Alrighty so after the misfire of old part 1 lets get down to business. Let's roll up the sleeves and get in to it. It is my mission now to convince you that KOTOR 2 is better than KOTOR 1. The lost potential bit is still my lament over no KOTOR 3 but that will be later. Anyways let's kick it off!

The Systems

As we know both games are based off of the Dungeons and Dragons D20 system where you queue up attacks and the game is rolling the dice behind the scenes to see whether or not you hit. As you level up you gain feat and powers to augment these dice rolls for more damage, better chance to hit, chance of stun, all that jazz. In both games the combat is effectively the same. Aside from more animations in fights. The real difference comes in the implementation of skills in the game both in and out of combat.

In KOTOR 1, skills aside from treat injury and persuade were basically useless. Treat injury increased your healing with both healing items and healing skills like Force heal. Persuade was a main character only skill which allowed you to convince people of things. These would range from bartering the price of things up or down in your favor in certain scenarios to forcing a panel of judges proclaiming you innocent even though you are clearly lying to them. Everything else served no purpose. Why pick or slice locks when you can just bash the door? Items in locked containers also could be found by just smacking it with your lightsaber. Demolitions allowed you to recover or defuse hostile mines. You could do that... or if you're like me you just switch characters to like Mission and run her into all the mines and heal her up with force heal until they have all exploded. Done. This goes with every skill, whatever options they offer can be done easier by some other obvious way. That and putting points into persuade allows you more options in dialogue and treat injury makes your heals huge. Why wouldn't you pick them?

KOTOR 2 greatly expanded the skills in several ways. First was through crafting. Now in KOTOR1, you could alter some of your weapons at a workbench with scopes and stocks for blasters and up to 2 crystals for a lightsaber (aside from color). KOTOR 2 increased that from 3 slot for blasters and 2 for lightsabers to 6 for blaster and 5 for for lightsaber (again color not included). This also changed for armor as all Jedi robes, among the other armors, had slots for upgrades. To add on, you could now craft upgrades for these slots that became better and better as you leveled up a particular skill. Awareness for example, gave access to a scope increasing critical hit chance and leveled up Awareness you gain the ability to create even more powerful versions.

Additionally skills unlocked different dialogue options in conversation. Were you talking with someone about a computer? Then "Computer Use" gave you an option to say something that you normally wouldn't have the option to say much like how Persuade worked in the previous game. This added interesting role-playing elements as you character would actually show the fruits of your labor in term acting like an expert whatever skill. Persuade now had to fight for points as it didn't offer any benefit other than dialogue (apparently being really good at talking does not make you good at welding)

On top of that, skill checks were much more prevalent in the KOTOR 2 as some of the best items were behind locked doors or computer locks and the like. Bashing would not work anymore to get items out of locked containers. You could do it but the item would most likely just break rendering it completely useless.

Building off both of those points, these skill checks would often play a role in the character development of your party. Almost every party member had checks in their dialogue after a certain point of talking with them. These checks weren't just there for nothing either, they would often lead to them unlocking new feats, abilities and even some would increases your own abilities such as adding your wisdom modifier to your defense or just gaining a permanent plus to chance to resist Force attacks. This leads me to my next point:

Party Interaction

In KOTOR, there were a few points (mostly in the beginning) where the party would comment on what was happening or a little skit would happen that you would sit back and listen to. Nine times out of ten they were mostly for no real purpose other than a little character development or jokes in Mission and Zaalbar's case. Not so in KOTOR 2, these were in fact some of the most important parts in the game as far as the development of not only their characters but also their fighting abilities.

KOTOR 2 added a system known only really as "Influence." Where your interactions with the character affected how they felt about you in several ways. The most obvious of which was simply agreeing with them on certain things. Others would be less obvious like helping out someone in a specific way or allowing them to do something. This would gain influence with them and open up further dialogue options. One of the main hooks of all these influence checks was that once you got enough influence with them you gained the ability to train them to become a jedi for those who weren't one already. With that they then gained the ability to use lightsabers and the force. This was very useful as you only had two character who were Jedi when you first got them. Here the game was actively rewarding you for delving into the characters' backstories.

Another cool aspect was how they would react to your actions as each character had specific like and dislikes and knowing those would help you gain influence with them. Also, they for darkside users they would begin to change their appearance as you see in the picture to reflect your own standing in the darkside. Although this wouldn't affect their personalities (Bao Dur would still be a good guy despite looking like Darth Maul) it was a very cool reward to see your choices not only manifest on yourself like in KOTOR1 but also on your party members.

For characters that you could not turn into Jedi like the famous HK-47 and T3- M4, you had to get both influence and have enough of the required skill such as Repair. These would more often than the other character net bonuses to not only you but to the party member. I don't know about you but in KOTOR 1 whenever I was walking around and the game stopped me because I hadn't talked to Carth in a while, it was super annoying. Now there is an actual reason aside from story to talk to you party members which makes you actually want to talk to them instead of the other way around.

That seems a good place to stop, I hope this seems a little more focused look at what I wanted to do originally. Thanks to everyone who responded in my first attempt at this. I just want to make remember these games and how cool they were at the time. Again, I appreciate any feedback. Next time we'll start dealing with characters a little more in depth and why Atton is waaaaay better than Carth. Thanks again!

KOTOR 2 is better than KOTOR 1 and most Star Wars games or stories in general.

Sorry, interesting read but you'll never be able to convince me of that. Kotor 1 was an amazing experience that I put in crazy amounts of hours into and played multiple times to see the different endings. Kotor 2's story was never even finished properly and they still shipped it.

You don't need to convince me, I already know that. I liked the characters in Kotor 1 more but Kotor 2 was the superior game. If (and that's sadly a big if) you can deal with the bugs and the rushed ending.

That seems to be the Obsidian way: Make a better game but ruin the perception through bugs: NWN 2 was far, faaaar better than NWN 1, New Vegas was better than Fallout 3 and Kotor 2 was better than Kotor 1. But all three of them were riddled with bugs.

It's really hard for me to forgive how Kotor 2 feels so unfinished in a lot of ways and sort of falls apart by the end. I enjoy a lot of the new ideas and gameplay improvements of 2, but I just have such fonder memories of 1. I remember being so hyped by 2 when I first started playing it and it was just a slow disappointing slide as I fought against multiple gamebreaking bugs (necessitating the purchase of multiple new copies of the game, from what I remember) and a story that ended up feeling so borked. 2 just didn't deliver on what it promised from the outset, for me.

Kotor 2 is the superior game and my inner 11(12?) year old refuses to debate it.

Seriously, Kreia is amazing.

It's a weird thing with KOTOR because both games are of exceptional quality, but for different reasons. For me, KOTOR 1 felt like a Star Wars story. It was light, a little campy, and was more interested in being true to the original trilogy as an all-ages adventure story than anything particularly deep or thought provoking. KOTOR 2 on the the other hand was a deconstructionist take on Star Wars. It frames both the narrative and the universe of Star Wars in the question of "okay, if all this shit was real, how would it actually happen?" And so you've got a more nuanced perspective on the Force, on the Dark Side of it, on the Jedi/Sith philosophies, and just people in general.

It's hard for me to say one is better than the other, because the goals of either game are incredibly different. Both games succeed entirely in their objectives, but I think a person's preference would come down to what they're looking for. Are they looking for a Star Wars RPG? KOTOR will probably be their favourite. Are they looking for a more nuanced, "mature" take on Star Wars? KOTOR 2 will likely be up their alley.

I suppose what I'm saying is that, it's all dependent on the individual. Either KOTOR or KOTOR 2 could be considered the better Star Wars game, from a certain point of view.

Yep, KOTOR II did have a whole lot of really cool ideas. That's why it's a shame the game was rushed out the door despite being unfinished.

KOTOR is a complete experience and it leaves you feeling that way till the end. KOTOR 2 had me feeling a bit quirky throughout, like something was missing from it. Don't get me started on the ending, or should I say, lack thereof. Kreia tells you what will happen in the future for your party and then just falls down and dies. No sense of completion, so many unanswered questions that, up till now, remain unanswered. Not even SWOTOR answered them all, let alone address them.

KOTOR 2 is inferior to KOTOR 1 because it is an incomplete game. It's unfortunate that Obsidian never got around to it but it is what it is. Sure, it could've been better than the first one IF IT WAS COMPLETED. To each their own I guess. Some people will like the journey of KOTOR 2 better for different reasons and that's fine. But as a complete package, it falls short.

Kotor 1 is simply a more put together game. Its exactly what happened with Fallout 3 to New Vegas. Obsidian was able to stuff more content in, but the game that made you fall in love with bethesda fallout had already been made.

@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!

@champinmaking: can you go back into time and add an actual ending? Because that's the only way...

@xanadu you're cutting deep good sir but touché