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Just picked up KOTOR 1&2; recommendations?

almondblight

Arcane
Joined
Aug 10, 2004
Messages
2,549
Just picked up KOTOR 2 as well. I'm confused about all of the praise the writing gets. During the first level you have logs of the miners going "Hey, we found a droid on the mysterious vessel we brought in, and we sent it to reprogram all of the robots." "Hey, after we sent the droid to reprogram all the robots they've started killing the miners; I wonder what caused that." "Hmm, the mining robots keep killing the miners, so we've decided to have the miners wear extra armor while we send them to work with the robots. We asked the droid who reprogrammed the robots if he knows why they suddenly started killing us, but he just gave evasive answers. Huh."

The two companions you pick up are both pretty annoying as well. The guy is a pretty cliche rogue type; I'm guessing there will be a big reveal about why he was really imprisoned later on that I'm supposed to care about. Kreai was somewhat interesting at first, but then she decided that she's my teacher and is going to lecture me about everything.

Gameplay seems to be cut and paste trash mobs all over the place + loot containers.

Decent atmosphere though, and we don't get a lot of space opera RPGs. KOTOR 2 makes me wish someone made one that was well done.

(Also, this was ranked the 19th best RPG of all time by the Codex? Explains a lot, I guess.)
 

Shammy

Learned
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Just picked up KOTOR 2 as well. I'm confused about all of the praise the writing gets. During the first level you have logs of the miners going "Hey, we found a droid on the mysterious vessel we brought in, and we sent it to reprogram all of the robots." "Hey, after we sent the droid to reprogram all the robots they've started killing the miners; I wonder what caused that." "Hmm, the mining robots keep killing the miners, so we've decided to have the miners wear extra armor while we send them to work with the robots. We asked the droid who reprogrammed the robots if he knows why they suddenly started killing us, but he just gave evasive answers. Huh."

The two companions you pick up are both pretty annoying as well. The guy is a pretty cliche rogue type; I'm guessing there will be a big reveal about why he was really imprisoned later on that I'm supposed to care about. Kreai was somewhat interesting at first, but then she decided that she's my teacher and is going to lecture me about everything.

Gameplay seems to be cut and paste trash mobs all over the place + loot containers.

Decent atmosphere though, and we don't get a lot of space opera RPGs. KOTOR 2 makes me wish someone made one that was well done.

(Also, this was ranked the 19th best RPG of all time by the Codex? Explains a lot, I guess.)
Both Kreia and Atton get very fleshed out as the game progresses, and though Atton does start off as that cliche he eventually becomes a pretty solid character. Kreia is also in the same boat, so stick with it.

Gameplay was never terribly strong, and though I personally enjoyed it it's not exactly a mechanical masterpiece.

Also you probably already are, but be sure you have TSLRCM or you'll miss out on a ton of muh lore.
 

Starwars

Arcane
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Jan 31, 2007
Messages
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Sweden
KOTOR gameplay being not terribly strong is an understatement of the year. It's fucking terrible in every way whatsoever and should be nuked from orbit. There is no redeeming feature to be found there except a coolness factor from being a Jedi or Sith and wielding lightsabers and forcepowers.

Some of the KOTOR2 companions are pretty cool. Kreia is well-written. However, she comes with the price of having to accept her as your in-game teacher which can completely kill the character if you're not in the mood to be lectured left and right. There will be moments where you will not be able to say what you really want because the game wants to backhand you with some "awesum Kreia teachings, look how GREY everything is, not really light side and dark side at all!11!!" and it's goddamn annoying.

There are good points about KOTOR2 but they're buried under a mountain of shitty gameplay and questionable design decisions.
 

Old One

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The Great Underground Empire
Keep in mind both the KOTOR games are NWN mods, so they're inherently bad. In fact, they're basically NWN with lightsabers - lightsabers that can't cut through anything, that is.

"The Old Republic" is also a lousy pseudo-Star Wars setting created to market silly fan-fic without stepping on real Star Wars canon from the movies. Instead of Imperial Storm Troopers you have pseudo-storm troopers; instead of the Millennium Falcon you have a pseudo-Millennium Falcon, and so on. It's quite shameless how they replicate everything in this way. Pseudo-R2D2: check. Pseudo-C3PO: check.

They're both dumb games, but KOTOR 1 is slightly better because it tries to make you feel like you're playing inside a movie, whereas KOTOR 2 tries to make you feel like you're playing inside "Also Sprach Zarathustra" while trying to defeat some clown who looks like a cross between the Phantom of the Opera and a transvestite nun. And all your companions can become Jedi, too, no matter how unworthy they are.

KOTOR 1 is also superior because it sticks to the Star Wars tradition of transitioning from one type of biosphere or environment to a radically different type as you progress through the story. KOTOR 2 has incredibly ugly, poorly designed sets, and they're egregiously similar: a space station and a city and an underground complex, and an urbanized moon.

If I could go back in time and unplay them, I would. I've got an old motorcycle in my garage that needs fixing up.
 

Shammy

Learned
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Keep in mind both the KOTOR games are NWN mods, so they're inherently bad. In fact, they're basically NWN with lightsabers - lightsabers that can't cut through anything, that is.

"The Old Republic" is also a lousy pseudo-Star Wars setting created to market silly fan-fic without stepping on real Star Wars canon from the movies. Instead of Imperial Storm Troopers you have pseudo-storm troopers; instead of the Millennium Falcon you have a pseudo-Millennium Falcon, and so on. It's quite shameless how they replicate everything in this way. Pseudo-R2D2: check. Pseudo-C3PO: check.

They're both dumb games, but KOTOR 1 is slightly better because it tries to make you feel like you're playing inside a movie, whereas KOTOR 2 tries to make you feel like you're playing inside "Also Sprach Zarathustra" while trying to defeat some clown who looks like a cross between the Phantom of the Opera and a transvestite nun. And all your companions can become Jedi, too, no matter how unworthy they are.

KOTOR 1 is also superior because it sticks to the Star Wars tradition of transitioning from one type of biosphere or environment to a radically different type as you progress through the story. KOTOR 2 has incredibly ugly, poorly designed sets, and they're egregiously similar: a space station and a city and an underground complex, and an urbanized moon.

If I could go back in time and unplay them, I would. I've got an old motorcycle in my garage that needs fixing up.
This is probably the worst breakdown of KotoR I've ever seen.

Do people on this forum even try anymore?
 

Kem0sabe

Arcane
Joined
Mar 7, 2011
Messages
13,076
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Azores Islands
I played both first on the original Xbox and both were very fun to play, even unmodded kotor 2.

Would recommend them to anyone who enjoys star wars and rpgs.
 

Eirinjas

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RPG Wokedex
I played KOTOR 1 on Xbox. I enjoyed the fuck out of it without the level twatting recommended elsewhere in this thread. KOTOR 2 I played on PC with the Restoration mod (skip the robot planet mod - I heard it's weak) and enjoyed the fuck out of it. KOTOR 2 has better writing, IMO, and it introduces a character reputation (influence) system. Dialogue between other characters in KOTOR 2 can net you all kinds of rewards from party NPCs depending on how much influence you have. I don't get the complaints about the combat, but then every fucking game mentioned on these forums gets slagged by someone claiming it has shit combat. Play them in order of release, if you plan on playing both, as KOTOR 2's story is a continuation of the first, and I found it very rewarding playing KOTOR 2 and revisiting places and peeps from the first game.
 

Daemongar

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Codex Year of the Donut
Played both KOTOR 1 and 2 back to back, about two years ago. Paid about $2.50 each for them. There were parts I didn't like in either, and wasn't crazy about either ending. That being said, they weren't bad.

Both games have good/evil endings, and playing evil in the games does feel different, not just artificially different. The skills you can select differ depending on your alignment, as well as how you can complete some quests, armor, weapons, etc. The game doesn't get enough credit here. Also, considering when these games came out, they aged pretty well. The controls aren't console shit. They did a PC port which feels like pc controls. Also, no romance. You can't bone or swear undying love to anyone. This is a plus.

I think the complaints about the combat come down to
once you get a light saber, it's pretty much easy mode the rest of the game, and you'd be a fool not to specialize in light sabers. This is unfortunate as it makes combat look more "Star Wars" like, but you get the light-saber about 60% into the game in KOTOR1, and about 25% into the game in KOTOR2. Challenges really fall apart after that. If the complaints are more than this, than the complaints are in line with D20 problems, not KOTOR itself.
 

Prime Junta

Guest
If the complaints are more than this, than the complaints are in line with D20 problems, not KOTOR itself.

That's not the problem.

The problem is the "cinematic" combat. It's RTwP from a third-person perspective, with the possibility to switch between characters, which is inherently wonky and difficult to control, and makes tactical positioning and movement as good as impossible. The plays-itself easy is a consequence: they couldn't make it much harder because it would've just felt frustrating because you can't control what your party is doing.

KOTOR combat sits in a really uncomfortable place. First- or third-persion action can be done well. Party-based RTwP can be done well. Trying to do both at the same time can't.
 

Sensuki

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Codex 2014 Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong A Beautifully Desolate Campaign
Personally I think they made the right choice though, if it had to be RTWP and also had to be console-y controls then shit easy combat is probably preferable.
 

Jick Magger

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So yeah, KOTOR 1 is pretty thoroughly middle-of-the-road, your standard Star Wars story with a plot-twist you'll see coming from a mile away. It's not mind-blowing, but it's nothing new, either. I'd recommend taking a look at it though just so you can cross it off your checklist. KOTOR 2's an interesting deconstruction of the Star Wars mythos, the black and white nature of the Jedi and the Sith, etc, with plenty of interesting characters, but a lot of the worlds can come across as a bit dull compared to the first. It's also a bit more dependent on knowledge of events from the first game, so if you're not willing to play the first, read the Wookiepedia entry on it or something to brush up.

The combat from both games is pretty boring, but functional and never really aggressively bad. Just remember to invest in the sith lightning tree as soon as possible so you can just spam it as an instant "I win" button as soon as you start getting sick of it.
 

Daemongar

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Codex Year of the Donut
If the complaints are more than this, than the complaints are in line with D20 problems, not KOTOR itself.

That's not the problem.

The problem is the "cinematic" combat. It's RTwP from a third-person perspective, with the possibility to switch between characters, which is inherently wonky and difficult to control, and makes tactical positioning and movement as good as impossible. The plays-itself easy is a consequence: they couldn't make it much harder because it would've just felt frustrating because you can't control what your party is doing.

KOTOR combat sits in a really uncomfortable place. First- or third-persion action can be done well. Party-based RTwP can be done well. Trying to do both at the same time can't.

You know, I after I got used to the limitations to the combat, I just didn't think too much about it. The NPC's were more for dialog options and their skills out of combat. I just gave the best of everything to my char, and only moved to NPC's when I went down or such. Never really did anything as them except when it was required to advance the story. You can set their attack style, but yeah, there isn't a good level of control and at the minimum, there should have been an Ultima 7 style "Attack strongest one, defend me, stay back, retreat, whatever" option for each party member.
 

eXalted

Arcane
Joined
Dec 16, 2014
Messages
1,213
As far as mods I replayed KotOR2 a little while before they came out with that surprise patch, but there was a tool to give it widescreen that also had entries for K1. You also had to download new UI graphics someone made that wouldn't be all fucked up by widescreen.
Any help with how to run KotoR 1 in widescreen will be greatly appreciated!

I couldn't for the life of me make it run as it should...
 

Lord Carlos Wafflebum

Aspiring Infinitron
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I spent the weekend playing through a good portion of KOTOR 1. I don't understand the hate; it's a solid Bioware game. I assume the same people that hate these games are the same people that hate the Mass Effect series, because this game certainly feels like a spiritual precursor for that series.

The plot is fine. I'm pretty sure I know what's going to happen as they beat you in the face with foreshadowing, but it isn't terrible. Combat has definitely become a gimmee since I became a jedi, but I'm enjoying playing around with my force powers.

So far can't say as though I'm disappointed. If I could take it all back, I would still pay $3 for this game.

I am not enjoying Kashyyk tho. I'll be glad to be off that planet.
 

Strayed

Educated
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Nov 5, 2014
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Southern Hemisphere's Canada (New Zealand)
Kashyyyk isn't that bad. Manaan is the worst planet in my opinion.

What's that, you poisoned our mythical progenitor? Never set foot on our planet again! Even though before we executed you for breaking and entering.
 

Carrion

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Personally I think they made the right choice though, if it had to be RTWP and also had to be console-y controls then shit easy combat is probably preferable.
I will never get this kind of thinking. A poor and/or simplistic combat system may still be interesting or rewarding on some level if there are some proper challenges to overcome and you have to master the system, spend some thought on how to develop your character(s), and so on. Even if the combat is annoying as shit, it may still provide some excitement if you manage to win a particularly difficult battle. Remove the challenge and you lose all hope that the system could be anything more than a huge waste of time. Besides, there's always some kind of an easy mode for people who just want to skip the combat altogether for some reason.

KotOR2 is by far the superior game of the two, mostly because of the writing, but there are a ton of things that annoy me about it. The piss-easy combat is one thing, the general mechanics are another, and the terrible ending (only ever played vanilla) is also obviously a huge flaw, but there are other issues as well. For instance, the pacing is shit, with some areas just going on and on and on forever, with the same shitty press-any-button-to-win combat encounters over and over again in the same repetitive corridors. I remember hating the fairly regular switching between characters, especially in Nar Shaddaa, which was annoying from a gameplay perspective (especially when you have to take control of characters that aren't even in your party yet) and terrible from a storytelling perspective as it constantly gave me access to information my character should have no access to. In general the quality varies too much within the game, with some areas being really cool and others being just horribly unfinished or failing in some other way. As a story-focused game I'd never put it anywhere near Torment or Mask of the Betrayer, mainly because of the actual story has so many loose ends (again, I don't know how much the mods managed to fix), the storytelling is at times shit, and the game is mostly driven by a few characters, some nice choices here and there and the occasional great bits of dialogue. Even those things I don't rank quite as high as some others, as I remember some of MCA's mannerisms bothering me quite a bit for some reason, more than in any other game he's been involved with, and the characters tend to be a bit too brooding and pretentious at times, even though Kreia rules and it's really nice how you can manipulate your party members and change their views during the game.

All things considered, KotOR1 is probably more consistent, but it's also pretty bland and doesn't really do anything exceptionally well: it too has shitty mechanics, the plot is Star Wars 101 with a twist, the characters range from tolerable to outright infuriating, and you get to make tough moral choices like "do I save the cat from the tree or kill the granny that owns it?". There are some nice quests and scenes, but many of those only really work if you go into the game as a BioWare virgin that can't see behind the smoke and mirrors that hide the fake C&C. KotOR2 is full of flaws, some of them huge, but the good moments are very good and do make it worth playing, whereas I'd only recommend KotOR1 if you really want your Star Wars fix.
 
Joined
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Personally I think they made the right choice though, if it had to be RTWP and also had to be console-y controls then shit easy combat is probably preferable.
I will never get this kind of thinking. A poor and/or simplistic combat system may still be interesting or rewarding on some level if there are some proper challenges to overcome and you have to master the system, spend some thought on how to develop your character(s), and so on. Even if the combat is annoying as shit, it may still provide some excitement if you manage to win a particularly difficult battle. Remove the challenge and you lose all hope that the system could be anything more than a huge waste of time. Besides, there's always some kind of an easy mode for people who just want to skip the combat altogether for some reason.

It might, but more likely it will become annoying and tedious. Imagine if Fallout was "improved" by having all enemies only attempt aimed shots to the eyes. Fun?
 

Carrion

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It might, but more likely it will become annoying and tedious. Imagine if Fallout was "improved" by having all enemies only attempt aimed shots to the eyes. Fun?
Maybe not, but it'd hardly be much fun either if you could one-shot deathclaws and super mutants right from the start with the 10mm pistol (without ridiculous criticals, that is). FO isn't hard, but it still has a fair amount of potentially tough encounters whereas I'm struggling to think of a single one from either KotOR. The combat in FO can be at times a lot of fun even if the mechanics leave something to be desired, whereas the combat in KotOR just feels like pointless filler most of the time since it poses no danger or sense of achievement.
 

pippin

Guest
They also said that, after KOTOR and its success, they wanted to make more sci fi rpgs, and ME was the result.
 

Ninjerk

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Jul 10, 2013
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14,323
I feel like I'm seeing the "my-first-RPGs-were-true-incline-what-happened?" cycle firsthand.
 

Lord Carlos Wafflebum

Aspiring Infinitron
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That explains a lot, and I'm really beginning to truly understand how Bioware got the way it is. If nothing else, KOTOR 1 is a link in the evolutionary chain to "riding the bull" that should be preserved for historical record.
 

pippin

Guest
Bioware always had people putting weird and "quirky" shit into their games, and trying to push Bioware to do that. It's just that they used to have better designers back then.
 

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