Here are just a few of the many things I loved about KOTOR II:
- I loved all the quests that explored your NPC's motivations and history. Especially the one with...oh no, wait that was the last game. How about the one with...no can't remember that one now either. I'm sure they'll come to me eventually.
- I loved the influence system. Especially how cute it was that even after you got your NPC's alignment to be totally opposite of how they started out, they would still only react to actions according to their original alignment. Or especially that the only way to find out significant bits about your NPC's story or the game's plot required you to constantly act out-of-character. Wow, that is just genius game-building stuff.
- I loved the way the most interesting story exposition took place in the blurbs during the incessant loading screens. Or even better, how great was it that your character always knew the biggest plot points before you were actually informed of them or anyone else even suspected you knew! For example:
Exile: Atris, you've fallen to the dark side and I must destroy you.
Atris: What?! How could you possibly have known something I've only realized for myself just now?
Exile: Because I saw a cutscene at which I wasn't present between you and Kreia. And it's in my dialogue tree therefore it must be true.
Exile: Visas, even though Nihilus has yet to do a point of damage, your connection to both of us is obviously the key to destroying him. And no, I don't have time to tell you how I know your master's name even though no one ever told it to me.
Nihilus: SchuueeeeKrshhhhooooooBrruuuuuup!?
Visas: Yeah, how the heck did you figure that out?
Exile: Can't you see what's in my dialogue tree, blind woman? Do I have to put it in Braille for you?
Exile: Sion, even though the last time I saw you in a cutscene you were beating the crap out of Kreia like you were her big mac pimp daddy and she was your $2 ho, I know that she is actually still your master and that there's some kind of wookie dominatrix love thing going on between you as well.
Sion: That's impossible! I've never told that to anyone, not even to my own black (and admittedly always broken) heart.
Exile: Fool, clearly you don't know the power of my dialogue tree!
- And finally, I loved being held in anticipation for 50+ hours to learn the details of the catastrophic events that happened at Malachor V and how that leads to the fall of Revan, my exile from the order, and the creation of the Sith Lords with all the devastation that comes after. And at the end of all that waiting we were delivered the most delicious ambiguity which left our own imagination free to create whatever explanation our hearts desired. Oh, how I wanted to jump into the air in sheer joy at that point, preferably out of the highest window I could find.
There's so much more I could write, but unfortunately I have to get back to another run-through of the game. (That last line is actually true. God I hate myself.)