ChampInMaking

@dimi3je If only my friend, if only...

Thankfully some games now show you some o those repercussions or offer more shades of gray in your choices. The Witcher series is an excellent example of both of these.

@oldirtybearon It doesn't make sense because those traits are seen in characters other than Bastila. I would definitely use MAster Vrook as an example of this as he is an arrogant jerk to you the entire time. One could say that he is only acting that way because he knows you're Revan but in KOTOR 2 you save and he acts the same way. A character exhibiting some character traits that seem like "less than ideal qualities" such as stubbornness is poor foreshadowing in my opinion. Now if they had Bastila actually consider doing something that could lead her down to the Dark Side that would be one thing but she never does.

As far as "a lot of stress" I don't see how that doesn't apply to the rest of the crew as all of them are going through the same thing that she is with the exception that she is the only one who knows that you're Revan but other than that she shows no signs of breaking under the pressure of it the entire game. Even when she is tortured on the Leviathan she is steadfast in her beliefs. There is one line though where she admits(if you are male) for a moment that she wanted you to talk so that the pain would stop. I suppose you could use that as evidence but still that's really the only thing aside from the facts that she's a little standoffish at first but she drops that after the first planet.

@lazyimperial I will agree with you in some aspects ( I actually did prefer the robes in KOTOR 1as well) but still, to label KOTOR 2 as an expansion pack is ridiculous. That is an unfair assessment of the game and frankly extremely minimalistic to everything KOTOR 2 brought to the table. Bear in mind that your main complaint of it being unfinished was directly addressed by me in the first paragraph. The robe issue is purely an aesthetic choice and really subjective. I had friends who prefered the robes in KOTOR 2 because they looked more like actual Jedi robes. I mean, you can't really say that it would have taken the Jedis thousands of years just to start wearing different robes.

Furthermore, the influence system is purely optional, if you do not want to take part it in thats fine. Yes some characters require you to be very nice with them but that because they were designed to be played with a Light side character where everything you say is the "nice thing." To cherry pick that detail without mentioning the whole truth is a little unfair. There are several character who love when you do the darkside option and Hanharr actually prefers it when you treat him like garbage. Also, many of the influence choices are more of the character responding to your actions not to you "brown nosing them." Bao dur for example compliments you on helping that mechanic on Dantooine and that gets the influence. Also the "numerical penalties" is a farce. The game in no way penalizes you for not doing any influence options, I don't know where you got that but it is simply untrue. The game only rewards you for it, it never takes anything away.

As for KOTOR 1's "swaying peoples' way of thinking," that existed in KOTOR 2 as well. It was called "Persuade" and "Force Persuade" just like it was in KOTOR 1. As mentioned in part one, you didn't even have to persuade in KOTOR 2 in some cases you could use your knowledge of Demolitions, Computer use, or your awareness to convince people of something.

As I said and acknowledged, yes KOTOR 2 is an unfinished game. Does Obsidian share the blame in that? Of course they do but not all of it. KOTOR 1 came out in 2003 and KOTOR 2 came out in 2005 and you know that time had to encompasses a whole lot more than the actual creation of the game between things like QA and the like. Failure? Hardly. A failure would've been not releasing anything or releasing it in an unplayable form and the people here who came to discuss it can wholeheartedly confirm that they played the game and many of them enjoyed it. Does not sound like a failure to me in the slightest.

Look, I get it, you don't like KOTOR 2. That's fine and it is good that we can have these conversations but at the same time it is necessary for me to point out where you a clearly minimizing KOTOR 2 in your arguments. I'm guessing you were a big fan of the first one and then let down by KOTOR 2. If that's true I understand completely.It's fine to not like it. It's fine for you to hate it but at the same time that does not mean that everyone has to agree with you. My purpose is for people to take second look at the black sheep of this family and show it does deserve praise despite its shortcomings.

@donchipotle Great point man. Jolee set up the point and then Kreia hit it out of the park

@arbitrarywater I will agree that some of those Malachor V segments are are a little jarring. Scratch that, they are jarring. We will discuss them in the story section where they do make sense in context but it isn't immediately apparent.

Bao dur is a little sleepy I will admit, I always just took that as part of his personality and rolled with it

@adam1808 Excellent point man. KOTOR 2 shatters the idea of Jedi's being these infallible invincible beings. I remember first listening to Atton and being very cynical about him saying that he killed Jedi. Then he started going into detail and I was like, "Oh man, between him and HK, they have a point."

@viking_funeral I think despite where we stand on this, we all can find common ground in that that Kreia destroys Carth.

Awesome comments folks. Good to see some people engaging in dialogue about games that are now over ten years old.

@james_hayward I agree, the restoration mods bring a lot of new life to the game. Granted the people can only do so much with what they have available. Man, everytime I think about it, I just wish Obsidian could have finished!

@veektarius I definitely agree with your feelings on moral choice. To be honest this problem still plagues games to this day but it seems even more apparent in the KOTOR series. Instead of feeling like a powerful Sith, I just felt like a jerk. I mean can anyone really imagine Darth Vader shaking down people for the change? According to these games he'd be all over that.

@stevetheradroach Thanks man, I'm trying to improve these each time so they are a littler easier to digest but sometimes my excitement gets away from me and I write a little too much. Also, she's not that bad...

@marokai I do hope moral choices can become more nuanced as we progress. Star Wars does and at the same time doesn't seem like the series to do it though. It does because of the nature of it implies choice but at the same time it really only implies 2 choices when you get down to it. As for Kreia, she's just chock-full of good lines. In my more recent playthroughs though I never hear the majority of them as I always feel too guilty using her as she is a monster in the stats department.

@gnorbooth I know exactly the moment you're talking man. I remember be surprised the second time I played that scenario and chose the opposite answer and she still yelled at me for it. It really made me start thinking about Kreia and what she signifies not only during your story but how her ideology fits into Star Wars. Jolee did it a similar way but it was much more with his own choices rather than yours and so in that way Kreia was a lot more impactful.

@angrykluge Keep the dream alive brotha! If I can get even one person to replay or pick one these (preferably both!) games up, it makes this all the more worthwhile. Thanks for that man. Also fantastic choice of quote there; man, she does have so many good ones...

I gotta admit, I'm surprised by the G0-T0 love coming out here. I gotta admit I always wrote him off as he just never really interested me at first. That and he just didn't seem like much of a fighter compared to the others. Now I almost want to fire up a new game just to see what I've been missing.

I guess that adds yet ANOTHER great character to KOTOR 2's roster.

@random45 I don't know, G0-T0 was just not interesting to talk to for me. I can certainly acknowledge the interest behind his story but it just didn't click with me. That and I never had him in my party as I liked the other characters more. Also, I wanted to just count what as playable out of the box without the mod and without the mod HK's story doesn't end up going anywhere. I agree with you though, the restoration mods are fantastic and offer a glimpse into what KOTOR2 could have been.

@brodehouse stay strong brotha

@rollingzeppelin haha, same here

@xanadu you're cutting deep good sir but touché

@xanadu Hopefully I can change your mind sir. We're going even deeper next time

@brodehouse Fantastic sir! Glad to see another fan!

@abendlaender I definitely agree with you there. Obsidian has a track record of just being a hair from perfection but get bogged down in their technical issues. Thankfully nowadays they can fix these things with patches and the like (not that it excuses it). I wonder if they would have done that for KOTOR had it been released now.

@marokai Believe me, I'm with you there but after replaying them recently I was able to get over the pain that KOTOR can cause some. Granted, I was extremely lucky that I never really ran into too many bugs during my playthroughs except Kreia getting stuck in the "Listen to the ship" speech.

@oldirtybearon I think you really hit the nail on the head for me anyway in terms of my look at the games. As I grew older and really started paying attention to the story rather just running from place to places, person to person mashing the "Y" button to spin my lightsaber around. Granted I still do that but KOTOR 2 was the game I kept coming back to out of the two both in thought and to play.

@pyromagnestir Amen to that man. If it could have been properly finished....whoo boy. That would've been a masterpiece.

@mackgyver Hmm you have a point there but it the ending really does have some weight behind it as we'll get to later. To put it simply, KOTOR 1 was built around the twist and afterward it just turned into any old game of get the bad guy/ become the new bad guy. Granted the LS /DS choice at the end was novel at the time. KOTOR 2's ending is more subtle. The idea that things can't always be tied up in a pretty bow, the idea that sometimes there just isn't an answer or the one you find just isn't satisfying but that's your preconceived notion of what the answer should have been.

@mikemcn KOTOR 1 had much more going for it as it wasn't the follow up to a huge release and also wasn't shoved out the door for a holiday release. I agree with you there on KOTOR 1 being what brought me into the loving the franchise but it's KOTOR 2 that kept me there rather just moving on altogether.

Thanks so much for the responses folks. As I said in part 2, we'll be looking at characters. Or story? Maybe characters first....that'd probably make more sense. We'll also have to address the elephant in the room you folks have mentioned. Again, thanks!

Thanks for the feedback folks. I guess I bit off a more than I could chew thinking I woul break down the games entirely. I think you're definitely right @cornbredx that you folks probably already know what is going on in the game. Alrighty, then next time it is KOTOR 1 and KOTOR 2 head to head!

Thanks man, I think I got a little ahead of myself there. I guess I thought it would only be fair in case someone didn't know about that game so I just summed up the general premise that you get through the first few hours. Be sure I would go planet by planet like, "Here the Selkath thing blah blah when actually this yadda yadda yadda is happening." It was my intention to just set up both games, their premises and characters and then go really into the analysis of the two games.

I don't know, I guess I just really wanted to have a real in depth look at it but I may go overboard. If I do, well maybe it will be good to watch from sidelines. Thanks for the feedback!