. I wish there was more to it.
- Combat System. The turn-based combat in the game is perfectly fine. No complaints especially since there is an 'easy mode' if you just want to experience the story and the sex scenes (which will go in the negatives) .

Negatives
- Too Grindy. By this I don't mean it in the traditional sense. You have to grind through a lot of the 'fantasy world' story with unfortunately almost no developments to the mind control story or the corruption element. Almost all of my 7 or so hours was spent in the 'fantasy world' rather than the 'real world' or in the mind palace making meaningful changes.
- No Content. The fact of the matter is in this current build there is no sexual content. You have an animated kiss scene which is the most you get and then a description of a handjob. In 7 hours that's all there is that I experienced in terms of that element of the game. Which wouldn't be a problem if this game wasn't on F95.

Conclusion
What this game needs is some quicker progression on the mind control and corruption components. I was disappointed with how little time was spent making actual changes to the main protagonist and seeing those changes occur in the 'real world'. That's when things will begin to pick up but as of now I would say Star Knightess is well and truly still in the beginning/introductory stage of the game and it could be quite awhile until we see more.

Final Verdict
Put it on the watchlist; keep an eye on it; wait and see.

Has amazing potential, just need to wait for some more content to be filled out. Right now the direction that the story is headed is something that I haven't really seen in other places, but it's a very smart way of doing a slow-burn corruption of the main character. I'm a big fan, can't wait to see where this goes!

To me, this game has incredible potential.

The story and writing is super engaging and entertaining. It is very rare that I find games from communities such as this, where the humor, characters personalities and the games self-awareness actually shine through and I don't feel that i simply have to slog through line after line of dialogue that even the author themselves hurried through to get to the good parts.

I almost feel that I am spoiling myself by playing this in an unfinished state.
Very excited to see how this project progresses and I do really enjoy the art so I hope there will be a lot more added in a further stage.

Kudos to the developer.

Pretty decent game, but...

Well, this game does almost everything right. Art is good, story is decent, characters are well made. Mechanic is unique. But, for me, this game has conceptual flaw.

So here I am, playing this game for few hours, and I am starting to feel that I am playing chess alone. I assume that point off the game is to choose whenever you want hero or villain to win. Because you are playing both.

I love corruption games, probably my favorite type of h-game. I also love rpg, where I can be pure good guy. But, those two things does not combine well. I can't cheer for anyone, because I am always also playing the other side. I can't simultaneously cheer for heroine and villain. I can't go full corruption route, because I would lose as Aura, and I can't go full purity because I would feel like incompetent villain. No matter how I play, I will lose either way. Also, no matter how I play, I will win either way. After some time, it starts to get boring.

Also, I kinda want both sides to lose. I want to destroy Aura arrogance, but I also want villains to lose, because they are shitty people.

As soon as I realized this, I stopped caring about characters. Even if story is decent, even if world is interesting, I can't play anymore, because I simply doesn't care about what will happen next.

At the end, I can only stay for h-scenes. But after few hours of play, I seen like 3 of those, and they did not really felt earned.

So: really decent game, with good potential, but it is not for me. I know that some people might find it enjoyable and even good, but I already stopped caring, so I simply can't play anymore.

A great game for everyone ... except me

All that glitters is not gold, unfortunately is what I think about this game.

Although the premise is quite good as are some images, The gameplay, which I do not deny, is quite unique to many rpg that I know, at certain points it is quite annoying and gets tired of the fact that possibly what you promise as a possible 6 hours of gameplay can be summarized in 2.

example:
the start
-You do not know where to go first, they propose several paths thinking that there is the possibility of overcoming them as simple as possible, but the truth is that in the end they really do have a certain order.

-The system of corruption that is the typical mental room, does not really explain to me at all what I do, simply if I am lucky to have chosen well, and if you go through corruption, you are holding on to lose by not measuring yourself. It is really cruel to know that if you screwed up from a certain point, you already fucked a game of 6 hours minimum.

-It is better that you do not put extra things, if they are not going to be of any use. Darksouls has already shown that you don't need 20 npc, if in the end you are only going to occupy half or less. And less, when your npcs are going to present them as [not implemented], if it is not, do not put it. I do not know if they are because they do not know how to add npcs in the future or they wanted to make a more credible world with more people, but it only works if those people speak more than being systems of the Matrix.


But in the end, even though I was very tired and frustrated.

It is still a good game eroge above average.

If I have criticized certain things hard, it is because I know, it has much more potential to exploit that is being wasted.

One thing I would like is that instead of just one thing you could change 3 or they will let you change 3 in at least 2 hours of gameplay.

I don't know how much it could affect to activate scenes, but it would stop being more tedious than playing chess with a hamster.

Anyway, if you have free time, this game is recommended.

The 3 star should have an asterisk next to it, as only the future knows whether it will be better or worse.
As it is, there isn't much but a shell of a good game. The art is good, but there's not much of it. The worlds are well planned, but not filled. The game-play is all in place, but there's not much to do with it. Star Knightess Aura can be great, but isn't really worth playing at this point in time. It is updated often.
My only real gripe beyond that is a subjective one; I don't love bouncing back and forth between worlds. I think the game could have been fine as just the Roya world, or if there had to be the modern world, we'd see less of it.

This one is pretty good!

It combines the corruption of the heroine in the fantasy world with the slow corruption of the MC in the real world. The first one is pretty stremlined, but the second one (based on changing little things in her mind) is wonderful, and creates a very good narrative about the moral degeneration of the MC.

The only downside I see to this game is that there are too many minor combats with no purpose and no reward at all, which slows the game too much.

Edit 0.19.0:
The most recent content (everything past money land) has gotten to a decent place in terms of balance between gameplay and sexy elements. Though my sense of that may be thrown off, because I'm still playing with an edited save, even on "story" difficulty because the early game- if 10 hours of content still counts as early game- hasn't gotten any less tedious. It's nice to finally start seeing some payoff, but now I'm running into how strict a sequence of events the real-world corruption is, and often find myself confused if I'm supposed to be awaiting for days with nothing happening or if I need to re-check every single option again. Not as frustrating as hours upon hours of stock RPG Maker combat, but still something I'd like to see improved.
While there has overall been an improvement it's from a weak 3 stars to a solid 3 stars so no change to the actual rating. Selfishly, I'd like to just keep getting new content but this isn't going to get past 4 stars without major revisions to the early game.

Original review:
This game does so many things right, and then shoots itself in the foot. The result is an experience that's frustratingly close to great, while also being incredibly tedious.

First the good: this is a great setup for a slow corruption game. The scenarios already there are super hot and enjoyable even as the game is missing art for them. While I wouldn't call the characters particularly good, they're very well suited to creating great corruption scenarios. The maps in the game are also really impressive. They're not going to wow you graphically, but each area is detailed, believable, and interesting without becoming a maze in a way that's rare for H games. Then finally, the corruption mechanics are very detailed and it's fun/hot to see how they play out in even mundane ways.

The bad can be summed up in one word: tedium. There's 2 issues here: the pacing and an unhealthy obsession with stock RPG Maker combat. I know that the devs are trying for a slow burn, but this stretches it to ridiculous lengths. I know the devs are making the game difficult in order to force you to use the mechanics that corrupt Aura, but it just makes things take forever. It's like the horrible balance at the start of an amateur RPG where you're 50% going to die to the first rat in the starter area, but drawn out over 6 hours because after that point in time you've only just made it to level fucking 3 despite doing 20 quests.

There's an amazing game buried in here, but right now it's covered by garbage and time wasters. I can only hope that the devs will rebalance things to fix it, but for now you should skip the prologue and save edit yourself a bunch of money and stats so you can actually enjoy it.

Strong writing with a unique corruption mechanic. It's a slow burn, but the author makes each bit of progress feel substantial and worthwhile.

Despite looking like standard RPG combat on its face, it's more interesting than that with no grinding (defeating enemies doesn't give EXP) and multiple ways to approach a combat situation. Although the combat isn't BFRPG or anything like that, it does tie into the corruption mechanic.

I found myself sinking hours into this, and I could see it being among my favorite adult games when it's closer to completion.

Amazing concept. Most promising idea I have ever seen.

Instead of presenting us with a "lose to win" mechanic, we have been given two games in one, with an MC hero trying to succeed in her task while an MC villain tries to corrupt her.

one of the best corruption mechanics I've seen.

it has more strategic difficulty on the RPG side, you can't go completely free or you will get nothing done, you have to think about what you can't defeat and how to end the day.

And you have the option to basically play as the bad guys, which is always welcomed.

This is kind of a mean rating if I consider the time and thought put into this game, but I have my reasons for it...

I played this game for over 2 hours and haven't seen a boob once. As the player I'm supposed to cheer for the mc but then also fight against her as another character. I'm basically betraying the person I'm supposed to care about. This is one of my main problems. It doesn't feel good.
The next big problem is the amount of dialog and story details. This game is like Ocarina of Time for wankers. I don't want to spend that much thought, time and energy in such a deranged game. It's complicated and lacks of sexual content. Succulence handled this way better. It was aware that it's a cheesy porn game and backed it up with CGs. There were no CGs when I played Star Knightess Aura. I also can't relate to the MC, cause she's an annoying weirdo.

I congratulate the person behind this game for being able to add so much detail and love to a game but beg him to reduce the game's dialogues and add CGs instead. This game could be awesome if reduced some more.

The story in this game is really good, however it's severely lacking in sexual content, there were plenty of opportunities for them, but I feel like the dev just doesn't want to take them, I get that some people don't like clichés, but clichés work, gimme a barmaid job, gimme some grope scenes or anything, I don't want to go into the forest and hunt gobbos that don't even have H-attacks or defeat scenes! The person behind this has clear potential for storytelling but I have been playing for 2 hours and I haven't gotten even close to being aroused, and yeah I know that the story is supposed to be slow, but this is too slow for me. The dev looks like they have a clear idea of how they want this game to play out, and unfortunately for me I don't think I'll be getting my wish, but you can't expect me to play this game only to be taken along a journey with no reward, I hope this game changes it's ways and opens up some scenes or I won't be touching it again.

Its not very good. Its obviously ambitious but the amount of dialogues that cant be skipped in any way is pretty bad. Looks good, the art is great id say but i cant give it any better rating if i spent an hour playing it and the only thing i managed to do was to hold the button to speed up some shitty school dialogues and die to the first boss i encounter.

Fun game with a lot of potential. It contains some of my fav tags and that is corruption, Female protagonist and NTR. It has some decent to nice looking characters and a nice and music. But the fighting and the long progression is a big down side.

All I can say is that you should try it out for yourself if you like the tags (like myself) maybe it is to your liking but for me it needs many more updates and some changes to the combat system. Then I will gladly retry it and high'en my rating.

Just your average, run-of-the-mill RPGM game with decent combat.. Except the fact there's no escape button. Not sticking with this one unless it's added.

The character designs are fine enough I guess and the story is a pretty decent concept, but fighting enemies isn't fun, getting away is almost impossible and if you run into them, you can't escape, which is a big no no for me in RPG games, period

I hope it improves, but I just can't find myself playing it right now.