Aika (Part One)

Do you like playing a game with decent graphics and eye candy? Do you like having a cute companion that grows along with you? And most importantly, do you crave for player versus player battles and wars? If the answer is yes, then Aika might be the game your searching for.

In my case, what attracted me to download and play this game would probably be its PVP system which boasts of being able to hold up to 1000 vs. 1000 warfares and its cute Pran feature.

I do not know whether the server's really capable of holding that many players, but it would definitely become unplayable due to lag (with our current internet connections and cpu processing power) though. Nonetheless, you need not worry about that because most of the time, there isn't THAT many players online at the same time, participating in the same war and/or within the same location.

Furthermore, from my brief playing in the game, the server is pretty much lag-free while I'm doing my leveling or quests (despite the relic wars being on 24/7). And be rest assured that there is still a significant number of people playing in the war so much so that your computer would start to lag graphically if it isn't with good specs.

But before we go into the details of the game, I would like to highlight the various servers that host this game. Think of it as a convenience for readers of this article as I do not know which server might have their countries on the IP ban list.

• gPotato: gPotato's Aika Online services the US and Canada regions.
  
• T3Taiwan: T3Taiwan's Aika Online services Taiwan and Hong Kong.
  
• Asiasoft: Asiasoft's Aika Online services the south-east asia region.
  

Character Creation

There are three archetypes to choose from in Aika, Fighter, Scout and Spellcaster. Each of these archetypes then have two classes under them, one of which is male and the other is female. Although classes in the same archetype would have similar characteristics, they still remain unique in terms of the skills and weapons they use.

• Fighter
  Warrior (Male) - Use two-handed swords
  

  Advantages	Disadvantages
  Good defense Good stun abilities Good AoEs	Weak to magical attacks

  Crusader (Female) - Use one-handed sword and a shield
  

  Advantages	Disadvantages
  Great defense Fast attack speed	Weak to magical attacks

• Scout
  Sniper (Male) - Use two-handed rifles
  

  Advantages	Disadvantages
  Ability to cloak Long-ranged attacks	Low defense Requires bullets to attack

  Dual Gunner (Female) - Use dual pistols
  

  Advantages	Disadvantages
  Ability to cloak Mid-range attacks Many soft disables High spike damage	Low defense Low HP High MP consumption Requires bullets to attack

• Spellcaster
  Night Magician (Male) - Use two-handed staffs
  

  Advantages	Disadvantages
  High magic damage	Low defense

  Priest (Female) - Use wands
  

  Advantages	Disadvantages
  Powerful player heals Strong party buffs Resurrection ability	Low defense

After deciding upon your character's class, you will then proceed to tweaking your character's hair style, hair colour and face. At this point, I would like to mention that although the graphics for the game is nice, I do feel that the game had offered too few options for character customization. But anyway, its just a minor detail that can be ignored for players who aren't too picky.

Character Attributes & Skills

Throughout my playing from level 1 to 25, I have not yet witness my character gain any stat points. However, I did come across two articles (one on Aikasea's forum and the other on Aika Wiki) that mentions about us getting some stat points to distribute at some point in time during our gameplay. The article on Aika Wiki also stated about how each archetype has its own "favorite" attribute(s) and that adding stat points to any other attributes would result in minimal gains while the other article did not mention about this part.

Anyway, in my opinion, you as the player would know better about your own character and what it lacks or needs. Hence, just take the following information regarding the attributes with a pinch of salt and decide for yourself on how to customize your character.

• Strength
  - Increase melee physical attack
  - Increase double attack value
  - Increase critical damage
  - Increase physical attack piercing value*
  
• Agility
  - Increase long range physical attack power
  - Increase critical rate
  - Increase the hit rate / accuracy
  - Increase dodge rate
  
• Intelligence
  - Increase magic attack
  - Increase heal's maximum amount
  - Reduce cool down time
  - Increase magical attack piercing value*
  
• Constitution
  - Increase Maximum HP
  - Increase HP automatic recovery value
  - Increase critical resistance value
  - Increase double attack resistance value
  
• Luck / Spirit / Mental Power
  - Increase Maximum MP
  - Increase MP automatic recovery value
  - Increase status resistance value
  - Increase skill attack maximum (SAM) value
  

* Piercing value ignores a certain portion of the opponent's defense value. For example, if the enemy has 1,000 pdef and your pdef piercing value is 10%, you will only need to deal with his 900 pdef as 10% of it is ignored.

Every time your character gains a level, he or she will receive one skill point. You can then use the skill point to acquire a new skill or upgrade an existing one from your skill trainer. However, be advised to spend your skill points wisely because there isn't enough for you to learn and master each and every skill that your character has to offer.

If in the event that you wish to respec your skills, you may do so at the same skill trainer at a price that is (500 * your character's level) in gold. To help you plan ahead on how to spend your skill points, here is an Aika character skill simulator that I've found to be pretty useful.

Next: Aika (Part Two)

Posted in: Aika