Vault Dweller said:
To put it simply, I didn't like KOTOR 2. Two main reasons are ridiculously easy combat that killed the combat-related part of the game and the lack of a coherent story that killed the rest. The rushed Bloodlines-style ending didn't help either. The dialogues were good, but the dialogues alone can't carry a game.
You know what gets me about the combat? It's pretty easy through most of the game, granted. However, some of the bosses are ridiculously hard especially if you're not prepared for the "long haul".
I was playing a guardian on the dark side path, and after the first planet, I had to face a jedi master in a duel. Now, I had two peons in tow, Atton and Visas. It was Dantooine, and I had set up the citadel building to be the ultimate death trap for the people in that building, right?
Well, here's what happens. After the movie where you see the mercenary forces kicking the militia's ass, you get stuck in a room with the Jedi Master, Atton, Visas, and you. You're totally locked in this room, no way out. Atton and Visas, while being IN THE ROOM, are not in the party and just stand there. There's no sign of any war droids roaming around, and I can't open a door to let a few in.
At that point, Mister Irrate Jedi Master comes after you. I could barely scratch him, and he's doing massive damage to me. So, I start using mines on him, exploiting the AI's pathfinding to lure him in to deadly mine traps. I get him down about half way, and I get the "YOU HAVE LEARNED A NEW STANCE" dialogue. Then the Jedi Master starts Force Healing himself back to full health every time he's reduced by half. I had something like 40 mines, most were average rating, when I started doing that. I actually ran out of mines and he had full health at the end of my bombing spree.
There's no way that fight should have been that tough considering how much time and parts I spent making sure droids, mines, turrets, and everything else would be against the people inside that building. In fact, there's no reason I should be fighting that Jedi Master alone when my two followers are standing right there in the room with their thumbs up their asses.
Same old 3 classes that are forcefully upgraded into 3 better classes later. More feats, more powers, same skills, new lightsaber styles which are basically combat modifiers: +1 to attack, -2 to defense, etc. Nothing that would change the gameplay formula significantly. It would have been nice to have those things in KOTOR, but I expected more from a sequel.
The problem is that the classes aren't balanced at all. By level 20, the Guardian has 21 feats - the Sentinel has
20 feats. Meanwhile, the Sentinel has gobs of force powers and the ability to use them, and tons of skill points.
The stances don't matter too much after you start getting +29 to hit scores. +/-1 isn't going to matter much, so they should have scaled accordingly. +/-1 for every four levels would have made them actually useful and important.
Nice feature. You can break existing items into components and make new items, including upgrade items that could turn even a crappy stick into a deadly blade of ultimate doom and extreme ownage. Sounds cool in theory. I bet such a system would have been a blast in FO3 where items were rare. In KOTOR 2 items are everywhere. Even animals imported to different planets from the Diablo universe drop items. I don't need to craft anything because I have plenty of everything. I used medkits twice and that was when the game Forced me to play someone else (more on that later). You can find plenty of items, so when I finally loaded everything I found into my lightsaber, the damage output was enough to kill everything in 2-3 hits. I suppose I could have fine-tuned it with better upgrades to 1-2 hits but why bother?
I used crafting for my guardian so I could craft some energy absorbing armor after I figured out that I couldn't solo beat that Jedi Master mentionned above. It didn't help much.
Crafting is a cool feature, but it's a better feature in a more open ended game, I think. While KotOR did have a lot of drops, it was also highly linear. Instead of feeling like you had the time to stop at a workbench and fuck around to make some gadgets, you feel like you have to push through a planet to get to the next planet.
My first game, I never got an underlay drop, though. I actually stopped at one point to craft some for Atton.
Teh Stori:
You are the last Jedi who's every non-robot companion is a Jedi and who's sent by another Jedi to look for 4 Jedi Masters. If you see nothing wrong with that sentense, you'll like the game very much. Also, it's worth noting that the "find 4 itamz on 4 different planets" schtick is pretty much the story. There is nothing else to it. This is not Planscape Torment, this is basically a series of loosely connected scenarios where you can practice your role-playing skills and listen to well-written, but empty dialogues about the Force and Jedi.
1.) None of those companions are jedis when you meet them. Of course, there are two that are Sith when you meet them.
2.) The Last Jedi thing is only a lie to get the Sith after you. That's actually covered in TEH STOREY.
Of course, you are the Special One, and you get a Force bond just like the one in KOTOR. Yay for originality.
Only.. It's nothing like the one in the first one!
Also, you are a war veteran and a GENERAL, yet you start at level 1 with 0 skills. Some General, huh?
I agree that this is kind of silly. It would have been nice if you'd gotten a few levels of soldier.
The characters are better, but not by much. The comparison with PST characters is inevitable, and KOTOR 2 loses easily. The dialogues are very good though. Unfortunately, they don't tell a story because KOTOR 2 doesn't have that feature, so everything revolves around the Force, Jedi, and right&wrong in that context. After awhile it gets boring because you are just restating the position of your character.
Actually, it does have that feature if you have INFLUENCE.
Another thing is delegation, and this one is extremely annoying. Throughout the game, you'd have to use party members to complete different gameplay objectives. No, it's not as fun as it sounds. For example, at some point the game puts Atton the ranged support character against two blade-wielding melee assassins. I haven't been using him for awhile and thus didn't upgrade him into a Jedi with powahz. Luckily the combat is that easy, and the AI isn't the brightest so it's easy to put an obstacle like a table between you and your dumb opponent, safely shooting at him/her with extreme prejudice.
Yeah, that pissed me off. What really got me is that at one point they pit Mister Blaster Atton versus two dual wielding sword chicks. If he dies, GAEM OVAR. Huh? I thought the story was about the Exile? I'm sure it might bum Exhile out, but come on! It shouldn't really matter at all to the over all story if Atton gets wacked by two killer harlots in a space pub.
The game shows a lot of promise, there are many nice features, yet it plays like the original. Perhaps Obsidian was afraid to move from the "award-winning formula", perhaps Lucas Arts is to blame here (Remember, kids, always try to blame the publisher. Those fuckers are more evil than a bunch of Sith Lords). It's not a bad game, but it's not a good game either. It's somewhere in the middle, bundled together with Bloodlines under the "why did they have to ruin a good game with something stu[pid" category.
It's nothing like the original. While there are similarities, BioWare is the one trick pony - Obsidian isn't. Notice in KotOR, every combat area had the broken droid or two you could fix up and have kill most of the baddies for you. Notice how most areas that had any type of solving in KotOR had the obligatory blown off arm with a datapad. KotOR2 was very, VERY different from that.
