Is KoToR worth playing?

[DalekFlay]

Don't forget to pick up TSLRCM. It has one or two unneeded changes but the restored content fills in a lot of gaps, and the endgame feels a bit like the Fortress of Regrets (well, a fair bit of KOTOR2 does feel like Planescape Torment).

I usually never use mods on a first play. Should this be an exception?

 

[Rake]

Don't forget to pick up TSLRCM. It has one or two unneeded changes but the restored content fills in a lot of gaps, and the endgame feels a bit like the Fortress of Regrets (well, a fair bit of KOTOR2 does feel like Planescape Torment).

I usually never use mods on a first play. Should this be an exception?

Yes. That's not about wanting to play the game as it was supposed to be played. The vanilla game was unfinished. As in cutting 1/4 of the game. The plot holes are huge. The restored content is a must.

 

[Ninjerk]

Playing Kotor 2 when it came out, completely blind (like, for example, having no preconceptions about how "influence" was supposed to be handled), as a darkside character, was the dumbest and most unsatifying RPG experience I ever had. The plot is incomprehensible if you aren't intentionally digging through conversation trees farming influence points for nuggets of exposition. I mistakenly thought a darkside character was supposed to be a dick to everyone all the time. And the darkside always-acted-like-a-dick-ending is even more abrupt, plot-holey and pointless than the normal, mostly missing ending. There is good stuff in there, but man it can go bad if you aren't playing half-spoiled and metagamey about influence. And it's not an actual good game no matter how you slice it. It's probably better just to read the Something Awful LP of it.

You obviously haven't played darkside KotOR1.

 

[Rivmusique]

KOTOR 2 has a worse end game area I think.

kotor2's endgame was better than Nar Shaddaa because there were fewer mobs and you were in control of your main character most of the time except for a couple of quick, trivial spots.

Though the restored content mod does sound like it makes it worse.

You should play it with TSLRCM, they make Nar Shaddaa better, I swear.

 

[oscar]

Playing Kotor 2 when it came out, completely blind (like, for example, having no preconceptions about how "influence" was supposed to be handled), as a darkside character, was the dumbest and most unsatifying RPG experience I ever had. The plot is incomprehensible if you aren't intentionally digging through conversation trees farming influence points for nuggets of exposition. I mistakenly thought a darkside character was supposed to be a dick to everyone all the time. And the darkside always-acted-like-a-dick-ending is even more abrupt, plot-holey and pointless than the normal, mostly missing ending. There is good stuff in there, but man it can go bad if you aren't playing half-spoiled and metagamey about influence. And it's not an actual good game no matter how you slice it. It's probably better just to read the Something Awful LP of it.

You obviously haven't played darkside KotOR1.

While hardly Shakespeare, you can at least say you knew what the hell was actually going on by the end of KotOR 1.

A lot of the more interesting conversations in KotOR 2 are influence based. This is a pretty major considering that writing is the only real strength of the game.

 

[Jick Magger]

Yeah, it's pretty obvious that both games were effectively written with a light side protagonist in mind, seeing as most of your 'villainous' actions in both games veer inbetween DARK AND EDGY banalshit and just plain old being a prick to everybody. Hell, Kreia even effectively says how badly you fucked up the game by playing as a dark side character if you do go full retarded evulz.

It's one of the main reasons why I've never liked the Sith. They're basically just a gaggle of chaotic evil fuckwits who can't even decide on where they should go for fucking lunch without tearing each others throats out, let alone be able take over the galaxy. The level where you go undercover at a Sith temple just beats home how these people should not fucking work in any truly organized capacity.

 

[oscar]

The Sith wouldn't be able to run a burger joint, let alone a galaxy-spanning empire.

The whole Dark/Light side thing in general is a moronic conflict between half-assed bastardised pseudo-Darwinism and half-assed bastardised McBuddhism.

The source material of Star Wars is too fundamentally shallow for a game trying to be mature and intellectual to really succeed.

 

[Roguey]

You should play it with TSLRCM, they make Nar Shaddaa better, I swear.

I heard it made it worse by adding more combat.

 

[Rivmusique]

But a part of the new content is this really fun combat rush where you have to play as atton, mira and t3.

 

[Ninjerk]

But a part of the new content is this really fun combat rush where you have get to play as atton, mira and t3.

That's better.

 

[Grimlorn]

The problem is they'd have to essentially make two games to do a good and evil side because they are both so different. To be good, you build up allies through noble deeds and helping out anyone you can. To be truly evil, a maniacal genius, you'd have to be doing anything to increase your personal power and gain allies through power, manipulation, and fear on a much larger scale. They can't really do that without making two games, so you have to essentially come across the same people you're expected to help for good points and be a dick to them. Which is thuggish, small time, and lame.

 

[DalekFlay]

It's one of the main reasons why I've never liked the Sith. They're basically just a gaggle of chaotic evil fuckwits who can't even decide on where they should go for fucking lunch without tearing each others throats out, let alone be able take over the galaxy. The level where you go undercover at a Sith temple just beats home how these people should not fucking work in any truly organized capacity.

Not to defend Lucas, but this was all an invention of the expanded universe bullshit. Lucas set it up where there were only two Sith, a master and apprentice who wanted to overthrow the master when the time was right. This works okay. Lone wolves taking over the galaxy through power and manipulation.

When the expanded peeps decided there used to be thousands of Sith at once it kind of falls apart. If you play the MMO there is literally like a thousand Darths all fighting for power with each other and yet supposedly a nice orderly city and government exist around this somehow.

 

[Ninjerk]

I always admired what Dark Horse brought to the Expanded Universe (what I could get my hands on, that is) with Tales of the Sith. I feel like it made a lot more sense than TOR.

 

[kenup]

IMO, TSLRCM doesn't add anything important and would suggest playing without it, if only to finish the game sooner. Personally, it only managed to make me more frustrated at the bad writing, railroading and forced situations; since it adds more of those, rather than some actual choice and any plot hole plugging. TSL makes the assumption that the player will always want to be the goody-two-shoes or the complete asshole, reflected by the lack of other/more sensible choices(the lack of choices in general is big in this one). Which is ironic, since they wanted a more "grey" Star Wars with this game. Oh and the companions. Let's just say they don't know the word "no". Like gizmo said, there are some good moments here and there, but overall it's shit.

 

[Rake]

IMO, TSLRCM doesn't add anything important and would suggest playing without it, if only to finish the game sooner. Personally, it only managed to make me more frustrated at the bad writing, railroading and forced situations; since it adds more of those, rather than some actual choice and any plot hole plugging. TSL makes the assumption that the player will always want to be the goody-two-shoes or the complete asshole, reflected by the lack of other/more sensible choices(the lack of choices in general is big in this one). Which is ironic, since they wanted a more "grey" Star Wars with this game. Oh and the companions. Let's just say they don't know the word "no". Like gizmo said, there are some good moments here and there, but overall it's shit.

 

[Infinitron]

Uh, I think it's safe to say that if you don't like a game in the first place, you probably shouldn't be playing a mod that gives you more of it

Playing Kotor 2 when it came out, completely blind (like, for example, having no preconceptions about how "influence" was supposed to be handled), as a darkside character... I mistakenly thought a darkside character was supposed to be a dick to everyone all the time.

Mindlessly "playing a darkside character" by always selecting the nastiest dialogue choice is itself metagamey. It's like always selecting the third choice in a Mass Effect dialogue wheel

 

[kenup]

Uh, I think it's safe to say that if you don't like a game in the first place, you probably shouldn't be playing a mod that gives you more of it

Correct. But, I was hopping it would fix its problems, not add to them.

 

[DalekFlay]

Mindlessly "playing a darkside character" by always selecting the nastiest dialogue choice is itself metagamey. It's like always selecting the third choice in a Mass Effect dialogue wheel

To be fair Bioware stupidly encourage this with in-game rewards for going all out on one side or the other, both in KOTOR and Mass Effect.

 

[Akratus]

That's right kids. If you plan on shoplifting, make it your career. It's the bioware way.

 

[Jvegi]

My last Kotor2 playthrough, which was with a ds character, really made my appreciate the freedom of rp given by multiple (more then 3) dialogue options. You don't have to be dickish in this game to be evil, you can make your pc a bit more layered. The same goes for the LS characters. Thats one of the reasons why kotor2 is way, way better then kotor1.

And that's why I hate BioWare for making full voiced PC a standard. We can't have nice thing this way...

Balance-wise kotor 2 is all fucked up though. 3rd level Force Push and Force Lightning can be abused to the point where you're literally invincible, regardless of all difficulty mods installed. At least in kotor 1 it was only an end game issue.

 

[Jick Magger]

I was always amused by the moral choices in Mass Effect. People like to argue that it's less of an alignment thing and more of an 'idealist vs. pragmatist' thing, but if you actually look at it, it's just "Being a nice guy or a petty dickhead to everyone, to the point where it's actively detrimental to your overall goals".

None of this encapsulated this quite as much as the Samara loyalty mission. Apparently it's the 'idealist' choice to side with Samara, and the 'pragmatist' choice to side with Morinth, but the thing is that Morinth is a a fucking serial killer who only moments ago had tried to kill you. Such people are well-known for being hard to work with, and overall not team players. In fact, give her the opportunity, and she'll try to murder you again on the Normandy. Trusting her in any capacity at all is a fucking death-wish.

 

[Rake]

Apparently is the "pragmatic" choice.

 

[Ninjerk]

TSL makes the assumption that the player will always want to be the goody-two-shoes or the complete asshole

What do you mean when you say, "TSL?"

 

[DalekFlay]

And that's why I hate BioWare for making full voiced PC a standard. We can't have nice thing this way...

And they insist they have to have a voiced PC for sales reasons, despite the fact games without a voiced PC (namely Bethesda games) outsell Bioware games by a factor of like six.

I was always amused by the moral choices in Mass Effect. People like to argue that it's less of an alignment thing and more of an 'idealist vs. pragmatist' thing, but if you actually look at it, it's just "Being a nice guy or a petty dickhead to everyone, to the point where it's actively detrimental to your overall goals".

None of this encapsulated this quite as much as the Samara loyalty mission. Apparently it's the 'idealist' choice to side with Samara, and the 'pragmatist' choice to side with Morinth, but the thing is that Morinth is a a fucking serial killer who only moments ago had tried to kill you. Such people are well-known for being hard to work with, and overall not team players. In fact, give her the opportunity, and she'll try to murder you again on the Normandy. Trusting her in any capacity at all is a fucking death-wish.

Not sure I agree here, I think that choice is somewhat of an outlier. I played the whole ME series going renegade 90% of the time just to be a Dirty Harry style badass, and I never felt evil. Series has a ton of flaws but I don't think renegade being evil is one of them, unless you're super liberal pacifist guy.

 

[mediocrepoet]

TSL makes the assumption that the player will always want to be the goody-two-shoes or the complete asshole

What do you mean when you say, "TSL?"

The Sith Lords. KOTOR 2