Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Wait... is the only reason people think this steaming pile of sht is good is bc of the 'narrative twist'? Who buys games just to get a surprise ending in the story? KOTOR is an empty husk compared to even moderate, forgettable WRPGs that at least have interesting game-play, true freedom, and halfway decent environments. Sadly, even JRPGs give you more real choices than this. In KOTOR you are railroaded through a series of dialogues and actions. Responses rarely affect outcomes other than getting a different quip in return. Or: in what order would you like to visit the planets? Choice is just an illusion here, conjured up through a lesser Jedi's powers.

"But muh voice acting" yeah the English is story-set and the rest is like 10 or 11 recycled mumblings in a few different alien languages. Dialog and VA are par for the course at best. The worlds are empty, dull, simplistic, and repetitive, even by 2003 standards. And then there's the glitches... yeesh. It's borderline unplayable when after 3 out of every 4 combats you have to save and reload the game bc you can't move your character anymore. Bonus points for when it happens while you're still in combat and your character stops fighting back while the enemy pummels you. The fact that such a pervasive and consistent game-breaking bug exists for almost every player shows how little BioWare cared porting it to PC. It's possible not a single person play-tested it. Your character's hit-box is so big you get caught up on everything, including the foot or so to each side of NPCs and your fellow party members. And they don't move out of the way, oftentimes trapping you so you have to switch to someone else to get out from being trapped behind a small chair. QoL problems abound. I can see the edges of character model polygons everywhere, including down the center of everyone's faces.

So how is the combat when it isn't glitching? It's essentially a poor man's ATB, where you can use all of your special attacks and techniques an unlimited number of times, except Jedi techniques. Despite these actions being indisputably superior to normal attacks, all of your party members default to the inferior regular attacks, forcing you to either constantly pause the game and cycle through your characters to make sure their short queues are full of special attacks at all times, or be ok with whatever they want to do. Could this be one of the games that started the awful trend of replacing all turn-based RPG party combat with (sort of) controlling one party member and allowing the others to mindlessly follow idiotic gambits? When a game goes the open-field route to combat, one of the advantages is the tactics of sniping enemies, using cover, and positioning your characters wisely. But you don't have any of those options in KOTOR. Once you order an attack, you forfeit any spatial control over any of your characters. Even when they have a ranged weapon, they mostly just rush right up next to enemies (under a hail of fire), or sometimes bizarrely go through bouts of OCD to walk around in circles or obstacles to try and fight the same enemy, just from a different angle. All the while taking damage and leaving other party members high and dry. Want to set a mine trap and lure enemies? Too bad. Most enemies are as stupid as your own characters and if you sufficiently leave their immediate vicinity, they won't give chase. Grenades are also frustrating when you try to blow up an enemy grouping, but as soon as you toss it, one of your party members (who probably even has a gun), rushes into it and takes some damage themselves.

Leveling up. In one of the scant smart moves the developers made, they realized having an option to play the star map planets in any order could cause issues with your party's level being appropriate no matter which order you went in. Where a vastly superior-- yet temporally and aesthetically comparable-- game like Morrowind doesn't give a sht that you can walk into a place you aren't ready for (a consequence of having true choice that makes WRPGs fun and challenging), KOTOR takes a different approach. There are two systems of 'stats' that upgrade as you level: one system of higher attributes that changes only every 5 or 6 levels (effectively never), and another that governs certain actions. Once you've allocated a certain number of points in the secondary system, there aren't any spots in the game where you could 'fail' an action. Example: once you're at about 10 points in "security", there aren't really any locks you can't crack, except story-governed "impossible" locks that you'll never be able to crack anyway. Another illusion of choice. In short, leveling/class seems at first glance like it's nuanced and complex, but after a few hours you realize how superficial it is. At least they made it so it doesn't really over- or under-power you so much as it gives you more options during action and combat. This way, depending on whether you want to 'computer' or 'security' or 'charisma' or 'stealth' your way through the game, you can explore the full depths of each kiddie pool. You'd better be able to at least competently fight enemies no matter what, though. You'll want the ability to at least deal some damage because if you neglect combat skills with your main character, you'll only land a small percentage of attacks. Which looks stupid as the enemy stands stationary directly in front of you and you keep whiffing the light saber slashes. Master class in the Jedi arts, there. Pay attention.

So, what is good in KOTOR? Maybe all of this sounds harsh. I tend to compare games to the paragon titles of their generation, as I've indeed done here. But that's what you're up against when you're making games. You're trying to create a superior experience. And that's the thing... KOTOR supposedly is a paragon title of its generation. Something people will want to play again even after they know the 'surprise' ending. Does it really pass the 'Sixth Sense cliche' test? This brings me back to how the review began. Part of the reason this needs to be harsh is bc of how well-regarded KOTOR and its sequel are. This game is nearly 4/5. #15 WRPG of all-time on glitchwave. Score-wise, it is better rated than Cave Story, Diablo 2, Quake, Civ 5, Unreal Tournament, Cuphead, Tetris, Demon's Souls, Megaman X, Mario Kart 8, StarCraft, Metroid Fusion.... the list of classics goes on. Even if some of these titles aren't your favorite or are in a completely different genre, are you honest with yourself saying this game was better designed, more fun, and interesting with more depth than all of them? Even if it didn't have all the technical problems I still wouldn't say that.

That's not even going into everything, either. I just don't have the energy at this point to even discuss in detail the sore lack of enemy variety, there being only a handful of explorable areas in the entire game, return-to-base spamming precludes HP + resource management, overabundance of items so as to make the shops moot, all characters leveling simultaneously no matter who's in the party, performing actions, or ko'd for the fight. You could just play with three characters the whole game. It doesn't really make a difference who's with you bc they're all effectively the same and only useful for combat since you can instantly swap them at basically any point in the game.

During the war against the Mandalorians, two Jedis; Malak and Revan help win the war, but at a cost of turning to the darkside. In the following battle, Revan is defeated, and Malak begins amassing a Sith uprising.

You assume the role of an amnesiac Republic soldier who wakes up on the cruiser, Endar Spire as it is under attack by Sith forces. The intro is very immersion breaking. You ask the other character how to equip items and he starts talking about menus. It takes a while to really get going.

The gameplay is an RPG which is very Dungeon and Dragon-inspired in its systems. It even has the “You must gather your party before venturing forth” (from Baldur’s Gate) when you try to leave an area without your party members beside you. You can pause the combat, dish out new instructions, then watch the outcome. Bioware used this template in their Dragon Age series.

There's not many instructions to dish out though, so it is often very boring. It’s more like “Basic attack”, “ability 1, “abilty 2”. It’s one of those systems where you have a high chance of missing which looks a bit silly when you struggle to hit a stationary turret. Watching your soldier repeatedly fire lasers into the nearby wall is frustrating to watch and drags the battles on for longer than necessary.

There’s a decent choice of weapons. There’s ranged weapons of blaster pistol and blaster rifles, melée weapons like swords, lightsabers, or simply - fists. You can dual wield single-handed weapons, but will need the skill points to be able to take advantage of them.

Skills allow you to stealth, detect/disable mines, hack into computers, open locked doors and chests, repair broken droids to fight for you, and persuade in conversation. There are 9 other characters which join your party over the course of the game. You can only have 2 active at once. These characters have their own skills and it’s definitely beneficial to have someone who can unlock doors and hack into computers.

The AI can be very clunky. Once there was an enemy next to me, and 3 enemies further away. I instruct my character to attack the nearest enemy; then she runs up to the 3 enemies, turns around and targets the enemy I actually clicked on.

There’s plenty of dialogue, and you can click on dialogue options to progress the conversations. Many options seem quite abrasive. It’s clear which are darkside/lightside choices by the tone. Your character understands loads of alien languages, although the audio is delivered in the alien language, so the game involves a lot of reading rather than listening.

The areas can be large, but the main areas seem pretty linear. So even though you get quests and wonder where they are talking about, you should be able to find the area just by following the path. Across the game, you will visit Taris, Dantooine, Tatooine, Kashyyyk, and Korriban.

Medpacs don’t heal much, even when your characters have skills in Treat Injury. As long as you aren’t in a main mission area, you can teleport back to base which heals you, and are allowed to teleport back to the previous location. So you can just abuse that system instead of wasting medpacs. Later on in the game, you do gain access to much better medpacs but these should have been available much earlier.

Some characters will challenge you to a poker-like card game called Pazaak that is often a good opportunity to win some credits.

The collision box on your characters seems a bit too large, which means you often are prevented from moving because your party member is standing next to you. When this happens, you can just switch characters and move them out of the way.

There was a weird bug where you cannot move after combat, so you have to save and reload. This seemed to resolve itself if you enable V-sync.

I was really surprised at how well the graphics have held up.

After several hours of playing, I did find I enjoyed the game a little more, but it is still pretty bland and janky in terms of gameplay. Luckily, Bioware have done well representing the Star Wars universe. I’m aware that people regard this as one of the best Star Wars games, but there’s not much to the gameplay, and when it lasts around 30 hours; it’s a bit of a slog.

Knights is a game I remember playing a while ago on Xbox but never could get into it due to its length and also this was before I was into RPG's so I just didn't like the idea of not having full control over the character at the time. Then many years later I decided to finally play this on PC and well it was pretty solid. I am a fan of the original Mass Effect trilogy and seeing this early Bioware game shows an evolution of the company. Before this they were mostly known for Buldur's Gate which some consider to be the greatest RPG series of all time, but it was isometric and wasn't easy to get into for people who were more into games like Final Fantasy or Suikoden. Knights was more accessible in that it played more like a traditional RPG and you had the typical leveling system with basic skills and the dice roll combat. The combat is kind of annoying but at the same time its pretty simple and as long as you aren't underleveled its not too bad. The game itself isn't long but it has a pretty decent World and universe with an interesting story that is better than all the prequels combined. You have squad mates like the Mass Effect games who help you, but to be honest HK-47 and Zaalbar were the only ones I found interesting, the rest sort of feel a bit generic. HK-47 is half the reason this game is enjoyable, he's basically a homicidal droid that hates humans but sucks up to you and basically taunts your enemies.

The Worlds you visit in this are typical Star Wars, they are okay but don't stand out too much, but I think that may be more of a limitation to the time this game was made. The missions themselves are pretty standard go to this place, kill these enemies, collect these things, but the enemies in the game are pretty interesting and its cool seeing actual monsters and species from the Star Wars universe. Plus the main twist in this game was handled well and managed to not be as predictable as I thought. There are some stupid moments in the story and some characters in this just act dumb at times, but to be honest its better than most Star Wars games. I'll go as far as to say this is probably the second best Star Wars video game only next to Battlefront 2 (the non-shitty original one).

While it made great use of the license, redefining several tenets of Star Wars without cheapening them, the dice roll combat system does not lend itself well to this era, and being a fairly early Bioware title, the dialogue suffers in retrospect. Which would not be a problem if this were a short game, but the emotional fragmentation on display, especially by Carth, gets weary even before you hit the big plot twist, which is admittedly a damn good one. Was revered at the time for good reason, but does not hold up.