RPGM - Completed - Star Knightess Aura [v1.0.2] [aura-dev]

[Original Review: May 23, 2021]

Star Knightess Aura explores the idea of a clever, hardworking isekai heroine facing off against her devious childhood friend and an evil, mysterious, overachieving stranger as they attempt to have her brainwashed before she can figure out their curse.

It's a well-tread territory with the twist of a fairly self-aware and competent heroine who only falls into traps because she explicitly chooses or is forced to do so. It dissects the typical heroine psychology, pointing out the pretensions and flaws actually endemic to people who think they can save the world. It's important to remember that Aura IS the hero and Alicia and Richard ARE unequivocally evil, but the game revels in pointing out how their superficial likes and dislikes are totally irrelevant to HOW good or evil they are, and the game is willing to paint the hero's psyche -- as in, the literal manifestation of her psyche in her human form -- as twisted, egotistical, and self-sabotaging.

It's a nice change of pace. What's NOT a nice change of pace is how slow this game moves. I played almost 8 hours, and I'm not sure if there even is any sexual content in this game. It's a VERY slow burn, focusing very strongly on the mentality of everyone involved in this farce while exploring the world of Roya and Aura's friendships in detail. While I appreciated the depth of writing, I don't remember there being anything to touch myself to while I played.

In that regard, I also don't know if I'm going to watch this game's development. The developer has indicated that they will probably spend 3 years developing this -- that's a LONG time commitment, and I wouldn't be surprised if they tire out or change directions suddenly while developing this game. That's not to say that it's impossible for them to finish this on its current course, only that I will be pleasantly and genuinely surprised if this is finished as intended. Unfortunately, I won't be waiting on it -- I joined this site to get my rocks off, not to philosophize.

TLDR; Worth a look, but don't expect to have something to fap with for a long time.

[Update: Feb 17, 2022]

I don't intend to update my star rating, as most of what I originally wrote still holds true, but I should mention that there are now at least a few lewd scenes in the game. It's not easy figuring out how to get them in the most sensible fashion, as this game has very tight resource management involved in it, so I strongly suggest following the max lewdness guide linked on the opening post to experiences it all.

Review for Version 0.6.4: (Roughly 3 hours into the Dev suggested 9 hours available content)

Looks like a well thought out and interesting slow burn corruption game, while I haven't played everything that's available yet, I can already tell that this is something of a higher quality then is usually available. I think this game bares watching, and potentially supporting. I'll be watching to see how the Dev supports the game, and what sorts of corruption/fetishes are planned, before deciding.

That said, if you're looking for a quick progression to H-content, there's just not that much available here yet. Give this one a try when you feel like being titillated, instead of just wanting to get off.

So this is a Mind Control fetish game.

If the idea of a woman who fervently swore that the vacuous commercialism of a women's fashion magazines is nothing but a source of misery and despair for all woman kind, and fucking meant it, turning around and ravenously consuming said product, with genuine glee, because you flipped a switch in her head doesn't give you a raging erection, this game is not for specifically for you.

It's got a good slow burn on it. The combat is tricky and the balance of embracing corruption without destroying everything is delicate.

This is seriously one of the most promising new games on the site.

At the time of this writing, the game has a lack of features that are necessary to make it reasonable as an eroge: CGs, for example.

However, by far the worst part is that the game reads like a self-insert fanfic written by a horny 16 year old girl. The heroine, who in her everyday life looks somewhat plain, is lusted after by the evil guy - who has a girlfriend. The evil guy is plainly evil, and he doesn't have a whole lot of depth to him. Major plot elements are revealed quickly and bluntly, leading to a general narrative flow that is extremely poor.

This is worth a miss. Unless you must masturbate to a new game every single day, then there is no reason to play this.

This game truly NAIL IT.. the corruption is not just about slutification, the corruption in this game make corruption in mind, ethics, looks or style, relationship, interest and happiness.. even though there aren't cg in this current version 0.61, it's still really masterpiece.. Can't wait the game to finish..

What a pleasant surprise, this game. This was a bottom-of-the-barrel find for me. Between the anime style and the stock RPGM thumbnail, I wasn't expecting much. But something about the description caught my attention. "to brainwash and corrupt Aura from the inside"? Maybe this would be a little more than a wannabe rapey H-RPG. And indeed, SKA offers one of the most comprehensive intentional corruption plots I've seen, and that's not the only thing it brings to the table.

tl;dr of the premise: Aura goes to school and interacts with friends during the daytime, and is a heroine in the fantasy world of Roya at night. Her ex-friend Alicia interacts with Aura in the real world, lives in Aura's head as a demonic entity while Aura is in Roya, and has access to Aura's subconscious. Due to a curse placed on Aura, various acts increase her Corruption, which Alicia can direct on changing various things - Aura's interests, her disposition towards the people around her, and more. You play as Aura in Roya, as Alicia in Aura's subconscious, and then you watch the events in Aura's life in the real world.

The two protagonists are... interesting, in a good way. Aura is, at first and at least for the first few hours of the game, kind of a Mary Sue. Studious, geeky and despite that, supremely confident and able to stand up to the school bullies to protect others. She's the perfect starting point for a slow and thorough corruption. Her former best friend Alicia is a cross between a school bully and a Disney villain, evil laugh and all. She mocks Aura's innocence, naivety, chastity and faith in people, gleefully tearing them down, bit by bit. There aren't many scenes with Alicia where she doesn't end up getting herself wound up in an inner monologue about how she's going to ruin Aura, and I can't help but smirk along at her excitement. It's refreshing to have a villain who is into the corruption per se rather than just being an opportunistic lecher.

The gameplay is surprisingly polished and fun. It's not a big deviation from classic RPGM gameplay. You fight mobs, you learn spells and skills, you spend gold on armor and weapon upgrades. It all feels "tight", there's not much fat here. Every consumable is useful, even the lowly apples are important for recovering health between fights. Every ability has its uses. Mobs don't respawn, so there is no grinding, though I found myself backtracking through dungeons a lot because ending the day to restore HP and MP often feels worth it (though it also increases Aura's Corruption a bit, which you may not necessarily want too much of). At the same time, it doesn't feel too restrictive, there is some player agency here in what quests/training/purchases to prioritize and how to spend the day. The boss battles are tough but usually fair. Sometimes they're excessive, especially the optional ones which you can find before you're really ready to take them on. It all entices the player to have Aura evoke her overpowered form by removing her collar, which also increases her Corruption quite a bit. I love this mechanic, as it gives the player a major tool in managing Corruption progress, and allows them to essentially skip fights they don't want.

The corruption aspect is what drew me to the game in the first place. Right now it's both exciting and frustrating. This is already shaping up to be one of the most comprehensive corruption arcs seen in a game. While some games would be happy to slap a "lust curse" on the heroine so that she has to have sex early and frequently, this one has her personality systematically dismantled at the hands of a giggling evil genius. Geeky interests give way to more girly ones, friendships are strained, morals are compromised. It's a very slow burn, there's hardly any sexual content in the game right now. What there is almost feels shoehorned just to have something in the early game, the usual "I'll give you a discount if you let me see your panties" trope. Acts like this increase Aura's Lewdness and Lewd Knowledge, which are separate from Corruption, being stats rather than a resource. Honestly, I'm not a fan of how these are rationed and gated behind scenes you may not want for Aura's corruption arc. Compared to Corruption, Lewdness feels more rigid, which I'm not a fan of.

My frustration with the corruption system comes from its relative linearity right now, with much content just not being available. Also, there is a strong sense of a lot of the content being gated by events, not just the stat requirements you are given. You see all these rooms in Aura's headspace, with all these things you can spend corruption on, yet right now it's somewhat of an illusion of freedom. There's a reason why you may, e.g. need exactly -63 relationship with Alicia to make a certain change, it's because that's how far the events can get you. You can't even touch Aura's relationship with her BF or Richard yet. I dearly hope for less linearity when the game is closer to completion. With enough work, this could be the most intricate and replayable corruption-focused game for those of us who aren't in it just for the sexual content.

What I'd like to see in future updates:

- More real-world scenes and scene permutations based on player choices regarding Aura's corruption, of course.

- Less linearity in Aura's corruption in general; not much content that is gated behind story events or other corruption aspects, except where it wouldn't make any sense otherwise.

- Once directly sexual corruption options are available, it should be in different types, e.g. exhibitionism, masochism, sadism, oral, etc. And again, independent from one another as much as possible.

- The tone of the game is usually rather saccharine, especially Aura's positive interactions. I hope this is something intended to be subverted as the corruption progresses. More negative interactions, more selfishness, superficiality, and of course some good, dark NTR.

- This may sound strange, but I hope sexual content with Alicia is going to be optional/avoidable. More Charlotte would be nice, though.

- Eventually, a scene guide/recollection room that persists across playthroughs, including all the real-world scenes.

- Repeatable (maybe escalating) sources of Lewdness so the player can avoid scenes they don't want.

- Art for the sex scenes, of course. I know 2dcg is coming, though I'd also welcome sprite sex and more sound effects.

- An option for instantly-appearing text rather than crawling.

- An item or ability that teleports back to the shrine, to minimize backtracking.

Update as of August 2021:

The central characters have received new commissioned illustrations and the H-scenes are slowly being illustrated as well, with the priority being voted-on on Patreon. Most of the maps have been redone with more appealing tilesets, so this is one of the nicest-looking RPGM games I've seen.

H-scenes now have a "pink version", achieved by tanking Aura's willpower temporarily, which garner more Corruption, Lewdness and secondary lewd stats. Should help with avoiding scenes you might not want while still getting those stats.

Instant-text is now an option, much appreciated.

A relatively linear progression of mental changes is planned for 1.0, and there are more plot-critical interactions within these mental change scenes than I thought, which will make non-linearity tricky, though it is apparently something the dev wants to do after 1.0.

Directly sexual mental changes are not available yet, meaning the H-scenes remain, for the most part, reluctance-based on Aura's part. As of right now, the game is around 20% of the way to 1.0 and Aura's corruption reflects that, so it is still a game that will mostly be appreciated by fans of mind-control and slow corruption.

I really love this game. Though gameplay can be hard at times, the overall concept with mind manipulation is great.

Absolutely recommended for the lovers of good mid paced corruption with the change of character looks and behavior.

Oh and it's NTR game, though NTR isn't it's main topic NTR haters shouldn't play it or they'll have a heart attack.

Really enjoyed playing it. Didn't even notice 10h pass. x2

One of the few games I follow for updates regularly.

Regular and quality updates. Good art. Great story. Lost of H scenes. Combat is unique and can be nearly instantaneous once you learn it, wasting minimal time while still being enjoyable.

I really liked the "Aura's mind" area too. Can't wait to see how it develops!

Definitely buy this one once it's finished and it gets on steam.

Very interesting story and characters. Few NSFW game's have interesting enough writing to where I would happily read a safe for work webnovel based of the story alone.
Love the comedy and drama of it all so far and can't wait to see more.

I'm not a fan of NTR personally, but I'll admit corrupting Aura is too fun not to go for that route.

The one thing I'm hoping this game has is different ways of corrupting the protag, with mildly different results.
I.e. turning her into a brainless bimbo, or turning her into a machiavellian villain, rather then just one corruption path. Then again, that'd be way more work so I can see why you wouldn't go that route.

Hello my name is Siderophilia and I have played Star Knightess Aura [v0.5] by Aura-dev.

Star Knightess Aura is a story driven RPG which pulls a lot of inspiration from the tropes of the Isekai genre. Another "slow corruption" game, it is clearly not for everyone, but shows some interesting promise for those who enjoy a story that takes its time.

The greatest thing about Star Knightess Aura is how it feels like it was written in its entirety by a 12-yearold. The dialogue is filled with errors, including classics such as "fail to substitute the name of the speaking character". Aside from this, it is also comically childish. The main character and her friends are goody-two-shoes who can do no wrong, while the antagonists are simply over-the-top evil for no apparent reason. In case you missed it, characters will drop lines like "that's the guy who made my mom commit suicide", just to make sure you know that this kid who goes to the same high school as you is indeed, for some reason, pure evil. I also love how it displays the MC's friendships by going on tangents which have nothing to do with the overall story. Do you wonder what kind of books this secondary character enjoys? No? Well I made and scripted a full scene to tell you.

By far the best part however is how the author figued out he can display intonation by changing the font size. When characters angrily taunt their opponents the dialogue just goes:
DiieeEEEEEEEEEE!

You would think all this makes for a bad experience and objectively it is bad writing, but I just keep laughing my ass off reading this and I think trying to fix it too much would just result in mediocrity. Also the way characters are written to be overly good makes the promise of corrupting Aura and NTR:ing her boyfriend with the school bully even sweeter. The main advice I would give the author would be to gather some feedback to fix the occasional erroneous character names linked to dialogue boxes which make reading really confusing and to chill with the damn RPGM smack camera shake effect. Once in a while is fine but you can't do it for every subsequent line of dialogue!

I really like the concept the author puts forward with the three stage structure of Aura entering the dream world of Roya at night, Alicia corrupting her mind based on her actions in Roya, and lastly watching Aura's changing personality taking effect during the day. The first of these stages constitutes the meat of the gameplay and is where the actual RPG mechanics are seen. RPG gameplay is a little unrefined at the time but the base is solid and the author seems intent on balancing it further. I like the way XP is handed out as a quest reward rather than for defeating enemies, as it hopefully means the game won't be too heavy on grinding. It seems the corruption system will be pretty detailed as well, with specific stats measuring attitudes towards cheating, exhibitionism, etc.

The music is pretty obnoxious at times which matches with the over-the-top atmosphere. I'd recommend turning it down a bit. I don't know if these are default tracks for MZ or if the author found them in some royalty free music bank.

The one reason I might recommend holding off on playing Star Knightess Aura for now would be the lack of art. I get it, art is expensive, and I see how it can be bad to rush into the process as a lot of projects end up with style changes due to switching artists mid-development, the way the dev's Patreon just says he'll "look into it" if the project reaches a set goal doesn't ring well. The fact of the matter is, art is a major component of games like these and if the user experience is going to improve significantly at a later date you might be better off waiting until then. Check out the game if you consider supporting the dev, but otherwise maybe just hold off for a while.

It's a tough game to score. A lot of the enjoyment I got out of it was kind of ironical, but I also think it shows a lot of promise and could be a genuinely good experience in the future. At the time however it is a bit hard to predict if it will live up to those expectations. As of now it's a 4/5 stars, but I'll make sure to follow development and be around to update the score if future releases improve on what's already there.

edit: As of v0.10.1 the developer has addressed most of the concerns that itched me, and also hired an artist through a very open process.The visual art is probably going to lag behind the developed parts of the game for quite some time, but it looks really amazing. Thus the score is updated to 5/5.

Went into this one with high hopes because of the good reviews, but just... could not get into it. The intro is extremely cringe-worthy writing (spoilers, you're introduced to a ton of character and then they're all just killed off).

But I was willing to get past that and just continue on until I got to an unskippable fight and lost. Sure, there's an auto-save right before it, but gimme a break. Designers! If you're going to make an unskippable fight in the game before players have a chance to learn what their characters can do, buy gear for them, buy potions for them, or level them up, Don't make it an auto-game-over if you lose! It's like, "well, you've just started and I've not given you a chance to actually get used to your character, but here's a tough fight and a game over if you fail! Have fun!!" No! That's the opposite of fun! It's terrible.

Very good start to a slow corruption game. Plenty of room for expansion, and not too grindy. Main character seems to be written well, good english throughout and supporting characters have some good interactions too.

[rev @ v0.4.1]

Great start. Needs more lewds.

Art's a bit primative.

Writing is good, scenario's handled well even if it's not the most novel. The voice and narrative are good and the characterization is strong. It's a bit wordy.

Needs more porn. Tags in description are great but the current release content is thin.

TLDR: Godspeed~

The game shows true promise, and has some great characters. Although the demon lord sucks as a character, the other villain is one that is fantastic and unlike the demon lord, she actually deserves to win.
Combat is rather lame early on with spells having ridiculous costs, almost requiring remove collar at boss fights

This game holds a lot of promise for those who love slow corruption/moral degradation games. It's fairly well written with a strongly characterized, if somewhat stock, cast and setting. The corruption mechanic being the unknowing manipulation of the MC's psyche by the second lead is a great vehicle for developing both characters. The level structure is also engaging enough for the RPG elements to not be a complete grindfest, with plenty of interactable elements to change the maps and multiple ways to enter/exit some areas/buildings. The art needs reworking, but it is a Patreon goal for the developer that is already ~1/4 of the way there and that I'll be contributing $5 monthly towards for the foreseeable future.

This is shaping up to be one of the most intricate and engaging rpgm adventure games I've played.

The mix of corruption, mind control and isekai is beautiful. Never seen anything exactly like it.

It's not quite there yet as there's currently only some light groping, but the game is setting things up for an awesome continuation.

As of v0.9.1 there are still no sex scenes. That's fine, but it's critical to the game that there will be fully illustrated sex scenes when Aura starts to have sex. Not having them would be a deal-breaker for me.

I love the mechanics of the game.

I will update my review when I play a later version.

Edit: All the things I was looking for has been fulfilled.
The game content is edited a lot which is good, but sometimes make saves unreliable.
Since it's becoming a rather large game it would be nice to be able to jump to different predetermined save states to get caught up without playing it all again.

A personal opinion of mine is that Aura should become aware of how she's being changed, try to resist and then fail to. Change is less impactful if she has no chance to fight it. At least later on.
Having her become a bitch to everyone around her would make the player care less that she's being manipulated. It'd be cool if she regained some control, but lost out in the end.

[TL;DR A mostly text based RPG with a small, but growing number of CGs. None of which are pornographic as of 0.9]
As of the 0.9+ version of this game, the first arc of the game is nearing completion. Until this arc finishes there aren't going to be any massive changes to the MC's personality or actions. There is an element of slow burn corruption, which at the moment ends with small changes to the MC such as switching to contacts over glasses, unbraiding her hair, reading a fashion magazine over studying, and deciding to wear slightly fashionable shoes. If you are just here for porn images, there's not much here for you at the moment. The game is designed in a way that prevents you from grinding in any meaningful way. The combat has a finite number of enemies, and you don't get experience from them. Other than bosses in most cases it better to just dodge the fight if you can do so safely. My one warning (and a bit of an issue) regarding combat is that you can get into very tough situations if you try to dungeon dive while you are in a party. I would suggest keeping a few different backup saves for this reason. The character art is getting custom commissions as time goes on. The story is pretty much "isekai but with porn," but it uses the two worlds elements in an interesting way. The game is well written, and the pace it is getting content released has been very consistent.