Darth Jebus

After playing the game through a couple times, I can honestly say I'm disappointed in this one. It's problems have been well documented by other people here, so there's no need to go into them again. But, the biggest indicator for me that I just wasn't too enthralled with this game was the fact that, towards the end of it, I had no attachment to any of the characters whatsoever. And I also didn't feel like I had just completed and epic. Everything just kind of ran together and there was never a feeling that I was on an important mission. Hell, the first time I played through I didn't even know what I was doing half the time. I know this sounds a little cheesy, but by the time I got to the Star Forge at the end of the first game, I felt like my character had gone through hell with those companions that travelled with you. And remember Canderous' speech at the end? It was really touching. (if you were playing LS of course) And what about after the big revelation in K1? Your companions choose to stick by you through thick and thin (although as I've said before this was a little unrealistic, but touching nonetheless). You just felt like, towards the end of that game, you had gone through an epic. And your time on Taris seemed like it happened a million years ago. This was a result of great writing, imo. I've played K1 several times, and I'll bet if I played it today, I'd get that same little feeling of anticipation of what is to come, even though I've done everything there is to do in that game. But in K2, there's no such feeling. Whether I'm on Peragus, Citadel Station, or Nar Shadaa, it all feels the same. It's just lacking that umph and that magic the first game had, imo. And the things you have to do to complete the main quest seem forced and like you're just doing busy work. There's just no epic feel to it. And perhaps that's by design, and some people might prefer that. But to me what is Star Wars if not an epic? And I honestly thought getting your lightsaber in K1 felt much more like an accomplishment than in K2. Hell, there was a virtual ceremony when you made your saber in the first game. Here, though, you find the parts, talk to Bao-Dur and then that's that. Now, hopefully you can find a Jedi robe to go with it sometime before you land on Malachor V. So, the final verdict is, while K2 certainly did not suck and had it's exciting and enticing moments, it was disappointing because it left alot to be desired.

Well, unfortunately, the way this thing has been setup from a storytelling standpoint, K3 would almost have to be a direct follow up to K2. And let's face it. Had K2 been a stand-alone game with brand new characters and a brand new plotline to follow (which someone on these boards suggested Bioware originally wanted to do) the majority of fans would have been apoplectic. Like I said in another thread, you could go back to the very first days last year on these boards when it first announced that OE would be developing K2, and some of the first threads were "What do you think happened to Bastila/Revan/Carth, etc." And the way K2 ended, it leaves little choice for the direction K3 needs to take. It's just so unfinished. Also, remember that conversation you had with Carth (I think it was, could've been someone else - Lieutenant Grenn or Master Kavar maybe?) about how the consequences of the Jedi Civil War are far reaching and the galaxy would most likely feel it's effects for many years to come? I took that as veiled reference to many more KOTOR games in the future. Maybe I was just misreading that, though. But after a third KOTOR game, then yeah, definitely time to move on to something new.

Each combat situation is different. Every character has his or her strengths and weaknesses that's unique to them, so it's kinda problematic to just say, "These are the two companions you should always have with you." However, if you just want to steamroll through every living thing that crosses your path, Visas and Kreia are pretty good to have in your party by the time you return to Onderon to either help the Queen or to overthrow her. Together, the level of carnage you can dispense upon all of your enemies is downright sadistic. In terms of which combos will give you the best interaction and background stories, I've always found that having two morally opposite characters seems to work best. For example, have Handmaiden and Visas, or Kreia and Atton in your party. Much like in the first game, they'll have their own conversations about certain things, and sometimes you can decide which side you agree with or not. This will help you gain or lose influence with a character and will make it easier (or more difficult) to get them to open up about their past.

I really didn't like Atton because (and I know this sounds silly) of the way he treated T3. I mean, T3 continuously went through hell for the party on numerous different occasions, would provide vital information and, in addition to basically being the savior of the quest more than just a few times, he would make sure the Ebon Hawk was in shipshape. And then Atton would just dis him outright. Every time you get that scene near the begninning en route to Telos, where everyone is wondering how the Ebon Hawk got to Peragus, and T3 was trying to say that he was the one that landed the ship, Atton is just so overtly rude to the little guy that you just want to lay into him and take up for T3. When T3 gives that sad little droid moan noise, I really wanted to kill Atton horribly at that moment. And then later when Atton reveals that he was once a Sith that hunted down and killed Jedi there was just something about his attitude that rubbed me the wrong way. I mean, his attitude and demeanor just seemed so whiny and such. I really do hate Atton worse then Carth. I want to kill him so bad. Also, I'm convinced Disciple is bisexual. I can't prove it but I know he is. At the very least he's gay. He's kind of the Juhani of TSL, I guess. And Visas Narr was my favorite character. I liked her better than the PC.

I thought I was the only one that was experiencing this problem. I kept thinking it was a bug or something. I would pause the game, issue orders, and then have none of my party members do a single thing I told them to do. In fact, sometimes they would do the exact opposite of whatever order I gave. I didn't even know that was possible.

I'll play this safe and treat this as spoiler material. . Had to pause the game for a few minutes because I lost it.

Same here. After Carth talks to you after the whole Telos episode, his only concern is Revan, and he tells you that if you see Revan, tell her that Carth is waiting for her. Since you go to Malachor right after that, I was thinking "Ah, yeah. Here we go. It's time to see Revan. Wonder how they're going to pull this off?" Next thing I know the game was over. Thanks for coming.

I know this has been mentioned before by alot of other people but, I just have to say something about this. The random loot generator is abhorrent. And I only say this now because when I first played the game, it didn't seem like too much of a problem for me. I got my first Jedi robe the moment I landed on Citadel Station and then, shortly after I made my first lightsabre, I started finding short lightsabres and Dark Jedi robes all over the place. Some in the most random places. Like I would find Dark Jedi robes off a dead Rhodian thug lying in the street. But after playing the game again, I had the exact opposite experience. This time it took me forever to find a Jedi Robe and I only got one when I bought one from a vendor. And this is how I got my first Dark Jedi robe. The majority of crap I was getting was just that - crap. Stuff my character couldn't really use or stuff I had no interest in using. I never found a single solitary lightsabre anywhere. I only got lightsabres after completing certain quests. And I never found any robes off of anyone. I had to buy those, with the exception of Dark Jedi Master robes which I got . So, in short, the random generator just really sucks. If KOTOR 3 ever happens, please refine this system or do away with altogether.[/venting]

My life for yours.

If you did start off as Revan or the Exile, couldn't you start off as powerful as you were at the end of the first two games? I know that might sound unfeasable, but seriously, couldn't the devs just implement the same kind of system they had in the NWN mods? If I remember correctly, in those mods you could just select a premade character, which included a character that you played with in the original NWN, and in some cases, that character could be uber-powerful. So the game just adjusted accordingly and made your foes apropos to the level of the character you were playing as. It seemed like that would be the most logical thing to do if you were starting off as Revan or the Exile. I for one am kind of tired of the character who has been cut off or mentally maladjusted in some way and can't feel the force and has to gradually re-connect with it. It takes forever to get your lightsaber and your robes and all of that and it can get kind of tedious. Part of the allure of playing these games IMO, is playing as a Jedi or a Sith. If there is a third game, I'd be cool if they did something different than the first two, i.e. you start the game as a Jedi or a Sith, and when you pick your portrait, skills, feats, powers, and such, you also select your lightsaber (kind of like Jedi Academy). It's either that or they could go the Fable route and start you off as a youngling training at the academy on Coruscant or as a Sith Apprentice on some Sith world and then just go from there. The moral options in the game would obviously be either staying true to path you start out on, being a Jedi or a Sith. It'd be kind of cool to start off the game as a Sith for a change, and play through the game from their point of view, and then having to constantly make decisions that determine which path you are going to follow, knowing that if you make the wrong decision, you'll lose prestige among the Sith which could be hazardous to your health. And then, at some point, you can have the option of leaving the Sith for the Jedi or vice versa.

I just wanted to clarify something: when you say Malak and Revan had cameos, I assume you mean the vision of Revan and Malak that you encounter in the tombs? Just checking. Also, I believe you only see Bastila on Korriban if you told the game that Revan was DS male, no? I'm only on my second playthrough so I'm just checking.

Agreed. In fact, I griped about this in a seperate thread. My biggest complaint was that you could only even see Bastila if you told Atton at the beginning of the game that Revan was LS/DS male. Since Bastila was one of two main characters in the first game, she should've been in the game regardless of Revan's fate or gender in the first game. After all, you see Carth no matter what you told Atton in regards to Revan's gender. And he actually plays a rather important role for the Republic if you told Atton that Revan was LS. You can go back to the earliest days of these forums when we were all speculating that this top secret project Obsidian was developing was KOTOR 2, and some of the first threads created were "What happened to Bastila?", "Do you think Bastila Will be in Kotor 2?", "Was the romance with Bastila satisfying?", or just, "Bastila". Each of these threads seem to have hundreds of posts and it's obvious that knowing Bastila's fate after the first game (even if you chose to kill her, they didn't actually show it) was what a majority of the fans wanted to see. The first time I played the game that was one of the things I was really looking forward to see, but because I told Atton Revan was female, I never even saw her. No cut scenes, no nothing. Kind of blew. So, yeah, I agree, Bastila should of featured in the game more prominently. It sucked that she didn't.

You can wear Revan's mask?? Where?

I couldn't even find that feel good speech, either. And I was playing LS. When I asked Zherron if could talk to the troops, my only options were basically, "You guys should just run for the hills because being shot by blasters is horrifyingly painful." Or something to that effect.

One thing I kinda want to know is when exactly in the timeline was Traya the Dark Lord? I'm not really up on all the official SW lore. I know about Exar Kun and Ulic-Qel Droma, but not too much after that. I assume Traya ruled the Sith sometime after Kun/Droma and was the Sith Lord just before Revan's reign.

Amen. That's exactly what I did. Just equip an energy shield and throw down.

Yeah. Plus, I like this exchange here if you talk to her after your sparring match. PC: "Could you please put some clothes on." HANDMAIDEN: "Why? It does not seem to bother you." heh heh heh

I actually didn't have a problem with this game not making mention of some of the original crew. Personally, I didn't really care what happened to Mission, Zalbarr, Jolee, and Juhani while I was playing the first game. So, I didn't mind not knowing at all. Carth, Canderous, and of course, Bastila, were the only characters that really made a significant impact in the first game and those were really the only characters that we needed to see again, IMO. Having T3 and HK in your party again was a bonus. And a way to reveal Revan's location.

I've eluded to my gripes with KOTOR 2 in earlier posts, but after reading what others have said about it and it's predecessor, I want to elaborate a bit more. Bear with me, this might be kinda lengthy. First of all, my disappointment with KOTOR 2 has everything to do with what it could've been. The plot of the story, I thought, was well thought-out, well concieved and much more intimate than the first KOTOR. But the problem, however, was that it was not well put together. I really liked the fact that this game was focused solely on you. As Kreia delineates early on, the battlefield for this epic is not the places that you visit and the events that you help to shape, but the internal struggle going on within you as you seek to re-establish your connection with the Force and try to understand why the Jedi Council did what they felt they had to do. And thereby, you come to terms with the consequences of your actions from the war so long ago. It's basically like the old saying, "All my sins remembered." This theme is then expaned upon as the game progresses. The whole notion of the Force within you feeling as though it is an echo coming across a great distance is repeated almost to the point of redundancy. This is so you as the player can better understand what is going on here, and later, why the Jedi Council fears you, why the Sith hunt you, and why Kreia feels so strongly about you. As your relationships with the members in your party grow, so too does the plot. I like how the game handles this. By the end of the first game, your companions are firmly by your side even after the big revelation. In fact, even if you chose to recalim your title as the Dark Lord, some of your companions still refuse to give up on you. It was touching but perhaps a littl unrealistic. In this game, your companions intense loyalty to you is explained by your ability to forge bonds with other people through the Force, and, so to speak, feed off of the Force that is within all living things. Again, the theme of your character being an echo in the Force springs up here. This was well developed, I thought, because it just doesn't say that those that follow you do so because they think you are a swell guy or gal. Though they may not know it, they are following you because their subconscious has willed them to you through the Force. Well done. This in turn really spells out what Kreia's plans are for you. By turning away from the Force because of the tragedy that befell Malachor V, you (being the only Jedi in the history of the Order to do such a thing) created a wound in the Force - a dead space, an emptiness - that could spread to all Force practitioners and destroy them. The entire plot of the game revolves around that notion. And this totally sets up the disappointing ending to me. For how the hell could you end a videogame with this kind of deep moral plot that won't end vaguely and ultimately unfinished? You can't. Unless you put the story together better than it was. There were numerous times in the game where I didn't even know what I was going after or why. I had to keep referring to my journal. The whole story with Atris was an enourmous THUD. They could've done SO MUCH MORE with that storyline and her history with you. If you were a male, she loved you and Kreia exploited that. It just seemed that the writing fell short. By the end of the game I couldn't remember a single solitary memorable moment that stayed with me like in the first game. Kriea and Sion and Nihilus were only a small part of her agenda. The history between Kreia and Sion could've seen MUCH MORE detail. And Nihilus...oh, man...there was the potential to be one of the greatest villains ever created and he turned out to be easier to defeat than a Sith Apprentice. And by the end of this game you are so powerful with the addition of the prestige classes and no cap on leveling up, you are basically Jesus with a lightsaber. And I actually thought there were too many NPCs in your party. I know it was supposed to add to replayability, but with that many NPCs I can see why, at the end of the game, there just wasn't time to tie up all of their stories neatly. I have other gripes about the loop holes and the endless recurring dialogue trees that you couldn't get rid of, but I'd refer folks to Boiler's thread on that.

I didn't use orange, but I agree, that color always seemed more of a DS color than a LS one. In fact, Freedon Nadd's lightsaber was orange. So, I gave it to Visas to wield. It always seemed wierd to me that Jedi had a small assortment of colors from which to choose, but Dark Jedi and Sith Lords only had red.

I'm not trying to engage in a flame war or anything, but that was truly one of the most incoherent posts I think I've ever read. I couldn't even figure out what the second part of your post was trying to say. Something about Nar Shadaa, I think. If you had used punctuation and proof read what you posted, it may have been interesting. As for the the first part of your post, I actually agree with some of it. I think KOTOR 2 had interesting characters but it fell short with loopholes and ultimately, a convoluted plot that relied to heavily on implication and exposition rather than good storytelling. Something that Bioware has, up to this point, studiously avoided. But this could all be the doing of LucasArts, rushing it out for the holidays to cash in on the shopping rush.

I have yet to see anyone answer this. I've played the game through once as a LS male and I told Atton that Revan was LS female. I didn't see Bastila come out of the shadows after Carth got all weepy on me after I told him I didn't know where Revan was. The scene just ends with Carth saying "If you see Revan, tell her Carth Onassi is waiting for her." At the end of the game where my character was laughably unstoppable on Malachor V, the only thing that kept me playing through was hoping I would see Bastila. It never happpened. That's when I figured you had to tell Atton that Revan was LS male. I'm currently playing the game now as a LS female. So, for the last time, do you have to tell Atton that Revan was LS male to see Bastila? I must say, if that's true, then that's lame. Bastila was the main character of the first KOTOR and she should've had a cameo regardless of Revan's fate and/or gender in the first game. Otherwise, players like me played through the whole damn game the first time without one mention of her. Actually, you see her once in that ESB-like cave sequence on Korriban when Malak first recruited the Jedi that followed him and Revan to the Mandalorian Wars and Bastisla actually joins him. Then you can say something like, "Hey, wait! Bastila never joined you. She warned the Council of you and Revan leaving..."or something to that effect. Then you had to fight her, Malak, and about 27 other Jedi. And that leads to my favorite moment of the game: that last chamber that you go into on Korriban where you have to face none other than Darth Revan. He/she doesn't say a single word to you but just commences to beat you down. For some reason I thought that just owned. So, once again, as in the first game, Korriban was my favorite place.

Good to see. It was only a matter of time before we started seeing content based on the games. It'd be cool to see a comic with Revan as the main character before his/her fall as well. I totally don't know how they would do that, btw.

Congrats to Obsidian! I must say that playing the first KOTOR kind of opened me up to all of your other work when many of you were known as Black Isle. I've since played Baldur's Gate, BG2, Icewind Dale, and Neverwinter Nights. I'm also looking forward to the sequel to that game, too. All of those games were gold. And I also have to say that after playing those games, I found alot of the criticism for the first KOTOR to be kind of unfounded. Such as coming off as a thug and stuff and not a real darksider sort. I mean, some of the dialogue trees in KOTOR were identical to the ones in Neverwinter Nights. But that's all beside the point. Those games were Bioware, anyway. So, I can't wait to get my hands on KOTOR 2. The reviews I've read have been awesome. One reviewer over at gamespot.com said that he's only played the first 6 hours of the game and already likes it BETTER than the first. Oh, yeah! So, I'm totally leaving on the December 5, and then I'll come back after I've played it about 3 or 4 times. heh heh heh

It would be hard to make Revan official. For all the reasons already mentioned here. But, I suppose, one way you could do it, would be to have Revan be somesort of an enigma. Like, the Dark Lord without a face or something. To some Revan was female and to others Revan was male. But no one ever really knew. Revan had kind of a secret identity or something, which kind of added to his or her status as more of a legend than anything else. The Star Wars databank could basically describe Revan as one of the most mysterious Sith Lords ever to reign over the Sith Empire. The only people knowing Revan's exact identity were a few reclusive Jedi Masters on Dantooine that trained him and subsequently died in Malak's attack, and of course Malak and Bastila. This would add to the mystery of what happened to Revan after the Mandalorian Wars. For the sake of just having a little fun, you could say that many people never believed that the Revan that left the Republic in pursuit of the retreating Mandalorians as a hero, was the same Revan that returned with his or her face covered completely, and wearing a cape and hood as a conqueror. Many people would suspect that Revan was simply killed and someone else returned with the name Darth Revan. And maybe Lord Revan's voice was always kind of whispery so you couldn't really tell what the gender was. As to the whole resurrection thing, the same argument would apply. "Someone claiming to be the former Dark Lord Revan, rose up against Malak and the Sith and destroyed the Star Forge." Or, "Someone has now re-assumed the title of Darth Revan, Dark Lord of the Sith and is now ruling the Sith Empire." This kind of plays into the beginning of KOTOR 2, where your character along with Atton Rand only know what happend between Revan and Malak through rumors. Even though this does effect how the game ultimately unfolds, most people don't seem to know what happened to Revan and have only heard about him or her through news and whispers. Revan, in this regard, is more like Spawn than anything else. Something that was definitely out there but ever shrouded in mystery. Also, remember your conversation with Yathura Ban on Korriban? If you did Korriban last you have this great exchange with her where you can ask her what she knows of Darth Revan. Yathura says that she doesn't really know much about Revan. When you ask her ironically, "So you wouldn't know Revan if you met him/her?" To which Yathura replies, "Well, Revan was known for wearing a mask and hood. There's no telling what's beneath that mask." Or something to that effect. Also, remember NO SITH that you encounter on Korriban believes you when you try to warn them and say, "Look, fool, step off. I'm Darth Revan." Most people, students and troops alike, just challenge you anyway. So, most Sith don't even know Revan's true identity. A few people believe you later, but they are far and few in between. Now, of course there are ENORMOUS HOLES in that suggestion but it might be some place to start if the powers that be over in the Lucas Empire were serious about canonizing Revan. But I'm just being stupid.