Firstly, that fight was not difficult by any stretch, so I don't see that you have a point; it's an easily accessible high stat item. Next, I think you're forgetting about the implant enhancements; these are easily the most powerful items in both games.
The Terentatek is about as tough a fight as you'll ever get in either KOTOR outside of bosses. It might not be much but it's something. And the item's only useable to light side characters. It's not the best idea ever, yeah, but it's better than having random enemies drop stupidly powerful items. Did you miss the point where I said that that uber-item can be picked up as a random drop in KOTOR2? It's about the most powerful item in the game and I got it off some fucktard bounty hunter that went down in one flurry.
Implant enhancements – the powerful ones anyway – require either a third level feat or an obnoxiously high constitution depending on which game you're playing. Feats aren't something you get a huge amount of. At most, you get one per level as a soldier/guardian, and while you can get the implants for free that requires playing as a scout through till level 8 which severely cuts into the amount of force points you'll have at the end of the game. Either way, you have to sacrifice other aspects of your character to get those items. They're not just random drops that you're free to use.
When you talk about this level cap you overly exaggerate. Yes, we both agree that it wasn’t the best thing for game BALANCE, but it's also some thing that doesn’t become overly problematic until late in the game, and to be honest it wasn’t that bad considering the armies of enemies you ended up having to fight. And yes there is a difference between mechanics and balance, and reviewers should be able to distinguish the two and not use the terms interchangably; if you want to defend their obnoxiousness then go right ahead, it just makes you look stupid.
Strangely enough, it's the end of the game where the difficulty becomes ridiculously low as well. Those armies of enemies are little more than a speed bump by that stage unless you've built a really weak character. My builds are never, ever designed for maximum power and I still have zero problems. My brother, well, it's just ridiculous how he goes through them. The cap at level 20 would have made it a great deal more reasonable. 5 or 6 levels less force points and powers might have made it a bit more of a challenge.
It was a ridiculous decision to remove that cap really. The game's based on a P&P system where level 20 is some sort of near-impossible to get uber level. From what I remember, and it's been a long time since I've looked at the material, even people like Yoda and Palpatine aren't level 20. Having some random fucknut of a Jedi running around at level 25+ is bound to cause that system to break down.
Game balance is very closely tied to game mechanics. Designing a levelling system where the player character can reach ungodly levels of power is bound to make the game balance break down and it seems to happen in most RPGs that I've played. Honestly, can you tell me that there was any challenge left in Fallout once your gun skill of choice was high enough that you stopped missing every other shot? I don't see how this is arguable.
For Christ's sake are you reading what you're writing? No I didn't miss the scene but I was critiquing the stupidity of it—if you want to talk about plot holes then let’s talk about the ridiculous premise of the first game. “Bastila’s powers†what frigging powers? She’s a nobody and all she has going for her is that battle meditation, so basically an initiate uses her “powers†to brainwash an injured sith lord and that makes sense? And of course, he looses his sith powers just like that—poof? You can’t honestly believe what you’re typing can you?
If she was nothing special outside of her battle meditation, they wouldn't have sent her to go up against Revan like that. And all she did was keep the mortally wounded Revan alive long enough to get him to proper medical help. That's all. The rest was all the work of others. And whether it was brainwashing or simple amnesia was never really confirmed. Bastila's clearly under the impression that Revan suffered from amnesia but the Sith think it was brainwashing. Either way, it obviously wasn't Bastila who would have been the one to do the mindwipe when it came down to it.
At least the player character in the 2nd isn’t some uber brain washed dick—the worst thing about the first one is, well here I am Mr Ex-king of the sith and yet no one recognizes me not even my old soldiers and not even the jerk who runs my sith training school or any one—yeah, that’s definitely not a plot hole, how could I have ever doubted you, silly me, ha ha ha let’s all point and laugh at me…
Can't say I disagree with that to be honest. The mask wearing would cover most people but there must have been some around who would have recognised Revan. Unless every Jedi on Dantooine but Juhani knew and didn't say anything it's a problem.
KotOR2 also had the advantage of Obsidian knowing that Star Wars wasn't ANCIENT TEMPLE OF DOOOOOOOOM after ANCIENT TEMPLE OF DOOOOOOOOM. While there were some temple-ish areas in KotOR2, KotOR1 just felt like a D&D adventure with lightsabers. Lightsabers which worked just like any other sword, for the most part.
The Baldur's Gate in space feel of the combat is probably the worst part of both KOTOR games for me. But it's not like I expected any better from Bioware. I went in with very low expectations and was pleasantly surprised in the end. The temples . . . well, they didn't actually bother me that much to be honest. We got a pretty spread of other terrains with the Wookiee world, Tatooine (yet again), Taris, and Manaan, and it fits the whole idea of searching for some ancient artefact of ultimate evil power that was most of the game's plot.
You can't move in the EU without tripping over some Sith tomb anyway so I can't say I wasn't expecting it.
I'm not saying that KotOR2 didn't have a disjointed ending, like what was the deal with that Darth Whatever dude on the big, rusty ship that you kill? There wasn't a heck of a lot of character development on that protagonist. He just seemed like Kill the Sith Waypoint Number 1 rather than being something somewhat important to the story. He's got a huge ship, and he's supposedly a bad ass - but did anyone really care much about him?
I'll never understand that. Nihilus was the cover-art villain and he got about as much screen-time as random NPC #46290 in the end. At least with Malak you got the feeling right from the beginning that the game was building towards a confrontation with him even if he was a moustache-twirling cheese-fest of a stereotypical RPG villain.
That said, the planet before you get to the DARK SIDE FACTORY OF DOOOOOOOM in KotOR1 was pretty cheesy. The big problem with it was that it broke the tension of the plot. I've got all the pieces, I'm making my way to the DSFoD, and I wreck. Fine. Now I have time to get involved with planetary politics? What? The area wasn't poorly designed, it was just way out of place with the pace of what was going on in the bigger picture.
Yeah, it's a speed bump so they can say '25 hour game' or whatever they were claiming on release. At least it doesn't take all that long. I also remember having a 'shit, need to get off this planet fast' feeling the first time through so the Republic fleet didn't go boom which is what they were aiming for I think. And then I remembered that the game didn't model time at all outside of those stupid swoop races. Ah well.
Both kind of lost their focus after you get the four vital pieces of the puzzle, but KotOR2's lack of focus seemed more an issue of running out of time as opposed to just not knowing what they're doing.
The sheer amount of cut material that would have made the KOTOR2 plot make sense would definitely indicate that you are correct about them simply running out of time and/or money. I don't really care though. The end result is the same and they knew they had a tight deadline when they took the project on. There are also several utterly ridiculous things in the game that make me wonder if it was just the deadline that caused the problems. I mean, who designs bosses that have hardly any powers to use?
