Is KoToR worth playing?

[Crichton]

I think everything that needs to be written has already been written in this thread: If you like other Bioware RPGs, you'll like this one. But I'm rather conflicted on KotOR. I admit all of its flaws but I finished it twice.

On the one hand, it was the first Bioware game where I just sat there amazed at how terrible the gameplay was. (I gave them a pass on NWN because I bought some of their excuses).

However garbage combat didn't keep me from enjoying Arcanum or Fallout, is KotOR a game with fantastic content? No. It's typical Biofare (Find the four lost objects!) save that the use of skills in combat is ahead of its time, nearly at F:NV levels.

So what is there to like about a game with crummy combat and a silly plot? One thing is Star Wars nostalgia. After episodes I-III, it's like a breath a fresh air. The other thing is that some of the characters are pretty well written (HK-47 was a particular favorite). So I'll give it a tenative nod both for its own sake and to set you up for the sequel which is better written.

 

[Xor]

If you like Bioware RPGs, you'll probably enjoy anything.

That too.

 

[CSM]

It's pretty awesome.

 

[LoPan]

I think everything that needs to be written has already been written in this thread: If you like other Bioware RPGs, you'll like this one. But I'm rather conflicted on KotOR. I admit all of its flaws but I finished it twice.

On the one hand, it was the first Bioware game where I just sat there amazed at how terrible the gameplay was. (I gave them a pass on NWN because I bought some of their excuses).

However garbage combat didn't keep me from enjoying Arcanum or Fallout, is KotOR a game with fantastic content? No. It's typical Biofare (Find the four lost objects!) save that the use of skills in combat is ahead of its time, nearly at F:NV levels.

So what is there to like about a game with crummy combat and a silly plot? One thing is Star Wars nostalgia. After episodes I-III, it's like a breath a fresh air. The other thing is that some of the characters are pretty well written (HK-47 was a particular favorite). So I'll give it a tenative nod both for its own sake and to set you up for the sequel which is better written.

Thing about garbage combat is that KOTOR has a style-over-substance combat system and Bioware are persistent in filling up gaps in their maps with combat encounters. Arcanum and Fallout did not even have combat systems as shallow as that of KOTOR, or encounters as shallow or samey, but they were not deep that's for certain; what kept those games great and many of the combat encounters good, or at least tolerable, was context. KOTOR just has combat for the sake of combat and since the combat system has no depth combat can not stand on its own and demands context to remain meaningful, but because Bioware cannot structure a level let alone a story, world etc. (Bioware has consistently proven that they are incapable of doing pretty much anything) the combat is a re-iterative stick in the spokes of flow and story-progression. The game is just the same old Bioware tripe, it has the same problems of all their games, if they didn't have the belief in those rubbish four pillars of whatnot perhaps they wouldn't be making the same game over and over again.

As you say everything that needs to be written has already been written, I'm really just adding on the pile here, and the nature of KOTOR is almost monthly reviewed and repeated on the codex due to threads like this. I just wanted to present the notion I find correct which is that KOTOR is not a game with bad combat and decent other elements (Arcanum, Fallout) but a game where the combat is ill-concerned with the others elements of the game.



On rather a side-note, I found HK-47 a nauseating character, it was as if someone attempted to copy the character of Bender from Futurama but without an understanding of why he was an inherently amusing character. I have no idea what the appeal of HK-47 is, I figure the notion is to have a robots perspective and that perspective, being misaligned from that of a regular human brain, would create humour. Instead you have some thing that thinks killing is just grand because it's programmed that way, but they never really did anything with the notion that he is a robot programmed to assassinate (which is not something robots are allowed to be programmed to do, I believe) and he was really just any old chaotic evil character of any old D&D fantasy game. I prefered the HK-47 of KOTOR2 if only because he had an actual goal and something was done with the idea that he was a robot (he was being mass-produced in a quality that was lowly compared to his own, he was a rusty relic from another time and all that, also the mystery of it all etc. etc.)

 

[baronjohn]

The only Bioware game worth playing is BG2: SOA.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Kotor II also has actual Jedi robes. Yes, it's important.

:D

To hell with your idiotic Jedi robes.

If I wanted a game as a beauty pageant, I'll stick to my Skyrim thankyouverymuch.

 

[wwsd]

I think that more than anything is the big problem in KotOR - it's written not like you're a godamn mythic Jedi knight, but like you're just some ordinary dude. Just about everything in the game should be negated or overridden by that fact, but instead the vast majority of your time is spent doing errands for NPCs and trying to get into Bastila's pants. The sequel was smart enough to acknowledge that Jedi are really damn powerful, so the plot is driven by goals (reach Goto's ship! find the lost Jedi Masters! reclaim the Ebon Hawk!) and not by "how many fetch quests do I have to do before someone lets me through a door?"

This is true, but the good thing about the plot of KOTOR2 is also that, while accepting that the Jedi are too powerful to be doing fetch quests, it's not actually about being a powerful Jedi. In fact, it even kind of takes a big shit on its predecessor: what happened in the first game is simply decided by you within a few lines, and if you forget to interrupt Atton's story, the sequel consistently assumes that Revan was female. Whether you were "good" or "evil" in KOTOR is more or less irrelevant in KOTOR2. Throughout the game, there are lots of ordinary people who hate or simply don't care about the Jedi, or just see them as bounty.

I like how KOTOR2 kind of subverts everything you can usually expect from SW. This is quite contrary to KOTOR1, which just repeats the entire formula to make it resonate with SW fans. And it has wonderful "additions" like an utterly boring first planet with gang wars and a sewer dungeon, and of course it includes just the right amount of SW prequel derp to make it fit within "George's artistic vision" regarding the Jedi and Sith: Jedi not being allowed to love, all the Jedi treating each other in a really crappy passive-aggressive way ("Padawan! Why are you not in your robes??? Oh wait, I'm sorry, I must control my emotions better") because they are "serene", the Sith being cackling evil bastards, the "dark side" being mostly limited to bullying unimportant people for credits, etc.

So anyway, I would still recommend OP to give KOTOR a spin. Views on it tend to be extremely black and white (with "white" being the overwhelming majority for Bioware and SW fans), but the fact is that it's just a pretty decent game that should appeal to anyone who likes Star Wars, nothing special.

 

[Neeshka]

Both games have aged very badly. The graphics, animations and facial expressions look incredibly dated.
They were somewhat ok for their time I suppose.

KoToR 1 has a decent plotline with a nice anticlimax at the end, Kotor 2 has an interesting plotline but with massive plotholes and unfinished elements. I wish Darth Nihilus was expanded upon; but sadly bioware apparently killed him off in their MMO.

It's essentially a very very simplified DnD game with a much smaller party and extremely limited class options.

The characters are memorable (bastilla, kreia, HK47) and the voice acting is generally great. The music and feel of the game are good if you like the star wars genre and/or jeremy soule.

If you generally like linear narrative-driven RPGs you probably will like this.

It's probably my 3rd favorite star wars game after republic commando and jedi knight 2.

 

[Rivmusique]

I wish Darth Nihilus was expanded upon; but sadly bioware apparently killed him off in their MMO.

I thought we killed him during that jarring end game combat rush at the end of KotOR2?

 

[oscar]

In a fight that lasted about fifteen seconds.

 

[Roguey]

Both games have aged very badly. The graphics, animations and facial expressions look incredibly dated.
They were somewhat ok for their time I suppose.

I can't agree about the animations, at least as far as combat is concerned. Those still look nice.

I thought we killed him during that jarring end game combat rush at the end of KotOR2?

Karpyshyn retconned him out of existence. Apparently Lucas has a rule stating no force users can be more powerful than Anakin and Luke, but Avellone swaggered in with his scarred immortal and his planet-eating force of nature thinking he could go and break all the rules.

 

[circ]

I think everything that needs to be written has already been written in this thread: If you like other Bioware RPGs, you'll like this one. But I'm rather conflicted on KotOR. I admit all of its flaws but I finished it twice.

On the one hand, it was the first Bioware game where I just sat there amazed at how terrible the gameplay was. (I gave them a pass on NWN because I bought some of their excuses).

However garbage combat didn't keep me from enjoying Arcanum or Fallout, is KotOR a game with fantastic content? No. It's typical Biofare (Find the four lost objects!) save that the use of skills in combat is ahead of its time, nearly at F:NV levels.

So what is there to like about a game with crummy combat and a silly plot? One thing is Star Wars nostalgia. After episodes I-III, it's like a breath a fresh air. The other thing is that some of the characters are pretty well written (HK-47 was a particular favorite). So I'll give it a tenative nod both for its own sake and to set you up for the sequel which is better written.

JOLEEEEEEEEEEE BINDOOOOOOOOO. FUCKING JOLEEE BINDOOOOOOO. I'd re-install it and play it again just to put that guy in my party again. But fuck if I'm going to fuck around boring ass Tarsus sewers or whatever for hours, get to the one interesting planet (Tatooine) that's too fucking small in typical BiWare fashion, and then quit.

 

[DalekFlay]

I actually like Bioware games but find KotOR to be the lesser of them. I don't know why, but the story, environments and quests all bore the fuck out of me. I never even finished the game, got to the water planet I think.

That said I never played Jade Empire, so it might be similar.

 

[oldmansavage]

I enjoyed the combat animations over the traditional "trading hits" animation you find in most games. Other than that it a pretty lousy game. It has your usual Bioware tropes; Angsty romance, goofy story and awful realtime combat.

 

[Stinger]

I thought we killed him during that jarring end game combat rush at the end of KotOR2?

Karpyshyn retconned him out of existence. Apparently Lucas has a rule stating no force users can be more powerful than Anakin and Luke, but Avellone swaggered in with his scarred immortal and his planet-eating force of nature thinking he could go and break all the rules.

Nope, Karpyshyn wrote the sith emperor to hav the exact same powers as Nihilus- but of course with none of the drawbacks of Nihilus or any understanding of why Nihilus was like that (i.e. as a kind of representation of what kind of mindless beast would submit himself entirely to the force). I don't think there's a rule about Anakin and Luke being the most powerful since there are some absurdly powerful characters in the EU (Exar Kun?)

 

[Volourn]

"I actually like Bioware games but find KotOR to be the lesser of them. I don't know why, but the story, environments and quests all bore the fuck out of me. I never even finished the game, got to the water planet I think.

That said I never played Jade Empire, so it might be similar."

JE is way better than KOTOR though be warned it's the BIO game that is closest to action rpg than others since player skill is in many ways more important than character stats 9though stats do matter).

 

[Xor]

There were character stats in JE?

 

[oscar]

JE just sucked because if you jumped a lot there was no way you'd lose a single fight.

 

[Serious_Business]

I hear there's a lot of roofling in Jade Effect : Age of the Balders

 

[DalekFlay]

JE is way better than KOTOR though be warned it's the BIO game that is closest to action rpg than others since player skill is in many ways more important than character stats 9though stats do matter).

I don't mind action combat at all as long as it's GOOD action combat, and the RPG elements around it are good. I have meant to play JE like 10 times but just never got around to it.

 

[circ]

JE's combat is downright broken. And it's not just that it's extremely easy, it's just horribly clunky. There are no RPG elements at all. It's just a story and you go from hub to hub to hear the rest of it. That said. It breaks the usual BiWare mold of 4 stardavian creatures that I remember, and sort of you are the legendary hero too, but only because it completely rips off hindu, taoist, buddhist etc myths. It also recycles the usual BiWare characters. Carth is now a whiny goody two-shoes woman, and a bi-sexual man. There's a silent big character as usual. And just like in KoTOR, they're utterly useless in combat and you have to play babysitter and save their asses constantly even though in cutscenes, every single one of them outperforms you in combat. One of its biggest faults is also a completely pointless and unrelated shoot em up sequence here and there. And if I remember correctly, you don't want to avoid it either if you at a later point want the most awesome stuff you can get, from the imperial smithing dream island or whatever it was.

 

[Volourn]

"There are no RPG elements at all."

Bullshit.

It has cvharacter stats, dialogue skills, C&C, non combat ways to deal with situations, multiple endings... pleasde don't make up bullshit lies.

The combat is vastly superior to bullshit games like KOTOR, BL, AP, and the like.

 

[circ]

"There are no RPG elements at all."

Bullshit.

It has cvharacter stats, dialogue skills, C&C, non combat ways to deal with situations, multiple endings... pleasde don't make up bullshit lies.

The combat is vastly superior to bullshit games like KOTOR, BL, AP, and the like.

Suck an egg. A big motherfucking ostrich egg.

Character stats consisted of, that I remember, raising hp, mana and stamina. You can't do shit with your groupmates except upgrade their weapons if again, I remember correctly, or make Silver Fox or whatever her name was, change her outfit, maybe? Something like that.

Dialogue skills um well. It follows the usual BiWare convention of A, B, C. Which in effect means, just repeat the dialogue and pick the same choices and you're sure to sex up/whatever NPC. That's not a dialogue skill. That's painting by numbers. Or maybe you meant the dialogue skill that consisted of you intimidating or talking people out of things if your PARAGON or RENEGADE was high enough. Which was featured in KoTOR too. Again, not a skill as such, but more like cruise control for AWESOME.

C&C was usual BiWare stuff, and since I can't remember any examples, that pretty much seals it.

Non combat ways if I remember was more of a pick if I remember to get goodie or evil points, and groupmate influence?

Multiple endings well let's see. You could kill the water dragon or save the water dragon. One way makes the people strong because they don't depend on the water dragon, and the other way is well, the same more or less. Just that one choice has you as a tyrant ruler. Yes, you get to be a ruler, again. AND THE HILARIOUS PART IS. You can play the entire game as good or evil, although they're not called that but let's not kid ourselves, and then spare or kill the water dragon and get a total alignment reversal. AWESOME. Oh and let's not forget that you can marry and/or convert your sexing groupmate of choice and they will rule (or not) with you. WOW THOSE ENDINGS. MAN.

 

[sea]

I enjoyed Jade Empire more than Knights of the Old Republic. The twist is pretty cool and subtle enough to hit you if you weren't expecting it (or at least, the details), combat is engaging even if it's just a poor man's action game, and I like a lot of the story and universe ideas. The story pacing is generally pretty good for a BioWare game, and unlike most the plot constantly moves forward instead of just pausing after the intro for you to collect the Four Mystical Dildos or whatever.

Unfortunately it's really dragged down by whiny, annoying and generally non-memorable characters, the middle game is extremely bloated and then the endgame is very, very rushed, locks you out of certain content permanently, and comes up way sooner than you'd think. If the plot is well-paced, then the gameplay itself certainly is not. Many parts of the game also feel extremely underdeveloped and tacked-on, like the fighting school, some of the characters, etc. Especially once you hit the endgame it really feels like it was planned to be two times the game it ended up as, but even before then a lot of the cracks show.

My other big issue is that a lot of it feels excessively gamey in general... too many implausible and unrealistic situations and characters that just happen to be there/work out because it's a videogame. Oh, look, a play where one of the actors is missing, I SMELL A QUEST INVOLVING IMPROMPTU ACTING AND CROSS DRESSING. BioWare games are usually pretty bad that way, but Jade Empire was definitely the worst of them.

 

[Giauz Ragnacock]

Actually, I was not warm to Jade Empire to start with (the same could be said of KOTOR). At first I felt a bit of culture shock with all the strange clothing styles, people looking different (realisticly not complete fantasy like the anime style), and dialogue options from the start that said, "We do and say things different here." It was all a bit overwhelming, but as usual watching my brother (I am oldest but he is closest to my age by three years) play a little of it really got me interested.

I guess its biggest draw for me are the party members and that freaking out of nowhere plot twist (you're not finding out you are secretly the most powerful badass in-story like in KOTOR, but MAN did I want revenge after it happened). There is truly not one of the party members I did not like (Dawn Star may have been the weakest in personality but her history in the game still intrigues me). Then the during-credits voice-overs made me love them all the more with their sheer genius hilarity (from memory: Master Li: "I remember once when you were small you faced a foe you were not ready for and were beheaded. I comforted you assuring you you had nothing to be ashamed of, which was pretty hard considering you were just a head. Then you punched a mountain and FLEW into SP-AAA-CEsss!").

Eh, I'm fuzzy on the details, sure, but listening to Dawn Star double-entendre her way into making you think she was a porn star still make it hard to breath while I'm listening to the voice-overs.

PS: I mentioned in another thread that the only games that resemble RPGs my youngest siblings were into were TES and Fable TLC (well there's Pokemon and the first two Final Fantasies on GBA, too), but we all love this game for its sheer Charm (intentionally capitalized) power.