(29 votes, average: 2.72 / 5)
Loading...Aika Online
Aika Online is a PvP-oriented MMORPG where Nations take to the battlefield to compete for territorial control. Join one of five factions, and choose from six different classes to explore beautiful environments, and level your character to defend your nation and secure victory.
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Publisher: T3Fun (HanbitSoft) Playerbase: Low Type: PvP MMORPG Release Date (Korea): December 31, 2010 Pros: +Interesting map and character models. +Dialogue is often humorous. +Unique Pet System. Cons: -Gender locked classes. -Limited appearance options. -Bland combat. |
Aika Online Overview
Aika Online is a PvP-focused MMORPG developed by JoyImpact. Participate in massive battleground fights between hundreds of players to obtain magical artifacts. Wrestle for territorial control with other nations and complete a variety of missions. When not participating in the Nation Wars, players can complete over a thousand quests, raise a pet, craft, and conquer dungeons in the enormous world of Arcan. Pick from half a dozen different classes and a significant amount of unique abilities to reign over both other players and fierce monsters. But you don't have to go alone, take a companion known as a Pran with you on your many adventures. Raise your Pran from a child to adulthood and along the way she will change based on how you treat her.
Aika Online Key Features:
- Variety of Classes - six different classes to play, with a wide variety of skills to ensure each play through is different.
- Great Modeling - explore an expansive world and discover unique characters with visually appealing designs.
- Pran Pet System - raise a human-fairy companion through adulthood, that evolves based on how you treat them.
- Amusing Dialogue - NPC conversations are both engaging and entertaining, leading to humorous interactions.
- Large Scale PvP - join one of five warring factions and participate in large scale PvP with up to one-thousand players fighting at once.
Aika Online Screenshots
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Aika Online Featured Video
Aika Online Classes
Melee Fighters:
Warriors (Male): Tanky knights of battle that focus on soaking up damage and dealing a consistent source of damage per second.
Paladin (Female): These high health-power wardens of the front line aim to protect teammates at any cost.
Ranged DPS:
Riflemen (Male): Stealthy and extremely patient, the Riflemen capitalizes on enemy mistakes when they least expect it.
Dual Gunner (Female): This femme fatale may look innocent but would sooner shoot you full of holes than give you a second look.
Spellcasters:
Warlock (Male): Dishing out high damage and a master of area-of-effect spells makes the Warlock the go to class for burning enemies.
Cleric (Female): The selfless Cleric puts her teammates needs before her own by focusing primarily on healing.
Aika Online Review
By, Charlie Perez
Aika Online is a great monument to the past. Years ago it would have been the must-play MMO. Granted it can, on occasion, look quite good, but it’s downhill beyond appearances. Weird dialogue and a lack of an interesting, or rewarding, story kills any attempt at immersion into the lore of Aika Online's world. On top of that, the menus, leveling up system, and skill acquisition feel so outdated it’s difficult to keep from reaching for the duster to brush off the cobwebs. Regardless of old concepts the game doesn't play well. Hopefully, you don't get motion sick easily because it’s a bumpy ride.
Distant Horizons
The dialogue between characters fails to weave a grand tale but it’s not too bad. There is a quirky tongue-in-cheekiness about the presentation that made me both sigh and laugh at the same time. I groaned while watching pseudo cutscenes littered with clichés, following a formula of: a pleasantry, a problem, transitioning into an overblown reaction, and ending with a mismatched farewell. But, the map is a different story, quite literally in fact. A surprising level of detail goes into describing objects and places, giving the impression that developers sought to give players a reason to explore. Every once in a while you're privileged to a bit of deep backstory and begin to care about what’s going on, and you understand why you should care about the world.
Grand castles, distant landscapes, beautiful sunsets, and all manner of interesting architecture bring Aika Online's world to life. Most MMORPG's struggle to create an immersive world. After all, who cares about the map you're running around on when you don't see it again after an hour or two. The same care applied to modeling the universe is evident through the sharp character models. Fairies look majestic and mystical, floating cloaked enemies are mysterious, and guards are modeled well. Your character is notably fantastic looking. Enormous swords and menacing double scythes give a satisfying sense of power. That is if you get far enough into the game to drop all your lousy noob equipment before giving up.
Lethally Lethargic
The animations for skills, general movement, and jumping are so bad it made me wonder how they made it past quality assurance. Also, clipping through terrain, buildings, and other objects in the world is a common occurrence. Weak looking abilities hurt the game, despite the effort clearly put into other areas. Joyidiom evidently poured their entire budget into modeling and forgot about making combat mildly interesting. At most some skills look okay, such as the warlock's fireball spell. But for almost every other class skills look like throwing wet noodles at boring enemies.
Mobs for Days
Certain aspects of a game can carry it through its rough spots, but there’s little carrying in Aika Online. Remember games where you have to kill ten-thousand enemies? Great! Try your hardest to actually enjoy the grind because that's what you'll be doing for most of Aika Online. Don't like the sound of that? Too bad. Most tasks assigned to you are fetch quests. Go here, kill twice the number the monster than necessary, go back. Go over there, kill a bunch more, go back. Thanks 2002, really bringing back the fond memories.
Old & Mold Instead of Gold
Aika Online is reminiscent of decade old MMO's, relying on archaic control schemes. There is no attempt to create a novel experience. Most games assign strafe to "A" and "D," following the standard formula. But not in Aika Online. You can either turn in place or turn and run sideways. It's infuriating, and even nauseating to control your character. Also, the camera does not help. The simple act of turning causes frame loss and fuzzy textures. Due to the sloppy controls operating in combat is painful.
There are about a dozen skills for each class, and you’re going to want to cycle through them as fast as possible in the hopes that there are a handful you care about. Most fall into one of a few categories: augmented, basic attack, buff/debuff/healing, or a skill that’s somewhat unique. And as said before the combat has little to no effects, the enemies are boring, and what’s worse is that the controls feel broken.
Sell Me Something Good
Also included is a pet system and large scale pvp battles. These days it's difficult to find even a thousand players online at one time, but the core idea is impressively ambitious. Even with rough controls and visuals, just the thought of being in a war with hundreds of other people to fight for control of a nation is exciting and certainly a sight to see, but more importantly to experience.
The pets, called Prans, are interesting in concept but one must consider the actual impact and whether or not it's even worth the time to raise a pet. It's difficult to care about a system that preaches diversity then turns around and locks you into certain choices you don't get to make. While changing over time based on how you treat the Pran is quite nice and fairly unique, one finds that it's doesn't have an overall effect on gameplay, or provide substantial benefit later on in the game.
Final Verdict: Poor
Aika Online is a dusty relic of archaic concepts, controls, combat, and story. While the modeling for the maps, characters, and weapons is quite good it’s not enough to come close to saving the game. Exploring the maps could have been fun if they were interesting beyond being eye candy. Every minute of Aika Online is a drag—making me feel physically sick due to wonky camera controls and awful animations. Avoid Aika Online. It is irredeemably bad.
Aika Online Screenshots
Aika Online Videos
Aika Online Links
Aika Online Official Site
Aika Online Wikipedia
Aika Online Wikia [Database/Guides]
Aika Online System Requirements
Minimum Requirements:
Operating System: Windows 2000 / XP / Vista
CPU: Pentium3 1GHz
Video Card: 3D Accelerator with 128 MB
RAM: 512 MB
Hard Disk Space: 1G
Recommended Requirements:
Operating System: Windows 2000 / XP / Vista
CPU: Pentium4 1.8GHz
Video Card: 3D Accelerator with 256 MB
RAM: 1G
Hard Disk Space: 1G
Aika Online Music & Soundtrack
Coming Soon!
Aika Online Additional Information
Developer: JoyImpact
Publisher: HanbitSoft (KR), T3 Fun (NA), Ongame (BR)
Closed Beta (US): August 19, 2010
Open Beta (US): August 27, 2010
Release Date (Korea): December 31, 2010
Development History / Background:
Aika Online was developed by JoyImpact, the sub studio belonging to HanbitSoft. The same team also created Neo Steam: The Shattered Continent. In Korea, Aika was published by HanbitSoft, one of the biggest publishing companies in the country. T3 Fun handled publishing in North America and Ongame in Brazil. Aika also went on to win numerous awards including Best of Show, Player's Choice, and Best Game Design bestowed by the Korea Game Industry Agency in 2009.