RPGM - Star Knightess Aura [v0.50.0] [aura-dev]

  1. 2.00 star(s)

    zerojack123

    A lot people mention it but ya this game really requires a lot of quality of life improvement into the game, sure it's very hands off but sometimes I have zero idea what I am doing unless I read a guide or something. I played this game a lot yet I stuck around hopping it would get better. I don't have a true answer if it was worth sticking around but one disappointment I really have is something I really wanted to see is starting off as already corrupt and have more in a sense more freedom to choose overall do I recommend this game half yes and half no. Yes if you enjoy the long burn and no if you don't enjoy the long burn.
  2. 2.00 star(s)

    Makaron22

    As plenty of reviews mentioned, game have lots of efforts put inside, but with very bad to just bad realization.
    It have quite unique ideas, not well implemented, or not at all.

    Role playing part is practically absent. Same is for lewd part.
    But for compensation game have, so much text, that many VN games does not.

    Visuals are good for static, but bad for animation..

    2 stars because of the efforts put in the game. Otherwise just one.


    Playing around 20 hours. Hope game devs take a look here and tweak the game mechanics.
  3. 4.00 star(s)

    thecorruptionfreek

    The mechanism of this game reminded me of Anthesis, which I absolutely love.

    The start of the game is way too long compared to the corruption bit in the second half. The game also desperately needs a hint system to tell you how to progress.

    Overall, you should expect a lot of grinding for this game, but it is rewarding once you get passed the beginning of the game
  4. 5.00 star(s)

    Bingus Bongus

    Before I get into the weeds, I should make it clear that I am not the target audience of SKA. I like wholesome and cuddly sex, antithetical to the corruption genre. So, I did not play this game for the lewd content. That said, I think SKA is among the best RPGM games ever created.

    I'll call it a "strategic puzzle RPG", in that emphasis is on carefully managing your resources in order to overcome challenges as quickly as you can. Everything is a resource, and the most valuable of all is time. As days pass, the curse increases corruption and reduces willpower, and you will need to take actions that mitigate their effects. Furthermore, most actions that improve Aura's stats or learn new techniques end the current day, or take multiple days. Take to long to advance, and players will find themselves in a death spiral of low willpower - or lose outright from terminal corruption. If this happens, players can start a New Game Plus with boosted stats and/or carry over their skills, to help them get further next time. Lewd scenes can also help, as some of them provide powerful benefits - but can also incur hidden costs that weren't clear up front.

    Combat is simple but challenging, and is based on targeting elemental weaknesses. Hitting an enemy with damage they are vulnerable to gives the attacker a Tactical Advantage, which both gives a significant evasion rate for one turn, and guarantees that a physical attack on that turn will critically hit. Vulnerabilities are mostly determined by species - for example, humans (including Aura) are resistant to light and weak to lightning, while plantoids are weak to fire. Furthermore, many enemies and bosses have some sort of gimmick that makes fighting them much easier once players figure it out. These can get esoteric, and it may not be clear if a given strategy is incorrect, if Aura isn't strong enough yet, or if RNG is being an asshole. If you're truly stuck, there's the option of tapping Aura's get-out-of-jail free card and activating Star Knightess... with a heavy cost in corruption.

    While gameplay is SKA's strongest point, the writing isn't shabby either. Aura's personality is somewhat determined by player choice, but she's a solid protagonist who doesn't stop giving her all even in the face of constant setbacks and crushing odds. Alicia and demon king Richard foil her very well by being similar people - all three are arrogant, passionate, confident, and competitive, the difference being that Aura is selfless, and the other two are self centered. YMMV of course, sometimes Aura comes off as naive and overoptimistic, and she and Alicia get incredibly, ludicrously hammy when facing off. I can't really talk about the plot without spoiling the good stuff, but the connections between Earth and Roya go back much farther than they seem, and not all Royans are content to wait for the Hero to save them.

    What really impresses me most about SKA is how the writing informs gameplay. If I haven't made it clear, the game is fucking hard, at least if you're gunning for the victory path. Leaning on Star Knightess for every major challenge will quickly swamp players with corruption. When the game says that the rules of the world itself stand against Aura, I believe it because the game is hostile to me as a player. When I see Aura struggling to succeed, I believe it because I have to struggle to succeed. When Aura is tempted to perform lewd actions she's not comfortable with for tangible gain, I understand her because I am tempted to have her do it too - and I really dislike the corruption theme!

    I can't make any judgement on SKA's effectiveness as a lewd game, or a corruption game, but it is a phenomenal strategic RPG. Aura dev, you and your team have outdone yourselves.
  5. 3.00 star(s)

    raphielle

    I sat down, downloaded the game, and played it. 19 hours straight. Yes, it's leagues above the average RPGM slop that gets created on a day to day basis. The game is very unique, and it's hard to believe that it's only in 0.49 since, well, 19 hours of content and I'm nowhere near finishing (maybe I'm just slow asf). To be honest, considering that the game isn't even in version 1.0.0, and the dev seems quite active on here, it has a very bright future. But despite all the praise, it does have problems that are quite critical.

    The game is a slow burn, an extremely slow burn. It takes time and many, many days (in game days) to disintegrate Aura's base values and remake her anew... but that is kind of the whole point. A heroine that gets corrupted way too fast is insanely boring, and every other game has this tied to having sex. You can't just do an IBP and intentionally throw battles for this to happen. The gradual drip of poison into Aura's mind is very unique and quite fun, buuuut the corruption stat can be... tedious to manage. For that, you have to hurt your gamer pride and play on a lower difficulty. But it's not like any of us are here to actually play a strategy game, right? Anyways, those who are impatient will get tilted. But I've always been a person that liked watching things fall, so the snail speed pacing is more than completely fine.

    Very long paragraphs ahead. Read at your own discretion. If you get spoiled, that's not my problem.

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    Anyways, onto the characters. As we all know, a shit character makes the game unplayable and it is tilting to read their dialogue. And that is exactly why I will start with George because he is the definition of "clueless and slow on the uptake".

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    Anyways, overall 3/5. It would be an all time great if Aura's corruption didn't lead her to become an insufferable douchebag. Also, it would be kind of fucking funny to see a path where George gets swole and becomes a rich crypto scammer.
  6. 3.00 star(s)

    Capuchonnoir

    I don't know what to think about this weird ass game. It could be a 4 or a 5 easy. But it's just not.
    There's clearly a lot of thought and effort put into this game. It has nice mechanics. It's certainly a full on game in ways that most RPGM scene viewers and Renpy VNs are not.
    But... it is also an extreme example of the "RPGM Walking simulator" and "boring time wasting RPG combat" genre. Even on the lowest difficulty it's decently hard and long winded. I can't imagine playing with the corruption game over mechanic.
    This game does not respect your time. There's just no reason that fucking everything from reading a book, learning a spell, to lewd scenes, has to end the day. The devs should put in an energy or time mechanic that lets you do likes at least 4 things that are currently day-ending per day. At some point you gotta just zone out, and speedrun 4-7 days just to learn a few lackluster magic spells, or get anywhere really.
    The corruption mechanic is at first glance, where at night you control an antagonist that makes "choices" on how to spend corruption points to change the MC (and you do have to spend the points to avoid game over in theory) is extremely interesting compared to your basic lewd counter corruption...but it loses a lot of points when you realize it's just the illusion of choice and is actually mostly linear. If you want the MC to be meaningfully corrupt in a lewd sense, you have no choice but to go for a full Mean Girls style decline and fall, with some bimbofication and NTR. It'd be nice to be able to pick and choose which sides of corruption to focus on, and have a fully mentally corrupt and sexed up MC that's not necessarily into pink platform heels and reality TV.


    The idea that sometimes her willpower is so low or her kinks so great that she can't refuse a lewd proposition is great. it should be used more. The best RPGM corruption games do this. If you, the player, has to physically pick the "get corrupted and do the sex" option, then that's just boring scene viewer.

    Which brings me to my main point. This game needs like, 5 times more lewd scenes, at each level, especially in the beginning, so they could escalate in a more gradual way. Right now they're not really gradual, though you might wait 3 hours between two of them. Even the lewd jobs like waitress and the damn brothel aren't very varied and have little lewd content.
    There's basically no battle fuck which is a shame. But a full battle sex system is hard, I get it. Still, more enemies should have lewd/mind control/aphrodisiac/corruption attacks, as well as "corruption on loss". Games like Karryn's Prison and Celesphonia are considered the GOAT for these reasons.

    Don't get me wrong. I like the slow burn. The corruption mechanic has tons of potential, the game is polished, there are bosses with insane mechanics, and the writing is good in a very isekai anime genre kinda way.

    But devs, if you're listening, just pause your current plans, go back and spend a few months adding a bunch of lewd content to every town and dungeon. Keep it slow and gradual, but this game needs more. More occasions to get the MC organically corrupt at every single step.
  7. 5.00 star(s)

    InstaPrincess

    Ok. I feel like I need to get back to this and explain why this is THE BEST MIND CONTROL / CORRUPTION GAME in existence. (Sorry for shouting)

    This is a unique game. And what makes it so interesting is the method and the intricacy of the approach towards her changing psyche. This is not really a porn game first, it's about the psychology of this process. The real focus is on her rationalizing the changes happening to her and the warped perception of the world around her. It's incredibly well done and I doubt you'll play anything like this ever again here.

    At the same time, if that isn't your thing and you are just here for porn, you might be bored. You will also be frustrated if you skip text, because while the RPG part is good and the story fun, it's really all about mental changes and its repercussions.

    Now I am sure many of the peeps here will find that boring and that's fine. You'll probably forget about this and play My-Slutty-Loli-Highschool-Harem or one of its 5000 brain dead derivates, but if you want something smart and different, do try this. It's a unique epxerience. It really is.

    Edit: Also let me say, I really loved the self-insert / user discussion with her video game. It's really funny, given the audience.
  8. 5.00 star(s)

    learningfromit

    very good game. needs to be more build up at the end tho. it goes from extremely slow burn to fucking. wish there was more teasing, bjs, groping in the mid/early game. Hope they keep adding more. probably the best corruption game on the site. also I ignored the earth part, found it boring.
  9. 2.00 star(s)

    jeffsandburgs

    Let me start with (1) I never thought I’d review a titty game until Aura, and (2) never thought it would be negative, but felt it was worth giving feedback.

    It can’t be denied that there's been a lot of work put into creating Knightess Aura. Aura-dev and the team have clearly invested a lot to do so and should be praised for work. Additionally, I have a big praise for aura-dev who often replies and engages with players.

    For me, the game falls short on gameplay first, then to some arguably most important, NSFW fulfillment. I'm overall mixed about the story.

    TL;DR is if you are an advanced corruption enjoyer, don’t mind simple characters with a lot of text, get your rocks off on brainwashing/changing (example - you love permanent and at times darker hypnosis effects), and don't mind slow-burn, sometimes irritatingly lengthy RPG gameplay and numbers/counters tracking to get to H-scenes, this game might work for you. Otherwise, stay away or gallery snipe.

    I gave Aura 18 hours and I think by around 8 hours I was feeling fatigue. For context, I've played plenty of H-games, plenty of which have exceeded 25 hours, so I don't bail on time.

    Lewd Content and Themes
    So we’re all here because we want to choke our chicken. I consider Aura to be “advanced” in the genre. The main (human) villains are one-note shitty (in personality) characters and Aura is essentially a two-note character with her secret sauce being hidden arrogance. Side characters are plain but appreciable, yet after the intro are awkward in consistency. The "smartness" some reviews allude to is text wall after text wall of (albeit, very consistent! If there are multiple writers, they did a good job keeping each character contained to their trope) information that could be condensed for a similar experience in my opinion. The corruption in Aura is the darker kind, and as other reviewers have pointed out, Aura is a generally appreciable character who will slowly get turned for the worse outside of her control.

    Overall I think character designs are fine but nothing special (though I find Richard very dull for a main villain).

    The slow changes made to the personality of Aura will excite you if it’s what you’re into, but for me it doesn't due to railroading. I found it mean-spirited at times and the RPG side can often feel disconnected from the "real" world. I'd also rather experience gameplay that indicates changes rather than the mind chamber method of removing/altering personality followed by VN stuff. The real world and RPG world have some inconsistencies with how they affect each other, and I prefer the RPG world mostly as far as story goes.

    In the RPG world, lewd scenes are far apart with little art to compensate. There are many scenes and lots of artwork, but the space between is large, so if you don't like a scene you'll be waiting a while for another. You do get the H-game “build up and release” of lesser lewd events leading to something greater, but it can be slow. In my hours I basically got three scenes maybe worthy of a fap depending on your preferences/fetishes and finally dipped into more fappable content as I was puttering out. Didn't work for me. The art is decent but nothing to write home about - I do think it would be great if animated! Early on I was often expecting more CGI out of H-scenes, but I digress.

    I don't mind playing an H-game for a few hours without even touching my dick. But I would like to touch my dick at least once by like... 10 hours. If the gameplay can keep me engaged I've gone long periods without even acknowledging the H-portion of games, but Aura misses that for me. I'm not sure if I totally missed what kind of gameplay loop I should be following but maybe guides can help you quickly attain what you want.

    As the game progresses you can think “here’s where it gets interesting!” and Aura has to do something lewd that would otherwise be outside of her comfort zone, but the distance between events of this kind are so far, it creates a confusing connect from innocent to worse. Then, later, when scenes are forced, it feels more like the player is actively hunting for them rather than them occurring naturally.

    I know I only dipped my toes into the full story of Aura, but it really feels like choices for advancement are limited when corruption eventually ends your game outright. I'd much more appreciate branching options that give you a choice to how you want Aura to be; not have it left in a railroady story method. I could be missing the mark here if something was around the corner in playtime though -- additionally, you can lower corruption through other means, but they seem unmaintainable - at least through my hours. Even if you maintain corruption, there are vices that lock you out if you don't progress far enough in the mind chamber.

    There are no lewd events or actions during battle and no lewd losses in my playtime (however, there are some lewd attacks/stances). Losses lead to simple "game over" screens (or an end to the day). If all you saw was the battle content you would likely not know it's an H-game. Sometimes this can be good, in Aura's case I consider it a detriment. Also, no menu quickload; you'll have to go back to the title to reload a save if you know you're fucked, so more time wasting. Technically you can get around this because there's a "load" function once text boxes show up.

    RPG Content and Pacing
    For an RPGM RPG, Aura has more developed battle and puzzle mechanics regarding difficulty compared to other H-RPG games, however, it completely disrespects your time and is comparable to the worst H-RPG games in that facet. Combat is rock-paper-scissors; once you discover the trick of an enemy, the enemy becomes trivial. The problem is, there are loads of heavy enemy parties and you’ll end up stuck in a long loop of slow battle animations just trying to continue where the story is headed. If you're not ready for what Aura throws at you, you'll end up losing and maxing your corruption early and wondering how you got to a true game over so fast. I was able to navigate it after an early hiccup or two, but it becomes tedious and the game does a poor job of displaying what can clearly, in retrospect, be the wrong action. Additionally, because there's often no H-content in battles, you’ll spend time in certain battles that don’t give XP, items, or a reason to play a lewd game.

    I have played OFF. Helen Mysterious Castle. Skyborn. Omori. One Way Heroics. I have played a few JRPGs. I get where Aura is trying to be a more advanced RPG in combat, but it seems like it only dips into basic RPGM systems yet sucks time away. I'd rather be playing something that battles better or something more lewd.

    The battle content feels too prioritized compared to the lewd content, yet drags playtime unless you're on very low difficulty - and even then, you still have to walk A-to-B and waste lots of time. No H-loss scenes, no enemies grabbing at Aura's gear, no truly lewd enemies, things you'd consider common for other H-games. As an example (and there are many more) Magical Girl Celesphonia is able to provide decently fun RPG gameplay, allow the player some level of expression and require some tactical thought, and keep the player horny.

    As mentioned in other reviews, Aura’s pacing is slow. You’ll play for 6-8 hours before anything truly lewd happens if you go at the pace I went with exploring and talking to everyone. I don’t mind that I’ve spent a number of hours in Aura; I do mind that it feels as though what there is to look forward to isn't engaging for my preferences. Do note if you're on the easiest difficulty you'll quickly get through battles, but it will still drain time.

    Let's shortly talk dialogue. I got tired of dialogue in general, but very tired of villains’ dialogue. Having to churn through 20-30 dialogue lines of “AURA!!!!!!!!!!!!” or “I WILL BEAT YOU!!!!!!!!” broke me. If you're truly here just for the trope of "smartest and nicest girl slowly changes to be a dicko-sucko" you might be able to jog through text wall after text wall and continue engagement. I did at one point enjoy reading it, but lost concentration after a while. Once Aura does start changing it almost feels off-character. I do suggest you avoid what I did and just skip dialogue if you don't feel yourself keeping interest.

    Pacing on day-to-day activities actively harms the player. Do you want more lewd content? Sorry, that adds corruption… but you *have* to use that corruption, maybe in ways you don’t like, to not get a game over. Do you prefer to level yourself and grind some more to make battles easier? Plenty of options, many which... end the day. At some point I set the difficulty to explorer to just forget about the diminishing values to keep track of. Compare this with many other RPGM-H games that often give the player more freedom/expression regarding how they want to "cater" their game both in battle and story.

    Normally in corruption RPGM-H games there are options that can slightly "force" the player to a lewd choice. Aura has this, but often you'll find ways around it if you want. Your mileage may vary with if you enjoy that or dislike it. I feel like sometimes it's confusing whether an option is low or high, but the player almost always has a choice if you use saves/loads.

    Bad repetition shows at times, and what broke me was at the end of the money realm, having to fight the same boss the same exact way multiple times, followed by a fun, but tiresome puzzley fighter-pick battle, followed by yet another boss battle where I lost interest and ended up getting suddenly one-shot, presumably by an attack I was meant to work around (another example of rock-paper-scissors that I missed due to exhaustion, oops). Early on I was able to accept the anime yelling I mentioned four paragraphs ago, but let me tell you, this fight has nothing coming from the villain's point other than more and more "AURA!!!!!!!!!!". At that point I swapped the game to easy and started sleeping through fights.

    Visual Novel Content and Pacing
    I feel the real world stuff starts strong, with quips like the “a kiss is for true lovers” as you can see in the preview screenshots. However, I find it gets tiring fast and was soon happy to skip through dialogue scenes. If you've read a few basic stories/doujins you'll immediately recognize the tropes of each character; no need to read pages of dialogue to get to the point. Maybe I'm more apathetic than I thought and it's what keeps me away. I've often found myself surprisingly connected and intrigued to H-game characters at times, so I can at least see why others find them appreciable, but Aura doesn't hit for me.

    You can tell a lot of effort has been put into keeping consistency among characters in regards to what is slowly changed in Aura’s mind-chamber, but because they start rather one-note and I’m not as much of a fan of the types of change, I didn’t really click with it. Again, if you like that sort of thing, this will be among the best H-games you've played. For me, it misses the mark.

    I have made an RPGM game or two and I know how much of a bitch it is to script scenes, so there has to be praise for the movement, emotions, and changes of dialogue characters go through in cutscenes. I just wish that dev time were put into fixing some of the issues I've mentioned.

    I'm not a fan of the button-pressing that suddenly makes Aura change. Some might counter-argue with "well, what do you expect corruption to be?" To that, I could argue some generic anime girl going "oh no, tentacles got me, now I'm starting to... like it?!!?" has almost as much nuance as Aura going "hmm.... books are boring. I want to get shoes." Is it really all that different? Later in my gameplay I felt like the RPG and real-world content started to mix a bit better, but still am unhappy with how expression is mostly railroaded, and it's an unfixable problem due to the separation between worlds and game intent.

    Going to again say Richard and Alicia are super one-note villains. I did enjoy some of the banter between Alicia and Aura at the very least. Once you've gotten a conversation or two out of the villains, you can estimate everything they're going to say/act for the rest of the game. It emphasizes my earlier comment on quickly being able to skip tons of dialogue and missing nothing worth reading. I was hoping for a memey early "good/bad" ending where Aura just straight up beats the shit out of them IRL.

    As my last long train of thought -- if you do play and find yourself enjoying parts of it but feeling what I felt, consider lowering the difficulty all the way and racing through combat content. It then feels more like a common highly rated corruption game. I did find in some testing that my serious complaints with the game were easier to navigate around if on the lowest difficulty -- but then again, maybe it's not really worth any time at that point and you should just unlock the gallery, whack it and leave. I like playing the game, so Aura fails for me.

    Conclusion
    To me, other RPGM-H games do the RPG part better and other VN-H games do the story better. There are some disconnects between gameplay and theming that didn't work for me, but could work very well for others.

    The amount of work that’s been put into the game is impressive, and I’d never be able to replicate it myself, but I wasn't happy playing. I am surprised to see how much Aura-dev is making on Patreon, but will give credit in that it appears content is being delivered over time unlike many other long-term projects that die on F95.

    For those of you more fetishized to the brain-side of corruption, this may hit a low 4/5. For the rest of us, this is a 2/5.
  10. 5.00 star(s)

    koroso

    Now this is what you call a good story, characters actually have personality and are not just some random NPCs, many people rate it low just want a quick fap for sure, cause this my man, is an actual game.

    5/5 Corruption, well developed, slow but it all makes sense taking into count the MC's natural self.

    5/5 Characters, they actually feel alive and not just random NPC

    5/5 R18 content, taking into count this game is probably halfway, after it's completed I'm sure will have lots of good content.


    4/5 Combat system, the same like most RPG maker stuff but still don't get that grindy or boring like most of the RPG's


    5/5 Art, just love it, nothing else to say.
  11. 5.00 star(s)

    xcalibar4

    Ah! I can understand why some people rate it low, it's porn game and just to get to good part you have to play a fair share of hours.

    But as a corruption genre fan I have played many RPGM games as most corruption games are made with RPGM for some reason or other. But to be honest it is one of the few RPGM games that I enjoyed PLAYING not for lewd scene but for the gameplay. (Though the story is good and scenes are really hot.)

    People say it's grindy but if they played shit or mid level RPGM or Sandbox games then they should be clear that it's not grindy at all. You just have to think a little before and keep close eyes to your stats like Addiction etc. Then most time you won't see scenes twice. Normal enemies or bosses don't reappear so how come it's grindy.

    And again

    YOU CAN LITERALLY PLAY IT JUST AS A NORMAL RPGM GAME, NOT FOR THE H-SCENES

    And if you love games then you'll definitely love it and will find that you're spending hours after hours in Roya just like Aura :D
  12. 5.00 star(s)

    Robin_Scales

    Man, this game is good at what it does.
    Almost TOO good.
    Most Ntr isn't *that* emotionally destructive, because the characters are kinda bland or kinda stupid.
    But Aura? Man, we really get a good glimpse into the person she is, and when she starts changing into a terrible person... It actually hurts. It rends your soul, just a little bit, piece by piece.
    The transition from pragmatic heroine into self-deluded anti-villain is so slow and well-crafted that you barely notice how much she changes, day by day until she conciders doing something really fucked up, which would have been out of the question at the beginning of the game, but not out of character on the road you've taken her down.
    Against all odds, you actually end up wanting to do the pure route instead.

    So like I said, the game is almost TOO good at corruption, because you start wishing you hadn't gone down that path. Because if you keep doing the shit that the villains want you to do... eventually the villains win.

    Anyways, yeah. Very long game, but none of it is really filler or padding. Gameplay is shockingly well designed for a RPGM turnbased combat-game where you most often only have one party member. You gotta use some braincells, as you can't rely on grinding. Takes a long while to get to any sex, but it's good when it gets there.

    5/5, may ruin your week, if you go down a dark path.
  13. 5.00 star(s)

    badluckss6

    V.0-44

    Warning : This game is captivating, you will offer all your nights to Aura for a month after trying it !
    It is focused on slow corruption. And GOD IT IS REALLY GOOD ! The best corrupting game ever see.

    Gameplay : Really good, the best gameplay i've seen in a porngame, precisely in a game focus on corruption.

    Story : Really good too, I really want to know more about the character, the world of Roya, what will happen to aura and others...

    Porn : Perfect if your kinks are corruption, mind control, hypnosis... If not, I think you will not really like this game who don't have H-scene before long time.

    HCG : The style is nice, there is now many HCG and the dev continue to add more CG every months.

    If you like the game, don't forget to support the dev ;)
  14. 5.00 star(s)

    itsyoboy232

    It is probably the best female protagonist RPGM game on the site that has both good pacing and story as well as playability. Great for slow burn and corruption but really bad for a quick fap. Wish there were more games like this.
  15. 4.00 star(s)

    meimatsumoto

    First time reviewing on here, so sorry for the structure.

    I did not expect to get engrossed in the writing and characters, but the creator did a good job writing them and having them act consistent that I did get pretty invested. Even the side NPCs have their own quirks and personalities. This ties into the meat of this game: the corruption. I've played quite a few corruption games and I can easily say that the writing for the MC is top tier, especially the details with the inner thoughts. The approach used here is very cool where you can see Aura's Psyche and Her Corrupting Influence: Luciela battle it out verbally over how Aura should react. However the best part about this is with the color coded names/dialogue, since you will start to see the lines get blurred and can see how some of Aura's statements start to get "taken over" by the lewd/pink thoughts. This approach makes every scene feel organic and spicy in a way few other corruption titles did for me. Why bother going for the corruption path if the heroine puts up no fight or we can't understand her inner thoughts and her struggle with her values?

    With that said, there are not many actual H-Scenes for this narrative approach to get used in, but this dynamic stretches across the whole game not just H-Events (i.e. deciding to steal stuff, turning against your irl friends, changes in morality, attitude towards your bf etc.) So like many reviews have stated, if you want a quick fap this game is not it and the actual CGs lack movement, moans, etc. This game thrives with its dialogue and characters providing the spice more akin to erotica. In fact, the corruption path covers all the bases so well that, it actually became hard to go down the path as things progressed because I actually felt bad for her friends, and the people around her in the other world too. All this to say that the depth of the corruption you get is far more than the surface level sexual and appearance stuff, like being able to see her fond memories and corrupt them at their core and see the changes reflect outward slowly.

    The game elements themselves are very well polished, and the gripes I have against the game are minor mostly. First off, it's not clear to the player what your progression blocks are especially in Chapter 1. I do not recommend playing on Normal difficulty for this reason. The combat is hard yet fair mostly, but at the beginning it's rough, so if you spend a lot of time upgrading your stats, reading books etc. you start to soft lock yourself because the game does not make it clear that you are forced to progress Roya's (the alternate world) quests in order to make progress on the IRL progression. The game makes no attempt to tell you which quests are the important ones that block this progression, so I fell into the trap of overpreparing for some hard fights, racking up corruption, finding out too late that Rose's relationship will not continue to go down until you pass story events in Roya, and ending up with too high corruption with nothing to sink bc I was hoping the progression would continue albeit slowly. This killed my 6 hour save, and on Normal if you fail this way, you can't even start a NG+ (so do yourself the favor and avoid Normal unless you can cheese all the hard fights early without the collar). That being said this H-Game felt like a real game in the sense that I was enabled to have that freedom in the first place in approaching the questing system.

    With the main nitpick out of way, what this game does awesome is that the the creator really knows how to sell the choices the player has (naturally in a corruption game you get less ability to actually choose as you get corrupted). A lot of corruption games I've played have basically featured the lewd choice as "flip your whore switch on" and then continue as normal afterwards. In this game, gold actually is very important, I actually ran out of it often with actual interesting things to spend them on like spells and combat skills (and most of them are relevant bc the combat system and encounters require more thought than the usual RPGM fare). Therefore, Aura's initial descent feels organic, and I as the player felt these lewd encounters had an actual gameplay draw to them outside of wanting to see fap material for fap material's sake. This wouldn't work if the lewd encounters weren't scaled the way they were. While the other reviews have a point in that you can go 10 hours without a sex scene, it feels organic that Aura starts with small stuff like showing her panties, showing her boobs, getting groped with her lewdness score, degeneracy and monetary reward (sometimes tangible rewards like exclusive skills) all ramping up as you progress. There's even "side corruption" style events like where you can have Aura's bar uniform change as see as she gets more comfortable/uncomfortable with the uniform and its effects on the guests. It's for this reason that I feel inclined to keep playing. Other games will have the heroine have sex quickly and from there, the only logical progression for her descent is to start throwing in gangbangs, sex slavery, etc. where it ramps up quickly, and it becomes hard to put weight behind any of the heroine's decisions.

    Hermann's scenes were actually some of my favorite because they were plausible traps to fall for and the effect of accepting the events were not apparent up front, allowing for mystery in how the corruption would develop. A simple date for 300 gold might seem like a fair trade, but the hidden risks and being able to come out of said date with Aura having a new reputation for saying she is ok with cheating sex is one of many ways the lewd events are structured in a narratively interesting way. And for me personally, I like to play corruption games where I the player, can have plausible deniability of whether or not the corruption could have been avoided as it adds extra spice and flavor. The many debuffs/curses your character gets, some of which can be avoided, add to this by making it hard for Aura to get value out of reading, perform worse in combat, and drug addictions and withdrawals dropping your stats all provide organic incentives to look for alternative means to navigate the world and questline. Later this flips on its head, because if your willpower is too low and your other fetishes/corruption is too high you will not have a real choice when you enter these lewd situations ( more prevalent in chapter 2). This brings it's own rewarding flavor of corruption as you the player can avoid entering these situations with lowered stats and preserve your choice in the matter, or put Aura in these situations purposefully where your lack of control over the outcome and subsequently Aura's lack of control drive the degeneracy home (complete with flavor text dependent on if u chose willingly or fell victim to rampant urges).

    Final thoughts: As a game it's great. As a detail-oriented slow burn corruption narrative, it's great. As a H-Game with CGs to get your rocks off it does fall a little flat. It unironically is a porn game where you care about the plot and have fun with the fights and exploring. While the artwork and artstyle are very good, if you can't get enjoyment out of reading (ironic given how you corrupt Aura) and are more satisfied by seeing visual degeneracy less than mental degeneracy, you should probably avoid this (I advise giving it a try still). It's a true Corruption RPG where you really get to put the role-playing in role-playing game, and some elements of this feel no different than playing a Bethesda or Bioware title in the good ways.
  16. 5.00 star(s)

    carlosmarques

    this game has a unique mechanic of playing as the mc and the villain at the same time to both try to beat the game as well as corrupt the mc. i recommend this for anyone who wants a simple turn based combat, good corruption 18+ content, good story and open world.
  17. 3.00 star(s)

    T ☯ K Y ☯

    for those who like a game with slow progression, a focus on story mode with lots of text and RPG gameplay will probably like this game, otherwise you'll just be wasting your time.

    which unfortunately was the case for me. Although the artwork is of good quality and the story is interesting, the game has a very slow progression, hours and hours of gameplay to see very few scenes.

    It got to the point where I ended up quitting the game, it's not for me unfortunately.
  18. 5.00 star(s)

    JoeyIsWeird

    Very good. Interesting new take on corruption genre. Actually good art style instead of some other styles in recent memory (ai). Main character can be kind of annoying at times and im still not the biggest fan of NTR, but otherwise, no complaints. Excited to see where it goes for the final product.
  19. 5.00 star(s)

    Metal Man

    I kinda slept on this game for years. I always found the real world gradual corruption fascinating, and the fantasy RPG stuff not as interesting. Rather stock, if anything. How many female protagonist games in this same vein have we seen?

    I was wrong. Having finally sat down and really sunk my teeth into it (three full playthroughs within the past week!), I have to say, this might be one of the crown jewels of RPG Maker games or WEG in general. I was repeatedly shocked by just how much there is to uncover. Phenomenal game.
  20. 5.00 star(s)

    js2057

    Probably one of the best games on this site. It has a slow burn but the corruption of the heroine from inside her own mind is a mechanic that is both unique and hot. Maybe not for everyone but definitely recommended for anyone with a mind-control or corruption fetish.

    As a note, I've seen reviews about difficulty. As with all rpgm games I play I put this on easy, and also edited my stats using a rgpm editor online to make everything essentially 1 hit kills. I would suggest this if you just want to be engrossed with the story and characters.