Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (Switch: 11th November 2021)

[Julius]

Couldn't find a thread, so here we are.

I've wanted to play Knights of the Old Republic for as long as I've known about it - I know the story and, yes, that particular *thing* fairly well from not being able to get my hands on it at any point growing up, be it combing through pages of Wookieepedia or having the awesome The Old Republic timeline records videos on an endless loop - but it's such a revered game, obviously in a franchise I care deeply about, and so it has been a can I've definitely kicked down the road time and time again.

It got announced for Switch? Awesome, I'll wait the 12 months or whatever for the inevitable PlayStation release. Oh, PlayStation have seemingly foregone releasing the original game in favour of some form of exclusivity for the Remake? That's great, it'll probably take a while, but I'll wait. Oh, it's Aspyr? Oh. It's Aspyr...game seemingly got cancelled? Whelp. Time to pop it on my list of pledge games for 2024 to make sure that I finally get around to it. 

And so finally get around to it I have! 

I started playing this on Friday during the mass IT issues and after close to 7½ hours finally made my way off Taris and have arrived at Dantooine, where based on conversations with Bastila so far it seems like I'll be potentially recruited as a Jedi. Which would be neat, because her lightsabers are the easiest way to slice a locked door down considering I don't have anyone with good security skills on the squad at all times 

I'm kind of having a blast. Baldur's Gate III last year was my first CRPG I'm fairly sure - I mean, I guess maybe Mass Effect can stake a claim to that honour? But it's presented in such a different way, kind of funny because even this early on I can see the throughline from KOTOR to Mass Effect - and it's very up front about the mechanics going on behind the scenes by how much you see the dice roll, and how well it explains so many elements of games pulling from tabletop RPG ideas and mechanics, of course in the case of Baldur's Gate pulling from Dungeons & Dragons helped because I've listened to a fair few D&D podcasts over the years. This is all to say that I don't think I'd be nearly as comfortable with KOTOR if not for my time with BG3 simply because of how well it explains it's mechanics, although KOTOR has been a relative breeze outside of one or two very unlucky standoffs so far. 

Back to KOTOR, though, I'm really enjoying just playing it relatively straight as a good guy. With my character, Juwh Dasto (a name I've had planned since the start of the year based on this way to come up with your real Star Wars name) I'm leaning towards plugging points into Paladin typical attributes like Strength, Constitution and Charisma, the latter of which means I'm having a grand old time pushing the limits of being a good guy at times. The Light Side/Dark Side gauge and points stuff is a bit on the nose and maybe too up front for me personally, but hey, if Red Dead is still doing it, who am I to complain?

I'm quite enjoying certain quests at times overlapping to complete both criteria - for example, being given a bounty hunting job to kill this guy who was legendary in the now outlawed death matches, but having worked my way up to the top of the tree in the arena is open to the challenge and so I took care of him on the big stage rather than behind closed doors to not feel like I was being too evil. The side content and the variety of it in this game so far has been great, by the way: swooping (I guess best described as KOTOR's take on podracing), bounty hunting, arena fights, Pazaak (a really simply but elegant card game), bunch of side quests with a decent variety of objectives layered into this all too. Heck, I was surprised I ended up sitting in the seat as a gunner firing away at oncoming ships at one point! 

Combat is fine, it's a game which is 20+ years old at this point and plays how I imagine a simplified MMORPG would play (aka fairly similar to Xenoblade where it's menu-based real-time kinda stuff, though with way fewer options) and is perfectly serviceable. Music has been fine. The story so far has me intrigued but I remember the key beat - or, at least, THE key beat - and so it's kind of interesting seeing how things are foreshadowed so early on, but above all else, it's the characters which have really been doing it for me, they're making it much more engaging and it's one of the few times dialogue options for me have felt believable, and arguments feel legitimate? Take, for example, me prying into Carth's history, a solder of the Republic who was present during the Mandalorian Wars and now feels immense guilt about not noticing his own mentor trying to recruit him to the Sith cause (the Sith, by the way, aren't just Two at this point - but a pretty big army), and it's a conversation which he keeps kicking down the road, is clearly flustered by, legitimately threatens to leave over and he has plenty of questions about my character, too. Some really interesting characterisations of aliens and xenophobia, things like environmental issues have been touched on, and it's handled it pretty well so far, whereas a lot of games even now feels like they do so with such a heavy hand. 

So far, one of the only real issues I've had with the game is feeling like there's a need to save before every telegraphed big fight or after every battle because the battles aren't that fast or that fun to go through again? I've also had a dialogue glitch where I'll select a response option and in the blink of an eye I'll miss everything the person I'm talking to has said and then need to choose a response, but thankfully their last line encapsulates what they said and so I'm not lost when choosing a response – after looking around this seems to be an issue carried over to the Switch version from the original release where having the game open too long causes this to happen? Which is insane. I saved and closed the game and found the issue was gone immediately after persisting for 5+ minutes beforehand, so that was kind of barmy. Oh, and the other issue I had was I died the first time I was in the gunner's chair (because the game didn't even explain which buttons to use and then blinds you with a literal in-game sun) and then when it loaded back up the screen was black, I couldn't pull up the menu but could hear my shots and the shots of enemy ships being fired at us, and thankfully I saved just before boarding so didn't lose much progress at all, but I easily could have! 

Anyways, this is all to say: kind of having a blast so far, and really keen to dig back into this tomorrow and see where my adventure picks up on Dantooine. Carth and Bastila are filling out my party for now, but obviously we've picked up some other friendly faces along the way! 

So – without spoiling anything, does anyone have any memories or thoughts about KOTOR they'd like to share? Is there anyone else here like me who hasn't played the game, despite it potentially being up their alley or having heard great things? 

[Glen-i]

25 minutes ago, Julius said:

With my character, Juwh Dasto (a name I've had planned since the start of the year based on this way to come up with your real Star Wars name)

Ooooh, fun! Even from someone who doesn't like Star Wars.

Gleob Kelon.

...ewww? I sound more like a Lord of the Rings creature. Which I guess is appropriate.

Edited July 21 by Glen-i

[Hero-of-Time]

7 hours ago, Julius said:

Back to KOTOR, though, I'm really enjoying just playing it relatively straight as a good guy. With my character, Juwh Dasto (a name I've had planned since the start of the year based on this way to come up with your real Star Wars name)

Haha. I remember that being a thing in the early 2000s. At the place I was working at the time, we all done it and spent the week calling each other our Star Wars names.

I loved KOTOR when I played it on the original Xbox but looking at it now it looks very clunky. It's why I never bought it on the Switch and was looking forward to the remake. It feels like a game that is best kept in my memories rather than replaying it.

[Julius]

Still chipping away at this, unfortunately I feel like it's the sort of game which benefits from longer, dedicated play sessions, and I haven't really been able to give it that level of attention the last few weeks 

Just finished off everything on Tatooine by getting the second part of the Star Forge map, the swoop races were good fun (learning that I could trade in my wins with a certain Rodian over Yavin IV made them that much sweeter), enjoyed resolving the local conflict, and a smattering of other quests were really solid too. I'm really surprised by how much I'm enjoying the side content in this game, it's doing a great job of keeping me engaged consistently whereas the main story definitely takes its time and meanders. We've also picked up HK, who has given me a few good laughs already. 

My reaction when seeing how the krayt dragon in this game is handled after remembering how it was handled in Mando S2:

Onto the Wookiee home world of Kashyyyk next...

[Julius]

Won't get too into it, because no spoiler tags, but I came back to the game after taking a break for a few weeks with a monster session today (well, now yesterday). 

Kashyyyk? Done. 

Manaan? Done. 

The Leviathan and The Big "Oh"? Done. 

Game's definitely been chugging at points and has been a bit buggy (ah, the joys of walking into battle with lightsaber-wielding Sith only to realise the game has unequipped my party's weapons!), but I'm having a great time with it. The Big "Oh" moment, even though I knew it was coming, was really well executed, and I'm loving the variety of side quests – which again has just been the total surprise package of the game for me, besides some excellent character writing and dialogue. 

Just got to get the final Star Forge map from Korriban, and I have a feeling after that there might only be one or two stops left before credits roll. Looking to keep up the pace and finally scratch this one from the list in the next couple of days 

[Glen-i]

54 minutes ago, Julius said:

Won't get too into it, because no spoiler tags,

You might be already aware of this, but you can copy/paste a spoiler tag from a previous post of yours if you utilise the Edit feature.
Bit clunky, but it does the job for now.

Edited August 18 by Glen-i

[Julius]

40 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

You might be already aware of this, but you can copy/paste a spoiler tag from a previous post of yours if you utilise the Edit feature.
Bit clunky, but it does the job for now.

Thanks, but yeah, I'm aware – my phone's been a bit temperamental when I've tested it before, so just decided it wasn't worth the hassle for me, and I'm also a bit wary of if/when the spoiler tags and titles get fixed, we're potentially going to have spoiler tags all over the forum with completely out of place titles (assuming the titles carry over and are returning, I guess?)

So I'm just playing it safe and avoiding talking about things I'd throw in spoilers these days to save myself the busywork of either the hassle or fixing those spoiler tag titles myself in the future 

(which is also why I'm holding off on posting any updates in the Gaming Diary thread for now)

[Julius]

Completed Korriban last night, which might be my favourite of the planets I've visited on this map-gathering quest – very different to a lot of what I'd faced in the game up to that point.

Went full RP and donned the Dark Jedi Master Robes while giving into the Dark Side, mainly trying to weaken the Sith as much as I could during my time on their home world and picking off who I could, before donning Qel-Droma's robes, which are essentially upgraded Jedi Master robes, which I'd been rocking before landing on Korriban 

With that, the Star Forge map is complete, and so the path was charged and followed...before we crash landed at a beach. Sure, I guess we've got time for a Beach Episode™ detour, it's not like the galaxy is at stake or anything 

Loving it a lot, just got the home stretch left. Should wrap it up over the weekend 

Edited August 23 by Julius

[Julius]

All wrapped up on the Unknown World, which was a much more involved but really enjoyable detour. Bit of a shame I don't think the game does that great a job in making you aware of when you've picked a "side" in the conflict, so I was a bit taken aback when I walked into an area and got swarmed by folk who were friendly some 10 minutes before, but it is what it is  really enjoyed the Temple dungeon though, a lot of battles, and made use of Juhani for a change after levelling her up from whatever she was recruited at. The game has thrown a LOT of Computer Spikes my way on this planet, curious to see if there's any reason for that. 

Malak with his lower jaw removed is creepy and a really effective touch I feel. 

Onto the Star Forge! 

Edited August 24 by Julius

[Julius]

And just like that, it is over. One hell of a journey, and a fantastic ending. 

The Star Forge has some...issues, let's say, outside of its boss battles I think. At least with default settings, my party kept getting pulled in different directions as a battle initiated on one side and we got flanked on another through the Forge's many corridors, which was a bit of a pain in the ass to manage, much more so than it was actually difficult. I also made the mistake of assuming a certain someone would return to my side and so brought Jolee with me as well as Carth in place of Juhani, and I think that latter swap really made things a bit more nightmarish than they actually were. 

Loved how consistent the dialogue options were up until the very end. I'll definitely be taking some time to figure out my full thoughts on the game, but my initial impression is that it has to be up there with my favourite Star Wars game like Battlefront II and Republic Commando. 

I'm also coming away incredibly grateful that through a cruel twist of fate, Aspyr and Saber won't be developing the remake they had announced. I think it's very debatable whether or not they'd be able to deliver a worthy remake, but much more than that, I'm honestly not sure what form a remake could, and perhaps still will at some point, take – I wish the original game as a real-time RPG perhaps had a fully turn-based mode (rather than the Auto-Pause which takes all of the momentum out of the game's battles), but could this game be made effectively today as the third person action RPG it was seemingly going to shape up to be? I'm not quite sure. The cutscenes would allow a big jump in visual quality, but I also wonder what that would do for the scale and feel of the galaxy and its locales – would a higher fidelity make them feel much noticeably smaller than the vastness which the muddier textures of the original allows for? Again, I'm not quite sure. 

So yeah, a lot to think on after watching credits roll, but this game is rightly spoken of and held in high regard, and I'm very happy I finally got around to playing it!