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Kotor 2

Butter

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I recently found out why this game resonates so much with people here. KOTOR 2 is Star Wars made for angsty teenagers. Your character is a depressed war criminal trying to forget his past failures and almost every companion is equally mentally scarred by the Mandolorian war.
It's Star Wars for people who are embarrassed to like Star Wars, basically The Last Jedi in video game form. Instead of being a fun setting where good guys with laser swords fight bad guys with laser swords, it tries to deconstruct everything and impose grey morality.
 

Jvegi

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it tries to deconstruct everything and impose grey morality
Which is great for roleplaying. Kotor 2 is also one of the best crpgs when it comes to varied dialogue responses.
It's Star Wars for people who are embarrassed to like Star Wars
It's for people who trust SW to be more than most believe it to be capable of.
basically The Last Jedi in video game form
Kill urself you fucking cunt. How the fuck dare you?
 

Absinthe

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It's called the Restored Content Mod. It's considered a must-have for the game. There is also a Droid planet mod, but that's mostly there in case you really want to experience that bit of cut content. It's actually a pretty terrible level.
If you have the game on steam you can just subscribe to the workshop mod and play, avoids having to download external stuff.
The data does not magically appear on your computer if you subscribe via Steam. You are still downloading external files, just through Steam. It's not like a manual download is hard either and Deadly Stream is pretty much the #1 resource for KotOR 1 and 2 mods.

I recently found out why this game resonates so much with people here. KOTOR 2 is Star Wars made for angsty teenagers. Your character is a depressed war criminal trying to forget his past failures and almost every companion is equally mentally scarred by the Mandolorian war.
Wrong. Just because you had a "discovery" or "revelation" or whatever the fuck doesn't mean your assessment is remotely correct. KotOR 2 doesn't do that much edginess, isn't glorifying being a depressed person with a troubled past, and in fact being an edgy sociopathic Sith mostly gets you chewed out for being a fucking idiot. The reason people like KotOR 2 is because it actually handles the setting with a degree of philosophical depth and maturity you don't usually see in Star Wars and presents a fresh take on it. That's all.

KotOR 1 on the other hand was very much a member of the "being an edgy sociopath for shits and giggles is fun" club when it came to dark side options. Dark side KotOR 1 is basically all about kicking puppies, murdering people just because, fucking with people, being an untrustworthy bastard, getting the chick, and conquering the galaxy as your reward.
 
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0sacred

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KotOR 1 on the other hand was very much a member of the "being an edgy sociopath for shits and giggles is fun" club when it came to dark side options. Dark side KotOR 1 is basically all about kicking puppies, murdering people just because, fucking with people, being an untrustworthy bastard, getting the chick, and conquering the galaxy as your reward.

Dark side Kotor sounds extremely based.
 
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The data does not magically appear on your computer if you subscribe via Steam. You are still downloading external files, just through Steam. It's not like a manual download is hard either and Deadly Stream is pretty much the #1 resource for KotOR 1 and 2 mods.
It's way faster to just subscribe to a workshop item. I don't see a reason to go to something else if all you're trying to do is play with Restored Content Mod.
 

Absinthe

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Yeah, both are options if you have Steam (although you might still want to check Deadly Stream for any other mods that are not on the Workshop). I just found your framing of "avoids having to download external stuff" to be ridiculous. Those words have a straightforward meaning that does not correspond to reality.
 

LarryTyphoid

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I used to dislike KOTOR 2 and believe the first game was superior, because I found the whole gray morality thing to be antithetical to the Star Wars setting, and I disliked how Kreia kept hogging screentime and hijacking the plot when I found her to be a pretty dreary and tiresome character. I still dislike KOTOR 2 for these reasons, but I have to recant it being worse than KOTOR 1; when I went back to play that game, I was struck by how simplistic and juvenile its writing was when compared to its sequel. Although KOTOR 2 introduces elements that are foreign and unfitting to the Star Wars universe, KOTOR 1 does the exact same thing with its constant allusions to racism and colonialism, which is arguably far worse.
 

SpaceWizardz

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Even as a kid I preferred the second game to the original, it just had so much more going for it with it's story and characters. Never really got why people would say it isn't really Star Wars, everything is centered around Jedi/Sith philosophies, the Force, and the Republic, while KOTOR is just a typical fantasy plot about collecting maguffins and everything Star Wars is injected through a find and replace on the script.
 

NecroLord

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It's still Star Wars, alright, but it's a bit different.
Not the usual happy go lucky Star Wars tone. More dark, depressing, a galaxy trying to rebuild after it was nearly reduced to ashes in two successive wars.
A deep analysis of the Jedi and Sith philosophies and how harmful they can be to the galaxy.
 

Maxie

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It's still Star Wars, alright, but it's a bit different.
Not the usual happy go lucky Star Wars tone. More dark, depressing, a galaxy trying to rebuild after it was nearly reduced to ashes in two successive wars.
A deep analysis of the Jedi and Sith philosophies and how harmful they can be to the galaxy.
Bravo you've managed to make the game look as unlikeable as Disco Shitizium
 

NecroLord

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It's still Star Wars, alright, but it's a bit different.
Not the usual happy go lucky Star Wars tone. More dark, depressing, a galaxy trying to rebuild after it was nearly reduced to ashes in two successive wars.
A deep analysis of the Jedi and Sith philosophies and how harmful they can be to the galaxy.
Bravo you've managed to make the game look as unlikeable as Disco Shitizium
Why is nearly every one of your posts retarded and unintelligible?
 
Vatnik Wumao
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It's Star Wars for people who are embarrassed to like Star Wars, basically The Last Jedi in video game form. Instead of being a fun setting where good guys with laser swords fight bad guys with laser swords, it tries to deconstruct everything and impose grey morality.
While this might be true for some fans of the game, I don't think that that's the main reason behind it. Star Wars is a neat setting precisely due to its fablelike approach to worldbuilding, but that's just not something that translates well into a BioWare style narrative-focused CRPG. If your only options as a player are to be either a stereotypical Jedi goodie two shoes or a stereotypical Sith chaotic evil edgelord (or a schizo pushing random buttons in dialogue I guess), then you might as well just remove the narrative C&C altogether and just have a linear game with two preset paths - one LS, one DS. Good SW games tend to be linear ones since that approach to narrative design helps with capturing the vanilla SW vibe of the movies.

Which is not to say that there isn't an alternative to an Obsidian style deconstruction if you want to keep that particular CPRG style of narrative design (just as Obsidian itself could do both vanilla NwN and MotB), but BioWare played it way too safe with KotOR. They took inspiration from the EU for a more grounded rendition of the setting (including many of its characters), but then they decided to keep the protagonist as a fablelike archetype which runs counter to that broader design philosophy (unlike with TOR where they managed to do a better job with it, although that game suffers from other issues due to it being an MMORPG).
 

notpl

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While K2 is mostly sophomoric longwinded horseshit, like anything else with Avellone's stink on it, I remember it fondly for starting in media res like stories are fucking supposed to. The exile doesn't have amnesia and there is no long-winded tutorial segment or intro cutscene explaining the events of the Mandalorian war, the situation just is what it is and the player is given the opportunity to define their relationship to past events through dialogue.
 

notpl

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there is no long-winded tutorial segment
Cough Peragus cough.
I mean no long-winded tutorial segment that establishes background details, like the stereotypical bucolic leadup to the protagonist's village getting destroyed that you see in every jrpg, or kingdom come as a recent example. In a lesser story, the game would start with a big overwrought battle scene culminating in the Exile being cursed by the jedi council and shipped off.
 
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PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Serpent in the Staglands Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
I recently found out why this game resonates so much with people here. KOTOR 2 is Star Wars made for angsty teenagers. Your character is a depressed war criminal trying to forget his past failures and almost every companion is equally mentally scarred by the Mandolorian war.
It's Star Wars for people who are embarrassed to like Star Wars, basically The Last Jedi in video game form. Instead of being a fun setting where good guys with laser swords fight bad guys with laser swords, it tries to deconstruct everything and impose grey morality.

Key difference being that Kotor 2 didn't achieve its' moral ambiguity by "subverting expectations" but by evolving characterization to a heightened level of depth. Characters in The Last Jedi are as paper thin as the rest of the franchise whereas characters in Kotor II are developed to have more nuances.

Plot of Kotor II isn't that subversive either, it's' pretty much an adventure that involves surviving/running from and later confronting the Big Bad(s) when running and hiding are no longer tenable. As in Empire, there's a twist and certain dark truths are revealed in the final confrontation. In those respects it is (unsurprisingly) similar to the Empire Strikes Back.
 
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NecroLord

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I recently found out why this game resonates so much with people here. KOTOR 2 is Star Wars made for angsty teenagers. Your character is a depressed war criminal trying to forget his past failures and almost every companion is equally mentally scarred by the Mandolorian war.
It's Star Wars for people who are embarrassed to like Star Wars, basically The Last Jedi in video game form. Instead of being a fun setting where good guys with laser swords fight bad guys with laser swords, it tries to deconstruct everything and impose grey morality.

Key difference being that Kotor 2 didn't achieve its' moral ambiguity by "subverting expectations" but by evolving characterization to a heightened level of depth. Characters in The Last Jedi are as paper thin as the rest of the franchise whereas characters in Kotor II are developed to have more nuances.

Plot of Kotor II isn't that subversive either, it's' pretty much an adventure that involves surviving/running from and later confronting the Big Bad(s) when running and hiding are no longer tenable. As in Empire, there's a twist and certain dark truths are revealed in the final confrontation. In those respects it is (unsurprisingly) similar to the Empire Strikes Back.
Hear, hear!
Yes, I always thought the similarity with the Empire Strikes Back was obvious, but its dark and even grimdark tone makes it also similar to Revenge of the Sith.

notpl Yeah, you are correct. The ability to define the Exile's relation with past events is very well implemented. Peragus ain't all that bad, but still feels like a slog.
 

Absinthe

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I recently found out why this game resonates so much with people here. KOTOR 2 is Star Wars made for angsty teenagers. Your character is a depressed war criminal trying to forget his past failures and almost every companion is equally mentally scarred by the Mandolorian war.
It's Star Wars for people who are embarrassed to like Star Wars, basically The Last Jedi in video game form. Instead of being a fun setting where good guys with laser swords fight bad guys with laser swords, it tries to deconstruct everything and impose grey morality.
Just because it criticizes both sides and demands a more nuanced approach than "light side = good" or "dark side = evil" doesn't mean that it's in favor of grey morality. The primary learning experiences of the protagonist relate to how to do the right thing effectively and how to think for yourself on whether what you are doing will actually produce the better future you are looking for. Kreia's biggest deal is basically that the protagonist should learn how to avoid falling into the pitfalls and regrets (or the retreat into blind stupidity) that foolishness and dogmatism produce. She's basically someone who carries a million regrets and witnessed a million more mistakes and instead of letting it crush her was determined to produce at least something worthwhile out of it, by making learning experiences out of them for herself and teaching the protagonist. It's something people tend to miss about Kreia's character: she recognizes she is twisted and does not want the protagonist to take after her ("Unlike you and I, there is still hope that one may be saved."). She only wants the protagonist to learn from her (and ideally prove the value of her teachings) and develop their own insight and understanding.
 

boot

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H9GGGnq.png

(there was a cool fight in here where Atton's fighting spirit activated after he'd fallen to the pink skinned lady, and he shot her in the back for huge sneak attack damage. Was very cool.)

Been playing with TSLRCM installed as a female Jedi Consular on difficult who dumped Strength and the beginning was quite fun. Atton and female General were using modified field pistols made while escaping Peragus. Had to use force powers and positioning a lot. Usually I just make a big strength bro who kills everything and fugs handmaiden (she's so pure).

0lnUEYi.png

Story feels more coherent playing a female. I will miss Handmaiden, but Atris being a jilted lover fit awkwardly and moments like Atton fearing the General's judgment about his past makes more sense.

Also, Atton is always right about everything. Kreia was a Sith witch messing with everyone's head all the time and Disciple was a spy.
 

NecroLord

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H9GGGnq.png

(there was a cool fight in here where Atton's fighting spirit activated after he'd fallen to the pink skinned lady, and he shot her in the back for huge sneak attack damage. Was very cool.)

Been playing with TSLRCM installed as a female Jedi Consular on difficult who dumped Strength and the beginning was quite fun. Atton and female General were using modified field pistols made while escaping Peragus. Had to use force powers and positioning a lot. Usually I just make a big strength bro who kills everything and fugs handmaiden (she's so pure).

0lnUEYi.png

Story feels more coherent playing a female. I will miss Handmaiden, but Atris being a jilted lover fit awkwardly and moments like Atton fearing the General's judgment about his past makes more sense.

Also, Atton is always right about everything. Kreia was a Sith witch messing with everyone's head all the time and Disciple was a spy.
Atris is still a bitch. Always was.
A lot of her issues make sense if your character is male.
 

boot

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Atris is still a bitch. Always was.
A lot of her issues make sense if your character is male.
But her fall seems cleaner, she is another jedi historian like Kreia who became twisted. It's less personal and more thematic or something.
 

gurugeorge

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Strap Yourselves In
H9GGGnq.png

(there was a cool fight in here where Atton's fighting spirit activated after he'd fallen to the pink skinned lady, and he shot her in the back for huge sneak attack damage. Was very cool.)

Been playing with TSLRCM installed as a female Jedi Consular on difficult who dumped Strength and the beginning was quite fun. Atton and female General were using modified field pistols made while escaping Peragus. Had to use force powers and positioning a lot. Usually I just make a big strength bro who kills everything and fugs handmaiden (she's so pure).

0lnUEYi.png

Story feels more coherent playing a female. I will miss Handmaiden, but Atris being a jilted lover fit awkwardly and moments like Atton fearing the General's judgment about his past makes more sense.

Also, Atton is always right about everything. Kreia was a Sith witch messing with everyone's head all the time and Disciple was a spy.
Atris is still a bitch. Always was.
A lot of her issues make sense if your character is male.

Atris just seemed like an unnecessary appendage to the story for me, almost another Kreia when we already have a Kreia.

I agree with notpl in that I'm of the camp that thinks Avellone is a bit overrated (though I probably don't hate him as much as notpl evidently does :) ) and the highfalutin' aspects of KOTOR 2 that everyone lauds are almost its weakest point, where to me the strong suit of KOTOR 2 is that the levels are pretty well designed and the story well told (up until the point it seems that they lost steam). It's actually a solid game up to that point, with the dialogue mostly being interesting enough to have a wee think about now and then. By contrast, KOTOR has a fair number of rambling sections quite early on, where you're just yomping back and forth across maps; KOTOR 2 is more action-packed.

I don't think "the Star Wars universe" ever had any problem with morally grey characters, even in Force terms. Han Solo was one, Lando Calrissian another. IIRC the EU had a fair amount of exploration of the grey Jedi, and even KOTOR had Jolee Bindu ferchrissakes.
 
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