Aura Kingdom is an Anime MMO that I never really got into. There was just something about it that looked aesthetically appealing on the outside, but once you got into the game.. felt lower tier than its predecessors like Grand Fantasia and Eden Eternal.

Yet in news I never saw coming… and realistically in news I guarantee you never saw coming either, Aura Kingdom is receiving a sizeable new update.

The update in question is larger than expected, increasing the new level cap for players to grind towards, multiple new maps for players to explore, a set of new quests that culminate in the unlocking of several different dungeons, and.. quite a bit more. New content is one of the only ways to keep current players interested and logging in to play, and it’s been a very long time since an update of this magnitude was released.

For those of you that thought Aura Kingdom was dead… well, let’s be real: It is. But it is still somehow receiving the odd update here and there. I’m honestly not certain the active playerbase warrants that, but I’m glad to see it still doing.. things.

Aura Kingdom remains one of the only Anime MMOs left for players that enjoy the unique aesthetic Anime games supply, other than something like SoulWorker or PSO2, which are both hub-MMOs – something that Aura Kingdom is not.

I’ve always been a fan of Anime MMORPGs. I grew up on Tales of Pirates – which was my first introduction to the MMO genre, then moved on to other games like FlyFF, Fiesta, Florensia – Yes, a lot of MMOs beginning with F.
I never dedicated a whole lot of time to any of Aeria Games’ – or rather X-Legend’s Anime MMOs. Yes, I enjoyed Eden Eternal but Grand Fantasia, Dragomon Hunter, Twin Saga – even Aura Kingdom never really appealed to me.
Not because any of them were inherently bad games, but because I just found the games I was playing – or had played to be better.
Maybe it was nostalgia. Maybe it was due to the fact that I’d played the exact same game earlier – but regardless, here we are, taking a look at Aura Kingdom in 2020. Almost 2021, actually.

Upon first inspection, Aura Kingdom is a pretty good looking Anime MMO.
Aesthetically, the world is large, colorful – vibrant, full of life. This is honestly something I miss in MMOs I see these days. Everyone tries so heavily to emulate the “few popular MMOs” that they’ve given up on crafting beautiful worlds like this.
I was surprised when beginning the game that there were a grand total of 17 unique playable classes.
Character creation was about what you’d expect out of an Anime MMO – you had a few different face types, hairstyles, hair colors and eye colors to choose from. There’s no body customization, control over facial features.
But that’s alright, there are plenty of outfits available in-game that provide you many an opportunity to customize your avatar’s appearance.

Then you’re greeted with an introductory tutorial to the game – I feel as though this is entirely unnecessary as not only is Aura Kingdom incredibly basic, but it’s also simultaneously an MMO.. and let’s be real here: Most MMO function more or less the same way.

And the rest is history. Aura Kingdom is an MMO – after logging in, you begin journeying across a large world filled with NPCs that need assisting, monsters that need murdering, and dungeons that need plundering.
The game features a tab-target combat system. It’s nothing special – it doesn’t compare to a tab-target combat system like ArcheAge, Aion or even World of Warcraft but at the same time it feels smooth enough to enjoy without issue.
The game functions much as every other MMO: There are quest-hubs that you take quests from, make progress through and ultimately move on to the next zone appropriate to your level.
There are dungeons and raids present in-game, but unfortunately since we only made it to level 20? Level 30? We didn’t get to experience any of the latter. The former? Totally. We did solo-instances, and then a friend of ours, PaperCat joined us to help us with a group-instance.
I wouldn’t call it a dungeon necessarily, as it lacked what would normally be considered traditional dungeon mechanics, but it felt like the end of one – with a large boss battle, or multiple consecutively, rather.
Speaking of, we actually had the pleasure of playing not only with, but also around some of you guys which was a lot of fun for us.
Getting together with the community we’ve built is an incredible experience. Seeing so many of you in a game this old – seeing so many of you in these grandiose outfits, maxed out in level, ready and willing to help us with whatever we needed was amazing.

Speaking of the combat, and grouping up with players.. one thing I found issue with was that the majority of our quests only counted kills or drops by participation. Meaning that if I killed a monster, Mrs Stix didn’t get credit for the kill. At all.
I’m not sure if this was merely a bug we were having or we had settings set up incorrectly, but if that’s how Aura Kingdom functions in terms of participating in group content, then.. yeah that’s a no go for me.

Aura Kingdom has some features that definitely make it stand out: You have an Eidolon that in essence acts as an additional member of your party. There’s a type of gliding – allowing you to cover large distances faster than even your mount can move.
It has some incredibly detailed mounts, some very appealing outfits and overall is about as fun as any Anime MMO can be to explore.
I’m not fond of how pay-to-win the costumes are though as they provide beneficial statistics like +damage, +HP, +crit and more which are detrimental to winning against another player in PvP, or even competitively raiding.
But other than that, honestly, I found my journey through the 1-30 zones to be kind of peaceful. It was a very traditional MMO experience and honestly, that wasn’t something Mrs Stix had ever really experienced before – an older, more traditional Anime MMO.
So this was good for both of us.

Would I play Aura Kingdom long-term? Probably not. Would I recommend it to other people, though? If they were interested in an older-school more traditional Anime MMO then totally.
We had some fun in it after all.

So I’ve actually been looking forward to playing Aura Kingdom 2 for a while now. I’ve played quite a bit of the PC incarnation of the game over the years and at the beginning of its life it was a pretty fun game.
After returning to it years later the game is a hot mess but I went into the mobile port hoping that it would elaborate on what made Aura Kingdom a lot of fun to me.
Considering it just launched, I figured this would probably be the best opportunity to do a video on it as well. So here we are.

Just the character creation alone is incredible. Well, not the freedom you have over your character. You have barely any options for your character at all: A few faces, a few hairstyles and a couple colors to choose from.
But your character itself, although fairly basic, actually looks amazing. I never expected the character models to look as good as they do so color me impressed.
While there’s no real customization, you do have the ability to add some accessories, which is… Iunno, a thing I guess?

Before we get into the actual game though I do want to stress the fact that I opted out of notifications, but to play Aura Kindgom 2, you have to allow them to send you notifications, something that just irks me to no end.

Then we get into the game, and there are actual cutscenes. Lots and lots of cutscenes. This is great – I’m a sucker for story but the more I progressed through the story the more I felt as though it was your generic mobile game story.
I know you guys know what I’m talking about. The story that seemingly every mobile MMO uses.
Add onto that the fact that the entire game, almost, is auto-play.. honestly, it killed my excitement a little bit. I’m aware we’re not required to enable or utilize auto-play but it just made it easier to let play while I played games on my PC.
Yes, I got fairly bored with it. I made it to level 20 something by the time I’d finished recording and all it had me do were some pretty basic fetch and retrieve quests, with the odd “kill a few monsters” in there here and there.
That isn’t an issue though – most MMOs follow this same formula, but for the most part you’re forced to do it yourself, which leaves you feeling involved.
At the very least my Eidolon’s skill had to be clicked manually, so I guess that’s something I needed to do. But it didn’t do much – a small burst of damage every few minutes wasn’t enough to warrant my attention.
Boss fights required actual attention though as bosses use AoEs and telegraphed attacks that require active dodging and mitigation. Those were some of the only times I was required to play the game and if this was more prevalent, Aura Kingdom 2 would be a lot more entertaining.

Interestingly enough, where most mobile games spam you with tutorials for the entire first hour, this actually did not. At all. It just threw me in there and expected me to know what I was doing, and that was refreshing.
I prefer figuring things out myself, and I’ve played enough mobile games and MMOs both to know exactly what I was doing upon entering the game.
I was also required to manually equip my gear without an “auto-equip” button – that’s almost revolutionary for a mobile MMO!

Realistically, outside of group content like dungeons or raids, I don’t see much of a point to the “multiplayer” aspect of the game. You don’t need to group with people out in the world, much in the same way as every other mobile MMO.
And while the game looks beautiful – the characters especially, there really isn’t a whole lot that actively requires your attention.

This game looks great, it plays well but at the end of the day it’s just another pretty copy>paste mobile MMO that doesn’t bring anything new to the table.

Aura Kingdom is an Anime inspired free to play MMORPG published in the West by Aeria Games. It has cute 3D Anime graphics, tab-target combat, a large variety of classes to choose between and is probably one of the most polished Anime MMOs on the market right now.

Unfortunately, the game has a low population due to problems with pay to win and a poor publisher.

Aura Kingdom is a tab-target Anime inspired MMORPG by Aeria Games. It offers some of the best looking graphics in an Anime MMO along with one of the most complete experiences you’ll find in an Anime inspired game.

Aura Kingdom is one of the few Anime MMORPGs left with any semblance of a population.
Is it because Aura Kingdom is just that good? Is it because the market lacks an alternative for people interested in Anime MMORPGs to flock towards?

The Anime niche right now is almost dead. People refer to TERA and Blade and Soul as Anime MMORPGs but the reality of it is that games like Peria Chronicles, Soul Worker and KurtzPel are Anime-inspired games we should be looking at.

So – with Aura Kingdom being one of the only Anime MMORPGs left.. let’s go over whether or not you should be playing it in 2018 or avoiding it altogether.

Aura Kingdom’s character creator is more or less what you’d expect from an Anime MMORPG.
It gives you the basic multi-hair choices, a few varying faces with slightly different features and eye colors, skin colors, etc., but overall the character creator in comparison to other MMORPGs is severly lacking.
Especially when you look at games like Peria Chronicles and KurtzPel which are both due in the next couple years.
Honestly, if Aura Kingdom gave me the ability to actually go ahead and create an avatar that looked different to the 400 other people running around I’d call it one of the best Anime MMOs ever.

Which leads me to my next talking point: The gameplay.
The game plays very well for an Anime MMORPG. Granted, the official Aeria servers are absolute garbage; honestly, I recommend playing on a private server.
It really enhances the gameplay of the game when you’re not stuck behind a 2 second delay between actions.
Movement is incredibly fluid and looks very high quality for an Anime MMO, especially considering when it was made. Even games like Twin Saga, which was released after Aura Kingdom fail to play as well.

Now, the combat-aspect of the gameplay is another story.
It is, of course, a tab-target game as opposed to an action one but from the leveling we’ve done it is obvious that the combat, for a tab-target MMO is very high quality.
Now, I do stress that this is an Aeria Games game and I have a biased hatred for Aeria Games due to them shutting down games faster than my wife shuts me down when I’m drunk and horny.
I cannot believe they shut down Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine. That game was one of the most unique games I’d ever played as an MMO.
Regardless, the combat, even for an Aeria Games game performs very well. Quite exceptionally even for an Anime MMO.
The special effects, the movements, the variety of skills.. it all looks and plays out very, very well. Honestly I wouldn’t believe you if you said this was an Aeria Games’ game.

Which leads me to the next part of this review: The classes.
Aura Kingdom has 14 classes in all. The Guardian, Duelist, Ravager, Wizard, Sorcerer, Bard, Grenadier, Gunslinger, Katar, Battle Bow.. yes, Battle Bow.
“Hey, boss, what’s that.. that uhh.. profession called? The one that uses a bow in battle?” “A Battle Bow, clearly.” “Ah, right. Yeah. How silly of me.”
The Tachi, Scythe, Holy Sword.. yes, you can clearly tell they have a penchant for imaginative class naming. And finally, Shinobi.
That’s quite a sizable, if not varied selection of classes to choose from and honestly, they all play fairly differently from one another which is something I enjoy.
I cannot stress enough how much I loathe having multiple classes with subtle differences between them to differentiate the classes.

You, the player, are an Envoy of Gaia.
Equipped with a trusty Eidolon companion, and concerned for your sanity after witnessing another Envoy of Gaia transform into a demon, you venture out with the assistance of the Church of Navea to find a way to stop the demon army of Pandemonium and prevent your descent into their ranks.
The story in Aura Kingdom is fairly generic – but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. The fact that an Anime MMORPG actually posesses a storyline that you can follow is quite something.
Most Anime MMOs are simple carbon copies of one another that – in essence – involve you running from little hub to little hub killing a few monsters.
And while this isn’t a whole lot different – it isn’t, trust me, the fact that the story pushes you between zones and propels you further into the game is something I enjoy about Aura Kingdom.

Graphically, Aura Kingdom is a beautiful game. I mean if you compare it to something like Soul Worker Online then sure.. it pales in comparison.
But for the kind of game it is: A large, proper RPG with explorable areas like most traditional MMORPGs.. it’s probably one of, if not the best looking game out there.
The characters are cute, the animations are adorable, and the overall feel of the game is very Anime-esque.
It’s probably the highest quality Anime MMORPG in the West as of January 2018.

Speaking of, just because it looks the best and possibly plays the best doesn’t mean it is the most well received.
Quite the contrary.
Many players left the official Aura Kingdom servers due to the poor handling from Aeria Games. They handled Aura Kingdom about as well as all their other games: You know, the ones that all ended up shut down? Yeah, those ones.
So the general population – on the official servers, that is, is quite low. Like, the kind of low you tend to avoid because you won’t really see anyone else around.
The private server alternatives, though – one in specific, actually, has a fairly large population for an Anime title.

Now with a level cap of 80, it stands to reason that there should be a world large enough to fill that urge to explore.
Nobody likes small games – nobody likes games that lock you into little areas separated by instances.. like Echo of Soul. Another of Aeria’s terrible lineup of games.
So the fact that Aeria gives you large areas to roam and lose yourself in is a great feeling. Although most Anime MMOs allowed you to anyway, so this isn’t anything new.

Speaking of wandering the world – what would the game be if it didn’t have many different aspects of PvE, hmm?
Let’s quickly break down exactly what Aura Kingdom offers us:
Dungeons – Traditional instanced dungeons that you tackle with a small group.
Raids – Traditional instanced raids that you take on with a larger group than dungeons that provide increased difficulty.
Quests – Both the main scenario and side quests are available in the game to alleviate the need to grind out your levels.
Professions/Crafting – Then you have your varied list of professions such as Fishing, Archaeology, Gathering, and Cooking.
Other – Then you have some fun things like Card Duels, Guardian Knight.. yes, don’t ask me what that is, after reading the wiki.. I still have no idea, Gaia Chronicle, and Player Housing.
So all in all, there are a lot of features to partake in in Aura Kingdom. With regards to PvE at least.

Now for those of you interested in destroying one another and showing who has the larger e-peen, Aura Kingdom offers two different forms of pissing-contest:
1v1 Duel – A 1v1 confrontation between two children hiding behind the anonymity of their computer furiously attempting to think up the best way to make the other kill themselves.
5v5 Arena – Where the real magic of teamwork, unity and camaraderie happens.. Who am I kidding? You know everyone in PvP just sits there raging at everyone else for sucking.

That’s a very good question.
The official Aeria Games version of Aura Kingdom is definitely not worth playing.
It is filled with bugs, it is run poorly, the rates are terrible, and you’d be supporting a company that shuts down games that’re no longer making them enough money to continue.
Speaking of private servers though.. I would definitely recommend playing through one of the larger ones as the game is definitely worth it.

Operating System: Windows 7 / 8 / 10 64 Bit
CPU: Intel i3-550 / AMD Athlon II X4 620
Video Card: Geforce GTS 250 / Radeon R7 240
RAM: 4GB
Hard Disk Space: 60GB

Operating System: Windows 7 / 8 / 10 64 Bit
CPU: Intel i5-2500 / AMD FX-6300
Video Card: Geforce GTX 560 / AMD HD 6950
RAM: 8GB
Hard Disk Space: 60GB