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I remember when it was released on PC, or maybe year or two later, I was playing Jedi Academy a lot, and once upon a time a buddy of mine brought me a disc with pirated version of kotor he thought I'd like it. After playing for like 30 minutes I was completely disgusted with the absolutely horrible gameplay of this piece of shit, and uninstalled it forever, didn't talk to that guy for the next month.
And yet, I look at the internet and the game was received very well, people still have huge nostalgia for it etc. wtf is this, explain yourself KOTORDS. Don't even try to tell me that "hurr it couldn't be done differently", because Jedi Knight 2, that gameplay of JA is only an evolution of is like 3 years older than KOTURD. Maybe it couldn't be done differently to satistfy average KOTURDER but let's be honest, down-syndrome children are rare thanks to widespread eugenic abortions, and so by 2020 there shouldn't be that many alive for them to post on forums about videogames.
KotOR's gameplay fucking sucked. The story was mostly celebrated for no other reason than being an opportunity to play a Star Wars hero in a game that focused on the Star Wars narrative. Some people really liked that.
Old Republic times were kinda interesting but nothing special was done there. It was just a rehash of a Star Wars story.
It's also mostly the shields rather than the weapons that withstand lightsabers.
Being a d20 system was by no means a fucking improvement. The gameplay is absolute fucking garbage in KotOR 1 and 2, and anyone who thinks there is inherent value in a d20 system ought to be smacked. The AI and balance are both complete shit.
Not being an action game is not an improvement either. If anything it would probably have been better as an action game because then there would be actual impetus to use your head, if only slightly. This shit is less engaging than fucking Diablo-likes.
Being a Star Wars hero is pretty much the whole appeal of the game.
I've said this before. KoTOR's innovation was cinematic presentation.
Before a certain game, RPGs were slow, grindy, number crunchers for nerds. After a certain game, RPGs became cinematic spectacles. That game was Final Fantasy 7.
You may not think JRPGs are "real" RPGs or whatever, but that is irrelevant. Game publishers absolutely did not see that distinction in 1997. They only saw a game with stats and level-ups selling ten times the number of copies anyone even thought an RPG could sell. It was actually embarrassing to western devs, many of which were told to develop 'FF7-killers' ASAP. This inspired games like PST and Anachronox, but they failed to understand FF7's true appeal.
It was Bioware who succeeded at stealing the thunder from Squaresoft. They understood the game was about the cinematic look and feel, so they set about doing the same with Star Wars. Under the hood, KoTOR is the same game as Neverwinter Nights, but it looks and feels completely different. The shot-reverse shot camera angles, close up for dialogues, full VO, and the cinematic animations for battles make the whole game feel like you are playing a star wars film.
Story and choices are red herrings. The point of Bioware games has never been to have a deep or reactive story. It's to have a story that looks and feels dramatic. It's all smoke and mirrors.
The cinematic RPG is sort of dead now so it's easy to look back at KoTOR and say yeah it's not a great game (i've always thought the story and characters were trash). But that was never the point, while the use of full voiced dialogue and cinematic framing in every part of the game was quite revolutionary.
An interesting take, but wrong. Cinematic presentation has been a part of pretty much every fucking Star Wars game. And RPGs had been doing cinematics long before KotOR ever came out. KotOR in no way represented something new on that front, nor did it represent particularly good graphics. What you are doing is basically historical revisionism in order to make KotOR look ground-breaking somehow. What KotOR did do, was give the player an opportunity to play out a typical Star Wars adventure as a Star Wars hero. They did focus on the look and feel of a Star Wars adventure, yes. And it made a lot of Star Wars fans happy, especially the ones who didn't like action games so much.
Kreia manipulates and sabotages your crew for her own ends and openly tells you to treat everyone like disposable tools, intentionally sets up conflict and then murders the Jedi masters. That’s not really morally grey, I’d say she’s fairly sinister throughout. She’s not a cackling villain but she is the villain.
Nah, Kreia is dark side alright (although also somewhat gray-sided in her own way), but murdering the Jedi masters was not her goal. If you kill the Jedi masters yourself she'll really lay into you. What Kreia was looking to do was prove her way of teaching, demonstrate the flaws in the Jedi masters' way of doing things, and make them broaden their perspectives. The protagonist is on some level proof of Kreia's teachings and the errors of the Jedi masters, an opportunity for them to understand where they went wrong and fucked things up so colossally. It's just that during your meeting the Jedi masters prove they're not learning animals and double down on their mistakes, resolving to fuck your character over, at which point Kreia has pretty much had it with their shit and steps in before the wrongdoing can set in. But her goal was never to kill them. That was just the unfortunate outcome.
And Kreia's villainy is a bit sketchy too. She definitely does villainous things, but I think half her goal was to get you ready for dealing with the threat of the True Sith who were a massive threat to the galaxy.
Cinematic RPG =/= RPG with cinematics. Fallout has FMVs but it's not a cinematic game by any means. It's about the 'look and feel,' something developers talk about a lot but players rarely notice consciously (but your brain sure does).
What made FF7 cinematic wasn't (only) the FMVs, it was the battle sequences. Swooping camera angles, close-up shots, dramatic animations, big flashy attacks. In an interview the developers said the goal was to make every battle look cinematic: http://shmuplations.com/ff7/
Kitase: Visually, I wanted Final Fantasy VII to be a completely unified work, with a single style running from beginning to end. The cut-scene movies, overworld map, and battle scenes would not be disconnected, but would instead smoothly and seamlessly transition into one another. To call this game “cinematic” would be correct
However the dialogue was still pretty much 16 bit style--text boxes with barely animated characters and no VO.
Bioware eventually succeeded in making every part of their game cinematic. Not just the battles, but every conversation, every scene, every aspect of gameplay. RPGs did not have cinematic shot/reverse-shot camera angles or full voiced dialogue (even if they cheated with alien subtitles) before KoTOR. KotOR also put a lot of effort into making combat animations 'pretty' (characters parry, riposte, flourish, etc.) while also making them dynamic and reactive in real time, something no game had really done before. This was carried on into Mass Effect and Dragon Age, as can be seen clearly in the visual design changes between DA2 and Origins. Thus the golden age of the cinematic RPG began.
What made this really cancerous is it basically priced the competition out of the market. Devs that couldn't marshal the resources to put together VO, FMV, animations, 3D modelling, mo-cap, etc. couldn't make an RPG anymore. Combined with the MMO gold rush and crash, the result was a pretty dreary decade for RPGs.
That's the core conflict of the trilogy. Vader disowns Luke because of him being gay, but forgives and accepts him as he is in the end. Obi Van - Luke relationship is similar to ancient Greek pederasty: teacher - young student. Leia is a queer who gets pulled off from her comfortable life to protect the rights of fellow homosexuals. There's far more to it, analysis of trilogy from that point nets far more logical conclusions that you may think it will be, and leaves few doubts.
Being a d20 system was by no means a fucking improvement. The gameplay is absolute fucking garbage in KotOR 1 and 2, and anyone who thinks there is inherent value in a d20 system ought to be smacked. The AI and balance are both complete shit.
Not being an action game is not an improvement either. If anything it would probably have been better as an action game because then there would be actual impetus to use your head, if only slightly. This shit is less engaging than fucking Diablo-likes.
I am not going to disagree that the gameplay wasn't amazing. Still, it contributed to make the game feel like an RPG, rather than some action game with RPG elements trying to masquerade itself as a fully-fledged RPG.
Bioware eventually succeeded in making every part of their game cinematic. Not just the battles, but every conversation, every scene, every aspect of gameplay. RPGs did not have cinematic shot/reverse-shot camera angles or full voiced dialogue (even if they cheated with alien subtitles) before KoTOR. KotOR also put a lot of effort into making combat animations 'pretty' (characters parry, riposte, flourish, etc.) while also making them dynamic and reactive in real time, something no game had really done before. This was carried on into Mass Effect and Dragon Age, as can be seen clearly in the visual design changes between DA2 and Origins. Thus the golden age of the cinematic RPG began.
What made this really cancerous is it basically priced the competition out of the market. Devs that couldn't marshal the resources to put together VO, FMV, animations, 3D modelling, mo-cap, etc. couldn't make an RPG anymore. Combined with the MMO gold rush and crash, the result was a pretty dreary decade for RPGs.
This is part of what I was getting at before. KOTOR tried really hard to do something of little value, and regretfully, succeeded - setting the bar for other games to throw money down the drain on pointless crap.
An interesting take, but wrong. Cinematic presentation has been a part of pretty much every fucking Star Wars game. And RPGs had been doing cinematics long before KotOR ever came out.
Nah, Kreia is dark side alright (although also somewhat gray-sided in her own way), but murdering the Jedi masters was not her goal. If you kill the Jedi masters yourself she'll really lay into you. What Kreia was looking to do was prove her way of teaching, demonstrate the flaws in the Jedi masters' way of doing things, and make them broaden their perspectives. The protagonist is on some level proof of Kreia's teachings and the errors of the Jedi masters, an opportunity for them to understand where they went wrong and fucked things up so colossally. It's just that during your meeting the Jedi masters prove they're not learning animals and double down on their mistakes, resolving to fuck your character over, at which point Kreia has pretty much had it with their shit and steps in before the wrongdoing can set in. But her goal was never to kill them. That was just the unfortunate outcome.
I never said it was her end goal, just that she does it (in fact, she really does worse than just killing them outright). But yes, she's more concerned with winning ideologically and proving them wrong through you, her pet student.
And Kreia's villainy is a bit sketchy too. She definitely does villainous things, but I think half her goal was to get you ready for dealing with the threat of the True Sith who were a massive threat to the galaxy.
Is there really a big distinction between being a villain and just "doing villainous things"? Well-written, nuanced, pragmatic villains are still villains. The difference between Kreia and the other Sith in KOTOR is not that she's averse to committing ruthless acts of evil, she just wants you to consider all the alternatives and determine that it will have the best outcome for YOU and your goals - not just because you're a sadistic psycho hungering for power. In other words, a real villain, not a mustache-twirling cartoon like Malak. Maybe I'm splitting hairs here but I've just never liked the "grey" label, which sort of implies that she's somehow morally neutral and not the fallen, ruthless character that she actually is.
Even taking the Codex as an example, 2000's Codex saw plenty of people saying, "holy fucking shit, why does every game have to have the same old baby-eating evil villain eating babies with no motivation??? we want some complexity and variety in our games like Heroe Avellone does"
Fast forward a few years, and the room is suddenly full of people saying "fuck man I just wanna eat some babies give no fucks but everyone gotta explain how the babies might actually grow to be terrible trolleys running over people and maybe it's good to eat them fuck off!!!"
Someone does something fresh, and it feels fresh and cool because it picks at the flaws of what came before. Then everyone copypastes and waters it down until we're sick of the shitty versions. First we get wine, then the streets are full of watered-down wine and people say they fucking hate wine.
If you have played Neverwinter Nights, then you've played this game already(or vice versa). The story is basic copy and paste from NWN into this game.
That being said...
It's still better than NWN(which I bought and never completed), and I did complete this game.
Is it perfect? No.
Is it Star Wars? Barely, but it does add things that make sure you don't game wreck immediately as a Jedi(though you do get Jedi later).
Is the story good? If you actually take the time and LISTEN to your companions(especially Ordo), you actually get a foreshadow/lore deposit in regards to the aliens that come after the Empire and Republic duke it out in the movie trilogy.
This is going to be an annoying triple post because I cannot post more than 5 media elements per post, even though I'm spoilering this shit to avoid the nuisance of having a shitton of youtube videos flood the screen. Bear in mind KotOR came out in June of 2003, and FF7 came out in 1997.
RPGs and RPG Elements fiddling with more cinematic/atmospheric shit:
Star Wars: Rebel Assault II: The Hidden Empire (1995)
Star Wars: Dark Forces (1995)
Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II (1997)
Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast (2002)
Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy (September of 2003)
And it goes on. You get the picture. Games had been fiddling with full-motion videos, cinematics, and atmosphere design regardless of FF7 or KotOR. Honestly, KotOR isn't even a particularly impressive entry when it comes to cinematics.
I never said it was her end goal, just that she does it (in fact, she really does worse than just killing them outright). But yes, she's more concerned with winning ideologically and proving them wrong through you, her pet student.
Sure, but the framing matters. Intent matters when it comes to the subject of villainy. Kreia was motivated to kill them only once they rejected any attempt at self-examination and learning in favor of trying to ruin the protagonist and continue with the same bad passive strategy that led to so much ruin, which made her give up on them and consider them a problem.
Is there really a big distinction between being a villain and just "doing villainous things"? Well-written, nuanced, pragmatic villains are still villains. The difference between Kreia and the other Sith in KOTOR is not that she's averse to committing ruthless acts of evil, she just wants you to consider all the alternatives and determine that it will have the best outcome for YOU and your goals - not just because you're a sadistic psycho who gets off on cruelty. In other words, a real villain, not a mustache-twirling cartoon like Malak.
There is, unless you're a simpleton. Heroes can do villainous things and villains can do heroic things. It is also possible to be neither. Being the villain isn't just about what you do but where you're taking everyone and what kind of a problem and threat you pose to the general wellbeing. Kreia's attempt at deafening the galaxy to the force was probably villainous (although even that is arguably a better outcome than domination by the True Sith who were going to dominate the galaxy through their manipulation of the force), but she also uses that whole scheme as a whetstone with which to hone her student instead of moving on with it before the protagonist arrives. And generally speaking Kreia wants the protagonist to rectify the failings of the Jedi order and fix the galaxy's problems. She sets the protagonist on a path of making the Jedi Order confront their failings and learn from them (and only kills the masters once they fail spectacularly at that and become a threat to the protagonist), she has the protagonist kill Nihilus and try to have his learnings die with them because they are too dangerous, she has the protagonist get rid of Sion who is a similar problem person, and she prepares the protagonist to go on and resolve the greater threat of the True Sith. The issue that arises from all this is that probably the galaxy would've been worse off if Kreia hadn't been there, and this isn't a side effect but a result of the direct intentions of Kreia's plans. And that is what casts the question of whether Kreia is ultimately a villain into doubt.
Maybe I'm splitting hairs here but I've just never liked the "grey" label, which sort of implies that she's somehow morally neutral and not the fallen, ruthless character that she actually is.
That's probably a part of it. I wouldn't say Kreia is morally neutral though. She's more of a mixed bag. Kreia's whole deal is that being Light Side doesn't necessarily make your actions good and being Dark Side doesn't make your actions evil.
The only reason anyone remembers KOTOR 1 is it was one if the like five rpgs on the xbox (including KOTOR 2 and Jade Empire) and because it led to KOTOR 2. Otherwise it would have rightfully receded from people’s memories for the same reasons Jade Empire did: simplistic plot with predictable twist, Bioware’s trademark durr I’m evil hurr I’m good morality crap, and irredeemably bad combat.
Kudos for actually trying to find examples here, but nothing you posted comes even remotely close to the level of KOTOR's presentation. Your definition of "cinematic presentation" seems to mean "anything with cutscenes in it". First-person blobber combat of Lands of Lore is not comparable to watching your party clash blades, parry, dodge, etc in real-time with enemies in KOTOR, nor are live-action cutscenes between levels of Jedi Knight comparable to in-game dialogue shown like a movie with shot-reverse shot.
Besides, the original poster was specifically talking about RPGs. For perspective, Icewind Dale 2 came out a year prior to the original KOTOR. If you don't see the difference in presentation between an IE game and KOTOR, I don't know what to tell you.
Intent matters when it comes to the subject of villainy.
Interesting take, considering Kreia herself doesn't think that intent matters all that much.
Kreia was motivated to kill them only once they rejected any attempt at self-examination and learning in favor of trying to ruin the protagonist and continue with the same bad passive strategy that led to so much ruin, which made her give up on them and consider them a problem.
"All I have ever trained have been failures to them, students who went to fight the Mandalorians. who fell to the Dark Side, who abandoned their training. To see one that had the strength to best them, that is a moment I will not forget. Yet, it has not been as satisfying as I had hoped. To best one in battle is one thing. To defeat them without striking a blow - that was my hope. Regardless... it had to be done. To have such powerful Jedi still live, still be felt in the Force even on such worlds as they had chosen, was a threat that had to be ended.
"Yes, always. From the moment you awoke, I have used you. I have used you so that you might become strong, stronger than I. I used you to keep the Lords of the Sith from condemning the galaxy to death with their power unchecked. I used you to lure them to Telos, where they could be, at last, fought and killed. I used you to reveal Atris’ corruption, so that her teachings could be ended before they began. I used you to gather the Jedi so they could be destroyed. "
Kreia isn't angry because you killed them, she's angry because she never got to say "I told you so." They never truly understood where they failed, and she doesn't think the DS Exile truly understood either. That's what disappoints her. In the end they were always going to have to be killed no matter what.
There is, unless you're a simpleton. Heroes can do villainous things and villains can do heroic things. It is also possible to be neither.
Yes, people aren't wholly good or absolute evil. That's always been the case.
Anyways, I think we're talking past each other. You're arguing that she's (maybe) not a villain because she's not completely evil - I'm saying that that was never a requirement to being one.
Being the villain isn't just about what you do but where you're taking everyone and what kind of a problem and threat you pose to the general wellbeing.
I'm confused as to how "taking everyone somewhere" does not fall under the realm of "actions".
Kreia's attempt at deafening the galaxy to the force was probably villainous, but arguably she also uses that whole scheme as a whetstone with which to hone her student instead of moving on with it (and even that is arguably a better outcome than domination by the True Sith who were going to dominate the galaxy through their manipulation of the force). And generally speaking Kreia wants you to rectify the failings of the Jedi order and fix the galaxy's problems. She sets the protagonist on a path of making the Jedi Order confront their failings and learn from them (and only kills the masters once they fail spectacularly at that and become a threat to the protagonist), she has the protagonist kill Nihilus and try to have his learnings die with them because they are too dangerous, she has the protagonist get rid of Sion who is a similar problem person, and she prepares the protagonist to go on and resolve the greater threat of the True Sith. The issue that arises from all this is that probably the galaxy would've been worse off if Kreia hadn't been there, and this isn't a side effect but a result of the direct intentions of Kreia's plans. And that is what casts the question of whether Kreia is ultimately a villain into doubt.
Kreia's ultimate goal is not to prepare the exile to defeat the "True Sith", although she obviously does not wish them to dominate the galaxy either. She hates both the Jedi and the Sith because their teachings are flawed and ultimately self-destructive and always lead to the same cycle of war and death. What she really wants is for the cycle to end, and that's why she eventually focuses her hatred on the force itself. That is her goal and why she is so obsessed with the exile, who is like a proof-of-concept that someone can turn away from the force willingly and still survive. Whether or not her plan to deafen the galaxy from the force would actually succeed, she makes it quite clear that she would willingly let the entire galaxy die if it meant that only the exile was preserved.
Also, she was the one who originally trained Sion and Nihilus. Their existence is just as much a failure on her part as much as Revan and Malak were failures of the Jedi teachings.
"What do you wish to hear? That I once believed in the Code of the Jedi? That I felt the call of the Sith, that perhaps, once, I held the galaxy by its throat? That for every good work that I did, I brought equal harm upon the galaxy? That perhaps what the greatest of the Sith Lords knew of evil, they learned from me? What would it matter now?"
Kreia's whole deal is that being Light Side doesn't necessarily make your actions good and being Dark Side doesn't make your actions evil.
Kudos for actually trying to find examples here, but nothing you posted comes even remotely close to the level of KOTOR's presentation. Your definition of "cinematic presentation" seems to mean "anything with cutscenes in it". First-person blobber combat of Lands of Lore is not comparable to watching your party clash blades, parry, dodge, etc in real-time with enemies in KOTOR, nor are live-action cutscenes between levels of Jedi Knight comparable to in-game dialogue shown like a movie with shot-reverse shot.
Wait, what the fuck? Are you seriously attempting to argue that KotOR's own graphics and combat animations was somehow ground-breaking or impressive? It wasn't. I assumed you were talking about an overall cinematic style or FF7's full-motion video shit. Bioware has never been any good at graphics. They always manage to look years behind on their tech, because their programmers are kinda shit. Always have been. I remember KotOR when it came out, and I wasn't impressed with its graphics (or its gameplay) back then.
Besides, the original poster was specifically talking about RPGs. For perspective, Icewind Dale 2 came out a year prior to the original KOTOR. If you don't see the difference in presentation between an IE game and KOTOR, I don't know what to tell you.
Seriously? Icewind Dale runs on Bioware's own Infinity Engine. Your argument here is that Bioware's new engine manages to look better than their old engine? And this may shock you but a lot of people prefer 2D sprite-based art over rudimentary 3D shit.
Anyway it was mostly JRPGs that jumped on the 3D graphics train back then, although there were games like Gothic, Freedom Force, Dungeon Siege (which was a really bad hack & slash), etc.
If it's Star Wars games we're talking about, I'd say check out Jedi Outcast II and Jedi Academy, for instance. There's a lot of 3D Star Wars shit.
Interesting take, considering Kreia herself doesn't think that intent matters all that much.
She didn't say jack shit about intent not mattering there. She said that it is important to weigh the consequences of your actions as well. Kreia's point wasn't that helping people is bad or that it doesn't matter. Her point was that giving someone something might actually leave them worse off than if you hadn't, and it also amounts to an argument that good intentions don't excuse bad consequences. If you don't give a fuck about their wellbeing then her entire argument about how to best go about helping people is moot since it is predicated on an assumption that you do in fact intend to help people.
This is not entirely true.
"All I have ever trained have been failures to them, students who went to fight the Mandalorians. who fell to the Dark Side, who abandoned their training. To see one that had the strength to best them, that is a moment I will not forget. Yet, it has not been as satisfying as I had hoped. To best one in battle is one thing. To defeat them without striking a blow - that was my hope. Regardless... it had to be done. To have such powerful Jedi still live, still be felt in the Force even on such worlds as they had chosen, was a threat that had to be ended.
"Yes, always. From the moment you awoke, I have used you. I have used you so that you might become strong, stronger than I. I used you to keep the Lords of the Sith from condemning the galaxy to death with their power unchecked. I used you to lure them to Telos, where they could be, at last, fought and killed. I used you to reveal Atris’ corruption, so that her teachings could be ended before they began. I used you to gather the Jedi so they could be destroyed. "
Kreia isn't angry because you killed them, she's angry because she never got to say "I told you so." They never truly understood where they failed, and she doesn't think the DS Exile truly understood either. That's what disappoints her. In the end they were always going to have to be killed no matter what.
Yes, people aren't wholly good or absolute evil. That's always been the case.
Anyways, I think we're talking past each other. You're arguing that she's (maybe) not a villain because she's not completely evil - I'm saying that that was never a requirement to being one.
I guess this shit is turning into a definitional debate about what constitutes a villain, unsurprisingly. My idea of being a villain is that you pose a threat to the public good or are otherwise fucking shit over (generally intentionally so) and need to be stopped. If the galaxy is better off for Kreia's actions (which were done with the intention of stopping the biggest threats to the galaxy and leaving the galaxy better off) then that casts the question of whether Kreia is truly a villain into doubt.
I'm confused as to how "taking everyone somewhere" does not fall under the realm of "actions".
Where you're taking people is about the overall consequences and ends, whereas actions is about your deeds in the process.
Kreia's ultimate goal is not to prepare the exile to defeat the "True Sith", although she obviously does not wish them to dominate the galaxy either. She hates both the Jedi and the Sith because their teachings are flawed and ultimately self-destructive. What she really wants is for the cycle to end, and that's why she eventually focuses her hatred on the force itself. That is her goal and why she is so obsessed with the exile, who is like a proof-of-concept that someone can turn away from the force willingly and still survive. Whether or not her plan to deafen the galaxy from the force would actually succeed, she makes it quite clear that she would willingly let the entire galaxy die if it meant that only the exile was preserved.
Yeah, it's arguable. And the quotes you list above also indicate that Kreia was stopping a lot of wrongdoing before it could set in also (Atris and the True Sith), and did that on purpose.
Also, she was the one who originally trained Sion and Nihilus. Their existence is just as much a failure on her part as much as Revan and Malak were failures of the Jedi teachings.
"What do you wish to hear? That I once believed in the Code of the Jedi? That I felt the call of the Sith, that perhaps, once, I held the galaxy by its throat? That for every good work that I did, I brought equal harm upon the galaxy? That perhaps what the greatest of the Sith Lords knew of evil, they learned from me? What would it matter now?"
Wait, what the fuck? Are you seriously attempting to argue that KotOR's own graphics and combat animations was somehow ground-breaking or impressive? It wasn't. I assumed you were talking about an overall cinematic style or FF7's full-motion video shit. Bioware has never been any good at graphics. They always manage to look years behind on their tech, because their programmers are kinda shit. Always have been. I remember KotOR when it came out, and I wasn't impressed with its graphics (or its gameplay) back then.
I am talking about the overall cinematic style, not the graphical quality. From the combat animations to the way dialogue is shot to the cutscenes flying back and forth from planets, the whole package. It was trying to feel like a movie.
Seriously? Icewind Dale runs on Bioware's own Infinity Engine. Your argument here is that Bioware's new engine manages to look better than their old engine? And this may shock you but a lot of people prefer 2D sprite-based art over rudimentary 3D shit.
Again, not talking about graphics. Nor am I trying to make an argument about 2d vs 3d. I’m talking about the way the games present themselves. ID shows dialogue as a box on the bottom with portraits, and the camera doesn’t move at all. KOTOR imitates a movie where the camera shifts back and forth between the people talking, fully voiced, their lips move, they gesture... etc. Combat animations don’t play isolated from each other, instead swords will actually clash and characters will block, dodge... NWN was the same engine but that game is nowhere near as cinematic as KOTOR was. It still had one foot in the isometric style from IE games.
If it's Star Wars games we're talking about, I'd say check out Jedi Outcast II and Jedi Academy, for instance. There's a lot of 3D Star Wars shit.
She didn't say jack shit about intent not mattering there. She said that it is important to weigh the consequences of your actions as well. Kreia's point wasn't that helping people is bad or that it doesn't matter. Her point was that giving someone something might actually leave them worse off than if you hadn't, and it also amounts to an argument that good intentions don't excuse bad consequences. If you don't give a fuck about their wellbeing then her entire argument about how to best go about helping people is moot since it is predicated on an assumption that you do in fact intend to help people.
So... would you say that your intent doesn’t matter very much?
I guess this shit is turning into a definitional debate about what constitutes a villain, unsurprisingly. My idea of being a villain is that you pose a threat to the public good or are otherwise fucking shit over (generally intentionally so) and need to be stopped. If the galaxy is better off for Kreia's actions (which were done with the intention of stopping the biggest threats to the galaxy and leaving the galaxy better off) then that casts the question of whether Kreia is truly a villain into doubt.
Yeah, basically. At the least we seem to agree that she is generally on the darker side and does villainous things, so I guess we’re just debating what to label her. I suppose Kreia would say it doesn’t matter.
The game's story is bad, very slow and predictable. Just another lukewarm Expanded Universe story. I sometimes wish George Lukas would sell the Star Wars franchise to some huge megacorp so we can finally get quality Star Wars games, movies and a better canon.
The game's story is bad, very slow and predictable. Just another lukewarm Expanded Universe story. I sometimes wish George Lukas would sell the Star Wars franchise to some huge megacorp so we can finally get quality Star Wars games, movies and a better canon.
There is, unless you're a simpleton. Heroes can do villainous things and villains can do heroic things. It is also possible to be neither. Being the villain isn't just about what you do but where you're taking everyone and what kind of a problem and threat you pose to the general wellbeing. Kreia's attempt at deafening the galaxy to the force was probably villainous (although even that is arguably a better outcome than domination by the True Sith who were going to dominate the galaxy through their manipulation of the force), but she also uses that whole scheme as a whetstone with which to hone her student instead of moving on with it before the protagonist arrives. And generally speaking Kreia wants the protagonist to rectify the failings of the Jedi order and fix the galaxy's problems. She sets the protagonist on a path of making the Jedi Order confront their failings and learn from them (and only kills the masters once they fail spectacularly at that and become a threat to the protagonist), she has the protagonist kill Nihilus and try to have his learnings die with them because they are too dangerous, she has the protagonist get rid of Sion who is a similar problem person, and she prepares the protagonist to go on and resolve the greater threat of the True Sith. The issue that arises from all this is that probably the galaxy would've been worse off if Kreia hadn't been there, and this isn't a side effect but a result of the direct intentions of Kreia's plans. And that is what casts the question of whether Kreia is ultimately a villain into doubt.
I think the true purpose of Kreia was to have the main character become her successor. During your journey, she makes sure to introduce you not only to her own way of thinking, but to the accomplishments of previous Sith Lords, basically acting as your mentor. And correct me if I am wrong, but it was established in the previous Kotor game that in other to take the place of the previous Sith Lord, the disciple has to kill his former master. This was seen both as a rite of passage and as way to prevent the stagnation of the Sith as a whole. Whatever she did at Malachor V was only a threat to force a confrontation with you.
Their passivity is not what ruined the galaxy though, it was the Jedi who disobeyed them and went to war who saw to that - Revan and Malak became much worse threats than the Mandalorians were. Not only that, but the way the war was ended on Malachor V set the stage for even further ruin, as seen in KotOR 2. The decision to go to war was the single most disastrous action in the galaxy for centuries.
(The Mandalorian Wars backstory is also the one worthwhile story element in the first KotOR, since it's an original thing not ripped straight out of the movies. The game should have been set during that instead, with Mandalore being a mandatory antagonist and the Jedi Masters being possible antagonists if the player decides to do a "Caesar" and turn on the Republic.)
I think some people have drunk too much of Kreia's kool-aid when it comes to judgement of the Jedi Masters. Yes, they are hiding and are currently doing nothing, because the last time they met as a group it led to the death of an entire planet. Kreia was blamed for Revan, was kicked out of the Jedi Order, and she then decided to become a supervillain out of scorn. The plot of KotOR 2 is really her trying to clean up her own mess. Murdering the Jedi Masters is just revenge and a bonus.
People hyped KOTOR as this must-play RPG for so many years and when I finally played it, I wasn't really that impressed. It's basically just one step above Neverwinter Nights. It probably doesn't help that I don't care that much about Star Wars. I would call the game mediocre or slightly above average. I also ran into quite a few bugs on the PC version and had to reload multiple times.
I think some people have drunk too much of Kreia's kool-aid when it comes to judgement of the Jedi Masters. Yes, they are hiding and are currently doing nothing, because the last time they met as a group it led to the death of an entire planet. Kreia was blamed for Revan, was kicked out of the Jedi Order, and she then decided to become a supervillain out of scorn. The plot of KotOR 2 is really her trying to clean up her own mess. Murdering the Jedi Masters is just revenge and a bonus.
The Jedi are an amalgamation of buddhist monks and idealized medieval knights. They are too worried with their spiritual pursuits to keep order in the republic they have sworn to protect. Or in the words of Mace Windu, "we're keepers of the peace, not soldiers". I wouldn't even say that passivity is a strategy in this case, it's part of their philosophy.
In the case of Kotor 2, while the Sith are destroying the Galaxy for fun and profit, the Jedi council decided the best course of action is to do nothing. Which is the same posture they adopted during the Mandalorian War. That's not only a disaster, but also very cowardly.
