Kotor 2

[PorkyThePaladin]

Spoilers in the post, so keep that in mind.

Just finished Kotor 2 for the first time. I knew it was mostly about the writing going in, and that turned out to be the case. Not much exploration on those tiny zone maps and combat is cinematic, which is the only thing that can be said about it. Now, I enjoyed the writing at first, it was much deeper and more interesting than the stuff in Bioware's Kotor 1. Kreia kept chiming in with her criticism of everything I did, some of which was very thought provoking, HK-47 kept the laughs coming with his dialogue, and other companions had interesting tidbits to contribute as well.

The main storyline also seemed interesting and mysterious in the first part of the game. Crime syndicates putting a bounty on your head, the Jedi disappearing, some non-traditional Sith looking for you, your past as a general. All these things hinted at a magnificent storyline. But somewhere along the line, things began to fall apart. I am playing it with the Restored Content Mod and the Droid Planet, but despite that, some of the dialogue seemed incomplete, as if I was missing some pieces of what the NPCs were talking about.

Another issue was how I missed the whole bit about the bounty hunters and Goto's involvement details because apparently I didn't speak to his Droid onboard the Ebon Hawk every time there was a chance to do so. I tried a few times, he had nothing to say, so I stopped bugging him. Weird that it would lead to missing an entire part of the story.

But even aside from that, the storylines just seemed to become really confusing and badly constructed after a while. Take you being captured on Goto's Yacht above Nar Shadaa. He tells you that he basically put a contract on you across the galaxy just so he could get your attention and speak to you and ask for your services. Ok... And to top that bit of silliness off, you still end up having to fight your way off his yacht even though you know you are on the same side by then.

What about the main plot: you cut yourself off from the Force, yet you are using it in the game. Kreia gets it cut off by the Jedis, she s using it again. What's even the point? Kreia hates the Force, so she loves and admires you because you are independent of the Force and this is demonstrated by you not following Revan after Malachor V into Sithdom. Why? Couldn't you just've been a decent guy who got involved in bad things and then decided to leave, thus remaining a decent guy and following your predetermined path as specified by Determinism/Force/etc? If anything, most players probably play Kotor 2 as either a strictly LS or DS character, demonstrating determinism rather than free will.

I played the entire game as a Light Side Jedi Saint, helping every asshole I met and even talking violent assholes into peaceful resolution, and yet both the Jedi Council and Kreia kept telling me I am a wound in the Force and a threat to everything because I subconsciously and temporarily shut off the Force for a while? This just strikes me as being very iffy as well as railroading me into a direction I didn't want to go in at all.

Maybe the guys at Obsidian (and maybe some posters here) who are more knowledgeable about the game or SW lore could explain all these things in a much better way, but from the perspective of someone playing it for the first time (and someone who has greatly enjoyed RPGs with complex writing like Planescape: Torment), the writing here just seems a little unclear.

And that's before I even get into the lackluster ending. Look, we are all tired of EPIC storylines, right? We don't necessarily want to save kingdoms anymore or galaxies. But that doesnt mean we want to role play a 9 to 5 job in video games either. The story should still be about something interesting and important. But in Kotor 2, after you defeat Darth Nihilus (the fake final boss) who was actually quite scary, you spend the rest of the game trying to deal with some old woman who it's not even clear what exactly she wants and how that impacts anyone. And then you are off to seek Revan and the "true Sith".

So yeah, i am pretty disappointed, was expecting better than this from Obsidian, at least writing-wise. Opinions?

 

[Bubbles]

KOTOR2 is awful and best forgotten, featuring some of the worst gameplay in modern RPGs and a very artificial feeling approval system. Its strengths are the cast of characters and the supposedly good writing, and Anachronox had done both things better three years before.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

I played the entire game as a Light Side Jedi Saint, helping every asshole I met and even talking violent assholes into peaceful resolution, and yet both the Jedi Council and Kreia kept telling me I am a wound in the Force and a threat to everything because I subconsciously and temporarily shut off the Force for a while? This just strikes me as being very iffy as well as railroading me into a direction I didn't want to go in at all.

Exile was not a physical threat, but an idealogical. Her differences made other Force users fear her, because she not only broke status quo, but also showed the Force may be something breakable. She was the only one who valued life more than the connection to the Force. Other Jedi were entirely dependable on it and thought of letting it go was scary and unimaginable.

 

[gromit]

Kreia hates the Force, so she loves and admires you because you are independent of the Force and this is demonstrated by you not following Revan after Malachor V into Sithdom. Why? Couldn't you just've been a decent guy who got involved in bad things and then decided to leave

That's a fantastic point... but I think it's in favor of the game, not against it. After a few playthroughs, the interpretation of her I've settled on is compatible with that, as well as an Exile of almost any motivation or worldview.

Kreia is a fanatic. Like any good fanatic, she projects her singular obsession upon everything she sees. Projects it all over you, your status, your decisions. Disconnect from the force under extreme duress, and she assumes you've seen "the truth" about it (her truth.) Find yourself at odds with the Jedi Council, and she falsely equates that to being in agreement with her.

She's carved out a special place for you in her head-canon, an incidental messiah. To her you are one of the few actors in a galaxy populated by props, and she puts you up on a pedestal even as she admonishes you, ipso facto, by bothering to... instead of brushing you off, or designating you as a faceless bit-part in one of the dozens of little morality plays she puts on "for the benefit of another."

The kicker is how completely hypocritical she is in everything she does. Or maybe she's not hypocritical per se, just residing happily in her own blind spot. As a Sith she was likely prepared to use all of that power to affect any change she could rationalize, and only started going on about the injustice of it all when her well-taught apprentices exerted it upon her. She holds you up as this bastion of agency and self-determination, and proceeds to manipulate you into doing her bidding. Perhaps she subconsciously doubts her ability to teach you the lessons she tries to... ironic since she's only trying to, because she thinks you already know them.

This is a woman who has the gall to assume you "know" she's right, still try to convince you, speak for you at the council, and then say shit like "(the Exile) brings you truth, and you condemn it? The arrogance!" even though you -- as the horse's mouth itself -- may have already told her to fuck off.

Of course, how much she actually believes, of what she purports to, is always up for debate. But either way, you only find yourself tangled up again in old affairs, because of her obsession with you. And like any other obsession, it's seated firmly in that character's head, and "supported" by "evidence" from the setting. It's not an incontrovertible property of the setting, and the only thing in-game that implies it is... is her.

I can't exactly blame anyone for rolling with it, taking her spin at face value, and getting irked at the game as if the game itself were projecting its worldview upon your character. Lazy writing and world design have trained audiences to take in-character proclamations as if they were declarations of truth beamed right into their heads from VALIS... with what little disagreement there is, usually revolving around whether or not that truth is good, or bad, and for whom, rather than over fundamental interpretations and assumptions.

Precious few games and characters bother, which is why this game is (or, was almost?) Fissable Weapons-Grade Certified Organic Catnip for Storyfags, even if other games have had better plots / arcs with more interesting ideas. It's a story told well, by the characters in the game... each with their own angles and tangents, which together form the circle.

TL;DR: a loony old bat's take on things is not necessarily a deep underlying truth, nor is it necessarily an accurate assessment of the Exile and her choices. Even if she uses up most of her dialog insisting it is.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Exile was not a physical threat, but an idealogical. Her differences made other Force users fear her, because she not only broke status quo, but also showed the Force may be something breakable. She was the only one who valued life more than the connection to the Force. Other Jedi were entirely dependable on it and thought of letting it go was scary and unimaginable.

So the Exile kills a ton of people on Malachor V, and because of that, his/her remorse and/or sense of their suffering forces him/her to subconsciously shut off their connection to the Force. This causes them to become a wound in the Force and to start feeding on other people (especially Force Sensitives) to try to fill that vacuum (like Darth Nihilus). Ok, but that seems to overlook the fact that for the entirety of the game, you have been getting stronger in the Force (leveling up), that these people you are feeding off (your companions) have all been thrust upon you by the game where you quite possibly didn't even want them along, and that your motivation for much of the game is along the standard Light Side/Dark Side of the Force axis of SW lore. And then, to stop this threat, the Jedi Masters want to cut you off from the Force again, before Kreia kills them? This is what I mean by badly constructed. It just doesn't fit together very well.

...

TL;DR: a loony old bat's take on things is not necessarily a deep underlying truth, nor is it necessarily an accurate assessment of the Exile and her choices. Even if she uses up most of her dialog insisting it is.

Yeah, I am sure it's possible to explain the logic behind the story, since Obsidian must've had it to some degree when they made the game, but it's just either not well presented or not very elegant. Again, take PS:T as an example, that game made you think a lot, but in a nice way, pondering certain questions. Kotor 2 made me think a lot in terms of just trying to fit all the pieces together in a way where it made sense.

 

[Roderick]

I wanted to try this game but it crashes after character creation (well after the intro following character creation)

 

[Tytus]

A question to anyone who played both the Restoration Mod and Vanilla. What content and what choices were added exactly?

 

[I'm Big Into Anal]

cant remember anything about the game except owning dudes with force powers owned

 

[Jools]

A question to anyone who played both the Restoration Mod and Vanilla. What content and what choices were added exactly?

Can't remember that level of detail. But I do remember the restored version didn't give me the odd vibes of "hmmm, something's amiss, here" that the vanilla version did. I'm pretty sure there must be a complete feature list on the official page of the restoration project. I googled a bit for you, and here are a few links:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Cut_...nights_of_the_Old_Republic_II:_The_Sith_Lords

http://deadlystream.com/ (there should be a feature list in there, somewhere)

Sorry but I can't look into it any further, at this time.

 

[Mask]

My memories of the game are fairly distant at this point, but I sometimes like to revisit a Let's Play of KOTOR II that's pretty in depth, occasionally funny, and fairly insightful as to what's going on in the game. He also uploads restored content for the game while playing, so you get to see that too.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

A question to anyone who played both the Restoration Mod and Vanilla. What content and what choices were added exactly?

Off the top of my head, the restoration mod brought back the HK droid factory, a special mission just for your killer android which if done right would have larger implications during the end game, it beefed up the ending and allowed some of your NPCs to have their subplots resolved instead of them just disappearing, and changed the final confrontations a bit. I really recommend it. It still didn't resolve all the proposed final bits of the game. For instance, there were found portions of voice files where Kreia tortured and warped the darker parts of Atton so that he would desire a female PC and try to kill off a male NPC rival in the party. That possibility was never restored as far as I know. KOTOR 2 might actually be one of my favorite Star Wars tales when it comes to the force. Too bad such an ambitious project never met its full expectations.

 

[curry]

Another issue was how I missed the whole bit about the bounty hunters and Goto's involvement details because apparently I didn't speak to his Droid onboard the Ebon Hawk every time there was a chance to do so. I tried a few times, he had nothing to say, so I stopped bugging him. Weird that it would lead to missing an entire part of the story.

Unfortunately a lot of stuff involving Goto was cut from the game.

Also spoiler

Spoiler

Goto is actually an AI.

 

[Xathrodox86]

KOTOR 1 was ace but 2 was ok. Of course the story is rushed as hell but I like the overall more grimdark approach to the game. Is the Restoration mod worth it?

 

[Jedi Exile]

TL;DR: a loony old bat's take on things is not necessarily a deep underlying truth, nor is it necessarily an accurate assessment of the Exile and her choices. Even if she uses up most of her dialog insisting it is.

This is what I dislike about KOTOR 2 the most. Exile's story is told indirectly through other characters, mostly Kreia, and you don't have enough options to say what you (your character) think about it. So it turns out that this is not really your game and all your choices don't actually matter - Kreia will say the same things about you on Dantooine and Malachor and you won't even be able so respond. In PST, it was different. You explained your past actions to Ravel and the TNO, from your point of view.

 

[Rake]

I wanted to try this game but it crashes after character creation (well after the intro following character creation)

A question to anyone who played both the Restoration Mod and Vanilla. What content and what choices were added exactly?

http://lparchive.org/Knights-of-the-Old-Republic-II/
This LP is great, and it's arguably better than playing the game yourself. Saves you the bad gameplay

 

[Jaedar]

So it's this time of year again eh.

 

[Mask]

http://lparchive.org/Knights-of-the-Old-Republic-II/
This LP is great, and it's arguably better than playing the game yourself. Saves you the bad gameplay

Wow, that link again? Gee, it's almost like I'm seeing it the second time in this thread, almost as if it were posted before

 

[Morality Games]

A question to anyone who played both the Restoration Mod and Vanilla. What content and what choices were added exactly?

... it is most famous for doctoring in more interactions, reactivity, and more/longer cut scenes.

 

[laclongquan]

So it's this time of year again eh.

Note the very recent humongous MOTB2015 thread.

 

[Seari]

Driod planet is hands down the worst mod I've ever played, and I had to finish it since I accidently overrode my saves. The amount of backtracking and shitty quests is fucking disgusting.

I don't really remember that much because I found the Goto part of the game really boring, but I think he tries to imprison you, and only "helps", keeps an eye on you after you escape.

What about the main plot: you cut yourself off from the Force, yet you are using it in the game.

You use the force through the bonds you create with others, you yourself can't feel the force without these bonds. You also influence people with these bonds that you form unknowingly/unintentionally, hence why Atton and others can fall to the dark side if you yourself do as well. You're kind of like a parasite, yet you can't help it.

Kreia hates the Force, so she loves and admires you because you are independent of the Force and this is demonstrated by you not following Revan after Malachor V into Sithdom. Why? Couldn't you just've been a decent guy who got involved in bad things and then decided to leave, thus remaining a decent guy and following your predetermined path as specified by Determinism/Force/etc?

This is exactly what happens. The exile, like all the jedi that followed Revan into the Manadlorian wars, fell to the dark side, but the Exile was the only one to sacrifice his connection to the force and return to the jedi council. The dark side, I'm guessing is like an addiction, hence why he had to sever his connection to it to turn away. Kreia hates how dependant the jedi, sith and herself are to the force, and admires the exile for turning from it.

Revan and the other dark jedi in fighting the mandalorians, learned to admire their strength. They started to hate the jedi and their weakness, queue the Jedi civil war. Kreia believes that Revan didn't "fall" to the dark side, but instead learned of a greater threat outside the outer rim, or whatever it's called. He apparently sensed the real Sith Empire, so he went on to try and conquer/unite the Republic and use the Star Forge to fight the upcoming threat. But before Revan could conquer the Republic he simply vanishes for uknown reasons which would be explained in KOTOR 3, if it were ever made by Obsidian. Instead we get the fucking abomination that is TOR.

 

[DeepOcean]

Kotor 2 has terribad combat gameplay but charismatic characters and hey... you have the possibility of roleplaying including turning your party into evil sith and more care was placed on each of its areas than PoE. Hey... I hated the dumbdown console trash combat but an innocent DeepOcean one day dreamed of Obsidian not making popamole RPG and it turned out their popamole RPG are better...

 

[moon knight]

KOTOR2 is awful and best forgotten, featuring some of the worst gameplay in modern RPGs and a very artificial feeling approval system. Its strengths are the cast of characters and the supposedly good writing, and Anachronox had done both things better three years before.

Not at all.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

You use the force through the bonds you create with others, you yourself can't feel the force without these bonds. You also influence people with these bonds that you form unknowingly/unintentionally, hence why Atton and others can fall to the dark side if you yourself do as well. You're kind of like a parasite, yet you can't help it.

This is just questionable on so many levels. You start the game being able to use the force, when your only companion is Kreia, who herself is cut off from the force. So how are you using it? Do you just leech it off everyone around you (enemies, bystanders), and if so, what's even the difference between being cut off from the Force and not being cut off? Then, if you cut yourself off but can still use it, why does the Jedi Council want to cut it off again (before Kreia kills them)? They cut it off with Kreia before and she is still using the Force, so clearly it doesn't work. Then, just the whole notion of a "Force Bond" sounds like a cheap gimmick so they can glue badly fitting pieces together.

This is exactly what happens. The exile, like all the jedi that followed Revan into the Manadlorian wars, fell to the dark side, but the Exile was the only one to sacrifice his connection to the force and return to the jedi council. The dark side, I'm guessing is like an addiction, hence why he had to sever his connection to it to turn away. Kreia hates how dependant the jedi, sith and herself are to the force, and admires the exile for turning from it.

You are right in that the Dark Force in SW lore is like an addiction, but to counter that addiction, to turn away from it is usually handled by going toward the Light Side, the Dark Side's opposite. Obsidian could've done an excellent SW game exploring the true cost of Light Side and goodness, you know, opposed to every typical RPG where goodness has all the benefits and none of the costs. So for example by doing good deeds you could have lost power, lost those close to you, lost something else precious. They did something like this in New Vegas, where the "good" faction, the NCR, is shown as actually being quite imperfect, bureaucratic and flawed in some ways compared to the "evil" Legion. Instead, they chose to come up with this "edgy" third way, the cutting off of the Force, which to me at least, seems as very undercooked and confusing to digest. But that's just me.

 

[Seari]

snip

The jedi council explains everything, "You are a cipher, forming bonds, leeching the life of others, siphoning their will and dominating them", and you do this unintentionally. You were force bonded with everyone that you led in the Mandalorian wars, and had to cut yourself from the force when everyone around you died. I guess the ability to create force bonds was so strong that it eventually returns. Maybe the reason for its return is at the start of the game when you nearly die from the poison, maybe the only way for you to survive is to force bond yourself with the person nearest, which is Kreia.

The ability that you have to create force bonds somehow became corrupted after the Mandalorian wars. The council says that they see in you the death of the force. Apparently you even feed on the death around you, the reason why you become so much stronger in such a short amount of time. And the more bonds you create the stronger the ability becomes, and that is why the council wants to completely cut you from the force, "You are a threat to all livings creatures, and all who feel the Force".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDg8jga1CZg

Also where did you get that Kreia was cut off from the force by the jedi? I'm not sure this ever happened.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Also where did you get that Kreia was cut off from the force by the jedi? I'm not sure this ever happened.

This is from http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Darth_Traya:
"Eventually, Traya was overthrown by Sion and Nihilus, who stripped their Master of her connection to the Force."

I remember her saying in dialogue at some point that she was stripped of the Force too, but I guess it was her apprentices who stripped her and not the Jedi Council (that whole part I didn't get at all because of cut dialogue or whatever), but obviously the point is still the same about her having no connection to the force.

The jedi council explains everything, "You are a cipher, forming bonds, leeching the life of others, siphoning their will and dominating them", and you do this unintentionally. You were force bonded with everyone that you led in the Mandalorian wars, and had to cut yourself from the force when everyone around you died. I guess the ability to create force bonds was so strong that it eventually returns. Maybe the reason for its return is at the start of the game when you nearly die from the poison, maybe the only way for you to survive is to force bond yourself with the person nearest, which is Kreia.

This does not sound like a good explanation to me at all, it's just a lot of maybes which create a sort of messy logic. Moreover, this whole approach basically shits on you as a player because everything is unintentional and contrary to how you are playing. Are you really nice to your companions and try to help them out? Well, fuck you anyway because you are unintentionally leeching and manipulating them. Are you a Light Side devotee aiming to do good things? Well fuck you, you are a threat to the Force and the Jedi anyway. Are you a Dark Side power hungry asshole trying to work your way up? Well, fuck you because you are just gonna destroy everything with your bonds anyway.

The ability that you have to create force bonds somehow became corrupted after the Mandalorian wars. The council says that they see in you the death of the force. Apparently you even feed on the death around you, the reason why you become so much stronger in such a short amount of time. And the more bonds you create the stronger the ability becomes, and that is why the council wants to completely cut you from the force, "You are a threat to all livings creatures, and all who feel the Force".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDg8jga1CZg

Well, again, if according to the game:
1) (as shown above) Kreia has her force connection cut, but is still going around and using it (through bonds or whatever)
and
2) you cut off your own connection after the war and are still using bonds now despite that,
then why on earth would the council think cutting you off from the force solve anything?

Look, I know it's possible come up with some kind of explanation for all of this, but what I am saying is, all of this just doesn't strike me as a particularly coherent, elegant storyline.