My impressions after finishing..

[Tarelius]

You should really, really only read this, if you have finished the game (and like reading real long posts, hrmm..).

 

--

 

After finishing this game, I am feeling quite empty and sad. So much potential,

and so much done right - yet the impression I am left with, is one of bugs (not

just the technical ones, but storyline and dialogue bugs too), unfinished

plots, left out twists and turns, and a general feeling of.. Well, emptiness..

I love games like KoTOR I and Planescape: Torment, that let me interact with

NPC's, people you begin to care for. I love huge worlds full of moral

dilemmas and several ways of solving things. And after KoTOR I, I really

started loving Star Wars (KoTOR I was a perfect caption of epic and meaningful

science-fiction, imo)

 

What is really important for me, especially these days, is having a game I can

immerse myself in, where my self disappears, where reality fades, leaving only

the reality of the game. For 4 days, I have been playing KoTOR II, not seeing

my girlfriend, not working, not doing anything but sleeping, eating and

playing, in order to get that perfect immersion, which is only possible to get

with the best of games. I had high hopes for KoTOR II, naturally, but..

 

When the Handmaiden suddenly and unbelievably decides to escort Kreia to Atris

without checking on me, because she thinks Kreia killed me, and stops by the

Ebon Hawk just for the sake of delivering a blow in the stomach to Atton , my immersion in the game suffers (i.e., what an incredibly weak and hackneyed plot device. The design intent was, I guess, to invent a reason why Atton knew what was going on, so that the party can go after them. Without the access codes the Handmaiden had, and which were so important in getting in at all, by the way).

 

When, after having a deep conversation with the Handmaiden, where she tells me

her true name, she seems to forget all about this, and revert to old dialogues,

still referring to the newly defeated Atris as her master, my immersion

suffers.

 

(this is a common occurance in dialogues, that the NPC's do not remember what

they have said, who they are, and what they should react on in the future.

Another example of this follows)

 

When, after having killed Darth Nihilus, Visas talks about Nihilus, telling me

she fears for me if I confront him, and that she won't tell me where his ship

is (we're standing in it, my dear) my feel for Visas as anything other than some binary digits in my PC suffers.

 

When I talk to some NPC and I suddenly refer to the mysterious ship overhead as

the 'Ravager', without having ever known that that was its name, my immersion

suffers.

 

When the loveable assasin droid does not have any chance of meeting HK clones

after I activate him - because that entire plotline has apparently been left

out due to time restraints - my immersion suffers.

 

When I have to wonder what else has been left out, and whether I can have any

meaningful dialogue with my party, without worrying about rough edges and seams

due to poor design/lacking time, my immersion suffers.

 

When I find myself alone on Malachor V, trying to figure out whether it was a

bug or not, that I cannot find my party at all, and that I have to run around

alone, mindlessly killing things for the rest of the game, my immersion

suffers.

 

When I spend 1 hour running around the Trayus academy alone, cutting down

everything that moves, wondering about the emptiness/meaninglessness of the

place, and desperately wanting to find my party again, my immersion suffers.

 

And so it was with a great many things, I just mentioned some off the top of my

head, that I remembered now.

 

When Mira and Bao-Dur's droid showed up, I almost dared to hope there would be

some depth and immersion again; then the game ends, suddenly and with a

whimper, without me seeing them or the others again. Certainly no immensely

satisfying Planescape: Torment endgame moment here.

 

The whole game is riddled with moments of this kind, I think everybody who has

finished the game knows what I am talking about and can give examples of their

own. If you do not care too much for the immersion of a game, and have a more

relaxed attitude to gaming and experiences with storytelling, I guess you can

overlook these things. For me however, such things in a game I had such high

expectations for (I hoped it was roughly as good as its predecessor) are

absolutely devastating to the enjoyment of the game. I know I am being critical and can be construed as being overly so, but honestly, this is how I feel, and these are the things I focus on in games, because these are the most crucial things for me. Immersion and interaction.

 

Also, I am left baffled and largely unfeeling by the main storyline. The 'twist' with Kreia was so obvious right from the start, that the only surprise I had

in regards to that, was when I slowly realized that her actions should infact surprise the player. More disturbingly, I was in the midst of loosing my understanding of the whole echo-nothingness-wound twist constantly. I could not quite grasp its meaningfulness emotionally nor rationally, and was left wondering what the big deal was. I had served the light side all through the game, only killing in self-defense and never being cruel or evil, then the Jedi Masters (who had all been very friendly and or at least helpful to me) tell me that I am some sort of anti-jedi, a gaping wound in the force, and then they suddenly want to spiritually assault me, no time for dialogue nor mutual understanding.

 

Afterwards, I am left with three suddenly dead Jedis, wondering why this

happened, what the design idea behind this was, and why I could not get myself

to feel that my PC was a hollow, empty and afraid shell (I think it was a

mistake of the designers not to either have spelled out the background

story of the PC in the manual/game, or letting him have total amnesia;

obviously he knew a lot I needed to know in order to feel for him and

understand the dialogue. Getting this out in bits and pieces, scrambled and

gutted, was not intriguing at all; it was frustrating). The mainplot of the

game lost me there, and instead left confusion and emptiness; a feeling as if

the reality of the game had huge problems keeping itself together. Hard to

explain, if you do not know what I talk about or feel the same.

 

Overall, there is mostly a myriad of nagging problems I have with all of this,

so many small things in the dialogue that points nowhere, so many small things

in the design, the plot and the dialogues that should have been smoothed out or

enlargened before the game shipped. Instead, I played through the entire game

with a feeling of not really knowing whether it was my own fault that I could

not immerse myself; that I could not fully enjoy KoTOR II. Was I really that

old and unfeeling? After the scene confronting Atris and getting the name of

the Handmaiden, the game inadvertedly and mercifully revealed that it was not

my fault, that I had not become a cynic who was not able to enjoy a good game

afterall, and it only made this revelation increasingly clear in the hours to

come.

 

I am frustrated, but mostly I am left filled with a sadness, that such a great

game, such a wonderful premise, such powerful potentiality was gutted, so that

it could be released quickly. One more year of development would not only have

made the bugs go away and made the environments look less like tilesets

(especially near the end of the game); more importantly, it would have left

time for the designers to fill in the gaps, to complete the game, to leave

behind a well-executed, seamless RPG experience. It would have been great, but

it falls short - it is not a bad game as such, but perhaps because of this, it

is even worse, hurts all the more, is all the more unforgivable, that this was

allowed. Most of the game is very good, though there are small issues underlying it all, but around the Jedi Gathering on Dantooine, it goes downhill.

 

The best games are pure art, and this could have been art like KoTOR I, given

time. Time was not given obviously, and I guess all my rambling comes back to

that one point: too bad the game was rushed out.

 

If there will ever be a KoTOR III, I really, really wish, pray and mostly hope,

that the developers will take the time needed, and then a little extra, because there is so much potential, so much force in what KoTOR I left behind, that it would be almost criminal to deliver something rugged and rushed (again).

 

Oh, and of course, this was no huge flaming of the game per se. I hope you can

all see that and don't feel the need to start telling me that I am

spectacularely wrong/that you hate me. What I wrote is truth - for me that is,

and yes, it has a lot to do with feelings - I love games where I can immerse

myself, huge worlds with interesting NPC's. KoTOR I and Planescape: Torment (Fallout I+II too, but it lacked some in the great party interaction, imo. Oh, and not to forget BGII - minus expansion. I really felt for Imoen and others. Masterfully done) are my guides here, as I mentioned at the start, and when a game aims towards this formula, and seemingly has all the right things going for it, my feelings and myself are naturally left incredibly disappointed when it doesn't come true. I think it could have come true, or close - given time, and this makes it all the harder to bear.

 

Ok, enough rambling, it is my nature and privilege as a philosopher to be

 

needlessly longwinded and repetitive Besides, it is something I needed to

get off my chest. Hope others tackled finishing the game better than I did, and

I will now go back to having a normal, functioning life, eagerly awaiting..

Well, Final Fantasy 12 perhaps?

[Tarelius]

And I just have to get this off my chest too:

 

There is no satisfying pingpong between the enemies and your PC, no on and off struggle, where you get more and more angry at your opponent(s). When Darth Nihilus finally appears, you waltz up to him, say hello and kill him, basically. The first and only time you see him.. A waste I think. And that reminds me.. Suddenly, after Dantooine and the dead Jedi's, you KNOW that the sith are going to attack Telos, and tell Atton so. How did you know? I certainly didn't, nobody mentioned it. But then again, you also suddenly know both the name of the adversary as well as the name of his ship, so maybe the force told you. Or maybe some cutscene/part was left out in the design. More likely the latter, and the game is full of these things, especially (to be fair, almost only), near the end.

 

It's a shame, because it is clear that the designers have a story to tell, that they have interesting NPC's, people we can/could develop feelings for. The designers wanted to reach out and touch with their stories, but.. Well, as I have made abundantly clear, I am sorry they couldn't touch me, and I am sorry that they didn't have/take time enough to develop the inherent beauty in their stories. Sorry for being a pathetic, emotional git, by the way, it comes with an age approaching the thirties

[Feza]

A well thought out post.

 

Kotor 2 was a decent game, it had the potential to be a great game.

It did not live up to that potential.

 

That it could have, is very obvious.

 

That it didn't, is what's so frustrating/disappointing to a lot of folks, Tarelius.

You're not alone.

 

Ah well, here's hoping for a 'fix the plot-holes' patch

<sigh>

[Delerius_Jedi]

A well thought out post.

 

Kotor 2 was a decent game, it had the potential to be a great game.

It did not live up to that potential.

 

That it could have, is very obvious.

 

That it didn't, is what's so frustrating/disappointing to a lot of folks, Tarelius.

You're not alone.

 

Ah well, here's hoping for a 'fix the plot-holes' patch

<sigh>

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I'd like to second Feza's statement here: What really cuts back on my own personal enjoyment of KotOR II is the knowledge of what it could have been, and perhaps should have been. It makes me sad to see all the material that was cut, as a quick search through the audio files of the game as well as the dialog.tlk file reveal some utterly stunning bits of plot. But they are wasted, squandered in favour of pushing the game out the door quickly. I would have gladly waited six months to a full year for this game if the material in those audiofiles would have been included.

[Rhl]

The looping dialogue with the NPCs ruins it for me too. Sure, I'm still gonna beat it, and beat it again on the dark side but I feel a bit deprived. I wish all that looping dialogue with the NPCs was fixed as it's pretty gay for Mira and Handmaiden to ask me to train them... even though they're already become Jedi. Hopefully Obsidian releases a huge patch soon that fixes all the dialogue, broken quests, looping NPC BS, and all the tech bugs in one go. And then they push out patches after that to fix anything left over.

 

Help Us Obi-Sidian Kenobi, you are our only hope.

[Zeshin]

Head over to the petition in my sig and sign it. It may be a futile hope, sometimes the hope is enough to satisfy our mutual disappointment in this 'game'.

[Azure79]

Good post. Heartfelt. I totally agree with you, since I too wrote along rambling post similar to this one.

 

We can only hope for the Devs taking heed of voices that cry out to them....ok now I'm being melodramatic.

 

Sign the petition!

[n_united]

Nice, expressive post.

 

I support the petition for Kotor2. I too, feel we have been short handed and am looking for ways to not let it happen again.

 

What do you think of this: http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?ac...t=0#entry275604

 

This is in hopes that Kotor III (as well as other games) will not see the need of having petitions anymore.

[guybrush threepwood]

the dialogue not going away after it was used really annoyed me, that and no more or very few new dialogue options appearing

[Iroqu]

I have a question. Was it in the script of the game to take you to Go-To's head quarters? I was looking forward to capturing/killing him and bringing him back to vogga. Did i just skipa side quest or was that just completly forgotten about by the writers?

When i was in Malachor V i was looking forward to doing more quests and whatnot. When Kreia started talking about Revan again, i began to think that a hole new story was about to unfold and i would get to go and find him/her and fight along side. But I guess Kreia just said that so they could start on KOTOR 3. If they do, I sure hope they do a better job on it then they did with KOTOR 2.

I was very disappointed with the ending. I couldn't believe it was the end. I mean, in KOTOR 1, Revan either took over as the sith leader or helped the republic if i remember correctly. but in this one, you just Fly out of Malachor V as fast as you can, shows the planet falling apart and shows you flying off in the Eban Hawk that amazingly survived the crash into the rock/mountain on Malachor V and then falls several hundered feet.

I remember thinking to myself "Oh this better not be the end of it." and sure enough it was.

I found the ending and near end of the plot and game unsatisfactory. I was very disappointed overall. It could have been way better than what they made it

[jpom]

Great post, I think that KOTOR II was a good game, I did enjoy it, and I think that if this had of been the first game rather then the second then opinions would differ immensly.

 

That said, it wasn't the first game, it had a expectations to live up too and I don't think it made it. KOTOR I was an amazing game, the character development was great, even the depevelopment of your enemies (Malak) was done well. KOTOR II tried to give you more backstory on the characters I think, but you can give as much back story as you want , doesn't mean the characters will be well developed.

 

Also where was the wow factor, maybe I'm just slow, but when playing the first one I did not see the whole being Revan thing coming - they did and timed that perfectly - but there was no wow factor in this game really.

 

The dialog system on this one is a pain, I've found that I have to go 2 or 3 levels into a dialog tree that I have already gone through to find a new option that I gained when leveling up or whatnot.

 

I felt that the worlds and their quests were lacking as well. Korriban had almost nothing to it I found, same with Dantooine. Nar Shaddaa seemed to be almost the only world with a good amount of quests to do, but I could have missed some of the others too.

 

And of course there was the rushed ending, I won;t go there as everybody knows about it and it's been beaten to death already.

 

I've finsihed the game once, and I'm now playing again, but frankly I highly doubt I will get anywhere near the replay value form KOTOR II that I did from KOTOR I. Nonetheless I think that KOTOR II was an alright game just not compared to KOTOR I.

 

Just MHO

[Nevan]

Nice post Tarelius I totally agree... Only thing worse than a unfinsed game is the total lack of feedback from the devs about the many issuses and what they actually plan on fixing. If there is something out there Im sorry, but Im still looking for info on a patch, when it comes out, and what they plan on fixing with it

[Aveeare]

I too have just finished the game, and need to release some steam.

 

Is it just me or does the entire game feels more like an expansion pack as oppose to a sequel?

 

The terrain / board itself also feels not nearly as interesting as KOTOR1. If you look at it, KOTOR1 had 4-6 different terrains - there is the high tech city (Taris, inside the military bases, somewhat the ships), underwater, desert, huge tree, rural, and tropical islands. KOTOR2 had fewer "new" terrains, furthermore with the exception of one of the boards, all the others feels like a repeat of the previous (the jungle didn't feel all that different from Kashyyk).

 

The in-party NPCs also feel less fleshed out - there are the return of some favorites, but with a few exceptions, the empathy that one shared with the in-party NPCs is just not there. The problem, I think, is that there are no PC involved NPC sidequests that results in NPC attitude shifts. One comes away with the feeling that the NPCs are very two-dimensional. People walk away from KOTOR1 loving and hating particular NPCs - and in both cases, it is good. The developers managed to elicit emotions in the player. In the case of KOTOR2, I just feel apathetic.

 

The story itself also feels far too contrived. I mean, I am a KOTOR fan and I bought KOTOR2 the first day it was out (I had to wait for the PC version) - and I really have difficulty getting into the storyline.

 

The dialog is just interspersed with way too much force / jedi / sith mumbo-jumbo that I don't really understand. I mean we (the players) do live in a world without the force, after all. So it's alot easier for us to understand a choice of honor vs. dishonor, oath vs. power, and love vs. discipline than some weird force based philosophy that we don't know anything about anyways (and no one really explained).

 

Also, this is an RPG - that is to say that people playing it assumes a role. People prefer to assume the role that THEY chose rather than one that the developers chose. Yet, in way too many places in the game are you forced to play one of the in-party NPCs. I mean once or twice is okay, but there is just way too many of these...

 

The entire game gives one a feeling that it could've been ALOT better if there just had been more of it. The game should be longer. The ending could be better. There should be more new material (tiles, models, etc.). The quests should be more complex and more free form.

 

I am just guessing, but could it be that in trying to do a sequel and make it "different" - Obsidian ended up throwing away alot of the lessons that the Bioware people had learned in developing the previous RPGs?

 

Let me also qualify things by saying that in addition to the original KOTOR, I love Planescape Torment as well as the Fallout2. So I had high expectations of the ex-Black Isle / now-Obsidian team. Perhaps I've been pampered those wonderful games?

 

-Aveeare

[timski]

Good thread.

 

The game is an expansion pack. It does almost everything an expansion pack should do: Creative reuse of old game assets, tweaking game mechanics, and so on. Except console titles don't have expansions, so we've got a "new" game.

 

It might just work as a trilogy. Right now the game may as well finish at Dantooine. I would have been happier if it had, since up till then the game felt excellent. Everything after that almost ceases to be a roleplaying game. May as well be playing a shooter with a few cut-scenes between the carnage.

 

My gripe is with the way the game feels in its closing stages. It's as if the budget for voice acting ran out, and the designers were forced to script no dialogue. What I don't understand is how the game's producers could allow such an approach - it would so obviously destroy any game in this genre. Weird.

[Trom]

Great job of detailing the same disappointment I felt Terelius! I suspect the real culprit here was the XBox roll out. They had to get that out before Christmas and in order to do so must have found some problem that could only be resolved by corrupting the endgame. Once the XBox version was locked in, they couldn't change the PC version storyline as it would have been out of synch with K3. This is all conjecture on my part, but *something* drastic must have happened for them to abandon their much ballyhooed influence system that came to nought in the end.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

Perhaps the lesson here is depth is a waste of time :D

[Tarelius]

Hey, great reading all the thoughtful replies to my original post here. It seems I am indeed not the only one feeling frustrated/sad at all. I guess that is a consolation, though it just makes it even weirder that Obsidian allowed this to happen.

 

One thing I've become annoyed at, is reading the reviews of this game. I usually do not read many reviews of games before I have played them, or participate in the 'hyping' phase of a game, before its release - with KoTOR II, it was clear that I would buy the game no matter what, and I didn't want to have any impression of the game beforehand. However, I noted that the score of all eviews I saw was exceedingly positive towards KoTOR II. Now that I have read the reviews, I have only found one that touches upon the real issues behind the game, and mentions the lacking time/features/polish, and that's GameCritics at GameSpy. I certainly did not want to have read that review/rant before finishing the game, or it would have destroyed my experience even more But it is still the only one. How come reviewers have been so happy and lenient with this game? One reason is of course that they WANTED to like it, just as we (some of us almost desperately, I guess) wanted to like it. KoTOR II follows a great game, and has all the right things going for it. The second reason is the simple one I think, that the reviewers have not played through the game before writing their reviews. There is no way an honest reviewer would neglect to mention the fact that the last parts of the game have been hurried through, with plotholes and obviously missing features whose semi-presence has not even been cut out to spare us the feeling of emptiness and what-if. So either reviewers are not honest, or have not played through the game. I really think it is the latter, but it does annoy me that everyone has been so positive and hyped up about this, masking the issues that lie behind. It's like a real expensive flawed diamond, where everyone tries to overlook the flaws, because it is so expensive. At least that's the impression I get by reading reviews now.

 

Anyway, nice reading the posts here, as I said. I want to comment on some things said:

 

About the game being patched, story-wise.. That is not gonna' happen, and I am willing to eat my Geforce gfxcard if it does (in small bits, over time, then..). The game has been released, it hauls in a lot of money (I guess?), there is an XBox version that cannot be changed in any case, and the developers have probably rushed onto another project, after taking their 3 days off to say hello to the family. It's already over, apart from the technical crew issuing patches to get the game bugfree. However, that the development team went back to the game, and spent another 6 months on actually finishing it according to their vision and the quality expected by the fans - that is NOT going to happen. Yes, I would really like it to happen though, but when has that ever happened? Ok, yes an example - a free expansion pack for IWD. That was impressive back then, really. This is something different though, and the big 'L' also has something to say about Obsidian doing something like that. They would be admitting that the game was not finished by such a move, and developers are generally not allowed to admit anything or talk honestly about their games (if honest=negative). It's not gonna' happen.. But maybe, what MIGHT happen, is some modding of the game by fans? I mean, if the voiceacting is there, the dialogues are there, maybe some really ambitious and talented individuals might do something with it, put it together? Maybe some people from Obsidian would even help with this in their free time, not as company people but as individuals? I don't know if this is even legal (probably not), and it is still far off, but it is still way more realistic than the other possibility (ok, I won't really eat my gfxcard if it happens, but..).

 

Hrm, another possibility, as was mentioned, is a sort of 'expansion pack' for the game, something that aims to give more to the game, but which in actuality makes the game as it was intended to be. That might work out, also publishing wise, since it would bring in more money. It would be something of a rip-off to give gamers what they should have had in the first place, and let them pay extra for it, but thinking that, there would be no way I was not going to buy that expansion pack anyway, and I think most other people might feel the same. Hehe, we are really cashcows. It would be irritating playing through the game again, knowing the general outline of the game and what will happen though; the overall experience and wonder would be gone, since you had gone through it once already. And yet, I would love to see such an expansion pack. It's too late for me to get a clear, good experience out of KoTOR II, but I think the game deserves standing as it was intended nevertheless.. Here's hoping to an expansion then! (no matter that it is really cynical cash-cow milking to release one that is not free, making the game as it should have been in the first place. Still, the developers are not to blame if this happens. They are only to blame for allowing the game to be shipped in the first place - or placing themselves in a position where they had no control over when it would ship).

 

As for the subplots/quests being cut out. I don't think there was anything to do with GoTo, i.e. no extra headquarters to visit (the droid might even have been GoTO, by the way, would have been a nice twist). In fact, all the dark side characters seem to have suffered the most, in regards to missing plot and development. The droid planet of the HK's were cut (I recall seeing one developer saying he regretted it had to go - but the decision made sense afterwards he said.. Or had to say, I really don't trust developers to be honest about such things. Mostly because they so painfully obviously have to maintain a cheery/everything's great and exciting facade when they get interviewed. Independent developers or developers with a great deal of leeway in regards to their publisher might have the luxury of being more honest, but still you will hardly hear them say that THIS thing about the game REALLY sucked. Would be great if they did though, would make things more balanced and.. human), Mandalore had Dxun, but Dxun was largely before he joined with the party, and afterwards he didn't say or do all that much (though Kreia hinted a lot at the things he was concerned about - it was just never played out through dialogue or events), and GoTo had nothing at all going for him, he was just a big, annoying floating ball largely useless at that point in the game. Besides, it irritated me that one HAD to accept him in the party, and hadn't the option to say that he was too dangerous/treacherous/useless at all. I noticed two possible subplots with him though. First, the scene where he talks about something with HK. I thought this boded well, that he would turn the dark side characters of the ship against me, doing intrigues of his own, etc. Well, nothing at all came from that. And then on Malachor, with Bao-Dur's droid, the fact that the developers had gutted the game is painfully apparent in the cutscene GoTo has there. Totally pointless, and I wonder why they didn't cut it out, to mask the missing plots better.

 

That reminds me of that whole shadow mask generator thingie.. WHAT? But at the point where Bao-Dur referred to it, and tells the droid that the General had foreseen and planned this, I had given up on the game anyway, so I accepted that here was another thing not explained at all, coupled with me having done something I hadn't done as the player, had not even seen my PC doing/saying. Hrm.. Sad.

 

Anyway, the Handmaiden, Atton, Kreia and Visas had more dialogue, and were obviously some of the first characters to be made I guess. The utility droid was good too, not too much, not too little. Bao-Dur was mostly silent for the whole game, with me greeting him and selecting: 'Never mind' or 'Can you make me some shields?' A shame, since he was interesting too. Well whatever, a shame with everything regarding that really.

 

As you write Iroqu, the ending was very much a letdown, and I had hoped that there somehow was a well polished end part of the game after Kreia, since she also talks a bit about it, but at that point it would not have changed too much, and I both dreaded and expected the game to end after the Kreia scene. And so it did. I have been gaming since 1983, and have completed literally thousand(s..?) of games on C64, Amiga, PC, PSX and so on, and never have I encountered a game that has been so obviously and shamelessly gutted. I will admit, there are games out there where this is true, but not ones I have played, not RPG's. Usually, the developers have the decency to actually remove the plots/subplots/dialogue from the game, that points to something that was cut, but with this game, there didn't even seem to be time for doing that. I guess it would have been better for the overall-impression if these things were cut, but I am glad they weren't, it shows that the developers really wanted to make a great game - though it is at the same time also a sad reminder of what might have been.

 

Ipom, it is true that the game had a lot to live up to, but I at least was ready to give it some leeway in that regard, and I did, until the Dantooine thing; although I felt halfway out of the game before that too, and had to struggle to immerse myself, there was no denying that it was infact a good game and an ok successor to KoTOR I. There were minor issues, minor hints of an unpolished game, but it was still great and enjoyable overall. However, the game didn't end at Dantooine.. Ok, it did end there, but it seemed not to realize this itself, hrmm I liked Nar Shadaa, because of the many quests and sense of purpose there. Sort of like Tarsis in KoTOR I, though not as well executed. I also liked Telos, Dantooine and Onderon.. In fact I did like the game and the events in it, up to a certain point. Ahhr.. Makes me sad.

 

Aveeare, we agree perfectly on most things, though what you see as negative, mainly the switching to controlling NPC's now and then, I see as a very positive thing. I love it when a game switches to and forth amidst my party, and let different NPC's shine and come to the spotlight for a while. This has to be coupled with us learning more about them, and them learning something from the experience, giving out new dialogue options, etc., but this is one of the things I absolutely love. I mean, I want to like/grow attached to everyone in my party, and have meaningful interaction with them - playing as them, seeing them do things on seperate quests is great. KoTOR I did this, though not as much as I would have wished (I would wish a lot in that regard), and KoTOR II does it too, which is fine. I absolutely LOVED it in KoTOR I, onboard Saul's cruiser Leviathan, where you could select one partymember, who had to go solo and free the others. Very clever, great stuff, I want more of that This is by the way something that most console RPG's have down to an exact science. Check out Final Fantasy VIII on the PC if you wish to experience a RPG where such change is at the forefront of gameplay. Every NPC is taken and brought to the fore sooner or later in different main and subplots, and each learns something, grows and interacts differently with the PC after that. It makes for great storytelling. Ahh, I am sidetracked.. And I am writing a lot..

 

I also disagree with the Jedi mumbo-jumbo thing you write about Aveeare. KoTOR I showed me the potential in this, and I think it is great to get everyday moral dilemmas served in a bigger, more epic way, with a constructed philosophy on top. Only thing is, this has to be believable and we have to know what is going on. In KoTOR II I felt too much like an onlooker to my own PC, not quite knowing what he knew, what he had experienced, what the Jedi order was, etc. When the Jedi Masters acted like they did, I was even more confused, and lost even more touch with the Jedi mumbo-jumbo. Still, I like Jedi mumbo-jumbo.. a lot.. I like stuff where you have to play a role and get into some different perceptions and beliefs - only requirement is that these are fleshed out and consistent.

 

Ok, another long-winded post.. But I think I am slowly coming to terms with this, so thanks for the therapeutic (and interesting) replies people, hehe

[carnifex]

So, we all agree that end sucks, and it's not about story staying opened for Kotor III...

Btw, what I really hated is the waste of Darth Nihilus.For me he was so great designed character, the coolest Darth of them all...

I'm curious about one more thing.When I was on Malanchor V the game played me an animation where I see Ebon Hawk falling in deep canyon and that movie is named Death Of Ebon Hawk...and at the end Ebon Hawk is there again...wtf?

Why they named it that way?

Also I was pissed of with Cherzka Salvager in Milatary base on Telos.I had to ask him every 10 seconds to follow me to the exit...and I'm also happy that was the ONLY bug I've encountered in game :D

[Tarelius]

Ahh Trom, you mention the Influence system.It felt unnatural and removed me from the game itself, because I was seeing my NPC's as objects I had to handle in a certain way to get more influence with them, in order to get to more goodies/options. That might be my own fault naturally, but in any case, it was not fleshed out, and when dialogue options where you could increase influence came, they tended to come in a big, tangled mass - i.e. I got everything out of Mira after gaining 1-2

influence with her, from there, it was just a matter of exploring her dialogue tree, until I had her become a jedi. It didn't come out slowly, over the course of the entire game, in a natural way. With all the partymembers, I was very focused on playing with them and gaining influence, and constantly thinking about which party members to take with me, to be able to get deeper into them, and anxious not to miss anything. Naturally that HAD to feel very artificial to me then. Maybe that was my own fault, but it was hard not to act like that, when you think influence matters in regards to you getting to know your NPC's and developing bonds with them. However, when you discover that the game is broken, that dialogues might lead nowhere, and that only certain NPC's have a fleshed out story you can uncover (with Visas and the Handmaiden's not being purely optional, but something that develops in the course of the mainplot), the whole influence system, which has indeed been hyped a lot (I see that now, reading interviews) falls flat on its face. A real shame. But I guess that is the gist of everything I write here, and maybe we are all preaching to those already converted.

 

Still, it feels good to get this out.

[Tarelius]

hehe, Carnifex, that Czerka Salvager in the military base, that was one of the most annoying bugs for me, since it impacted on the plot itself (in a small way). I also had to talk to him constantly to follow me, but he would not go through the Hangar doors at all, even after repeated (20-30 times) talking with him and positioning myself every which way to see if he would react. So in the end I just left him standing there. I guess that is why I couldn't enter the sublevel, and why that military installation also felt strangely ireelevant and empty, never got to know what had happened there. Oh well, such things wreck the feeling of immersion in the reality of the game too.. A lot However, such things can more or less easily get fixed with a patch.

[Trom]

"So either reviewers are not honest, or have not played through the game." I hate to contribute to rumors, but there is a third alternative. Some have said that the preview game contained the cut scenes.

 

"I mean, if the voiceacting is there, the dialogues are there, maybe some really ambitious and talented individuals might do something with it, put it together?" I'm going to further speculate that Obsidian has the completed game with the original ending. I suspect something happened with the XBox version which locked them into truncating the endgame.

 

I don't think anything will be done (vis expansion packs) as if they would do anything it would be an admission of failure. As you point out, it would be irritating to play the game over and to me the sense of immersion has already been destroyed. However, I'm glad that for the first 75% of the game I was immersed.

 

"But I think I am slowly coming to terms with this" That's why this board is here. They hope people will come here, vent, and then go on about their business.

 

My timeframe of gaming is about as long as yours. I guess I feel so strongly about this is that K1 was the first game in a "long" time that recaptured the sense of wonder and adventure those very early games did. K2, had it fullfilled its promise, could have been a landmark game. That they so arbitrarily and with impunity wrecked the endgame creates a fear in me that adventure gaming will return to the shadows wherein all games are merely twitch and shoot ala Half Life 2 without regard to plot.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

You either have to walk slowly or you go forward a bit wait for him to catch up , repeat until you reach the exit. He will sometimes get stuck if there is an object between you but all you need to do is move out and he will follow you.

 

The influence system really depends on how you play.

 

In my first game my character wouldnt go near Kreia unless he really had too. Playing in character, rather than playing just for people to hear what they want to hear it will take quite a while to open up everyones influence dialogues. The dialogue is much more complex and dependent on other things than KOTORs level then chat dialogue.

 

If you play simply to get maximum influence then it's very easy to do.

[Tarelius]

.. And I can keep on ranting (bear with me )..

 

Well, the movie entitled Death of the Ebon Hawk.. I guess that hinted at what it was supposed to be, an emotional movie after you had done everything to save the ship and had hauled out the partymembers or some such. Instead, it was seemingly tugged on as a meaningless cutscene because it had already been made. In that light, it is very weird when the ship suddenly appears to rescue you (seems like Bao-Dur's droid did not wait for the generals orders before destroying the planet anyway), and also weird that you didn't get to rescue your teammates, who must be manning the ship. I spent several minutes around the Ebon Hawk crashsite on Malachor V (seems like the Ebon Hawk is made for crashing, especially in KoTOR II btw ), trying to find an opening and get in. I noticed that there was a blue exit line on my map, which usually indicates an area transition, and I thought that since I had gotten out of the Ebon Hawk, and since my party is not with me, they must be inside, needing help.. But no.. All of that had been cut.. Hrmffghrharhh.. (frustrated sound)..

 

As for Darth Nihilus. yes, intriguing Galactus like character (with a name just as ridiculous, but that's StarWars.. And Marvel. .So that goes with the territory), and it would have been great if he and his ship was not just a half-hour hack and slash station on the way to completing the game. The difficulty of the game is also somewhat on the low end. I got his health down to half in one fell Power Attack strike , while he completely missed hitting me, and then Visas is saying that we cannot win, that he is too strong, etc.. After 6 seconds more of fighting, he is then defeated.. Yes, very respectable, planetkilling opponent indeed, especially after having gone for the entire game and heard about how powerful he was, building up tension and excitement for the meeting with him

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

.. And I can keep on ranting (bear with me )..

 

Well, the movie entitled Death of the Ebon Hawk.. I guess that hinted at what it was supposed to be, an emotional movie after you had done everything to save the ship and had hauled out the partymembers or some such. Instead, it was seemingly tugged on as a meaningless cutscene because it had already been made. In that light, it is very weird when the ship suddenly appears to rescue you (seems like Bao-Dur's droid did not wait for the generals orders before destroying the planet anyway), and also weird that you didn't get to rescue your teammates, who must be manning the ship. I spent several minutes around the Ebon Hawk crashsite on Malachor V (seems like the Ebon Hawk is made for crashing, especially in KoTOR II btw ),  trying to find an opening and get in. I noticed that there was a blue exit line on my map, which usually indicates an area transition, and I thought that since I had gotten out of the Ebon Hawk, and since my party is not with me, they must be inside, needing help.. But no.. All of that had been cut.. Hrmffghrharhh.. (frustrated sound)..

 

As for Darth Nihilus. yes, intriguing Galactus like character (with a name just as ridiculous, but that's StarWars.. And Marvel. .So that goes with the territory), and it would have been great if he and his ship was not just a half-hour hack and slash station on the way to completing the game. The difficulty of the game is also somewhat on the low end. I got his health down to half in one fell Power Attack strike , while he completely missed hitting me, and then Visas is saying that we cannot win, that he is too strong, etc.. After 6 seconds more of fighting, he is then defeated.. Yes, very respectable, planetkilling opponent indeed, especially after having gone for the entire game and heard about how powerful he was, building up tension and excitement for the meeting with him

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

At the point the Ebon Hawk falls into the planet you dont know whats going to happen to it. It looks like its gone for good and your stuck on MV...

 

As for Nihilus it makes perfect sense. Kreia has betrayed him drawn him to Telos to "feast" on the Jedi council of course they are already dead and the only Jedi with any real feasting potential is you. And your going to have the opposite effect anyway.

 

Thats what the boss battle is, it's not about how quick you can knock him down with a lightsaber it's the result of Kreias plans. Like Sion it dosnt matter if you take down his body, his body is no longer important.

It's when he gets damaged, the point where Visas says its impossible, he tries to drain you and thats what will ultimately kill him.

 

By the point you confront him he is on his last reserves of energy. Which is why Visas refuses to take you to meet him any sooner. I'm pretty confident I could have taken him out as he was when I arrived on the first planet.

 

In KOTOR II the saber battles are more of an aside to what is actually going on. It's a lot like the Darth/Luke battle in EPV and EP VI.

[Tarelius]

Trom, I feel the same way as you do. KoTOR I was a very nice surprise for me, after I had almost convinced myself that we wouldn't see a game like PS: Torment ever again (at least on PC), KoTOR I came along. A game that merged adventure and more of 'real' roleplaying. Great story, dialogues that mattered, beauty, etc.. Well, here's to hoping it can happen again. Although one gets more and more jaded and would like to return to Might and Magic II and others (hrm, that might be more nostalgia than anything else ), it is possible to do great games today too. Sad thing is when what could have been great games do not quite turn out to be great especially if the reason for this is not the inability of the developers but rather something to do with business.

 

And Shadowpaladin, you are somewhat right in what you say, that was why I wrote that some of it might be my own fault, in that the almost schematic, strict way of developing bonds and exploring the backstories of the NPC's, might be something I felt artificial, where others wouldn't. However, I did not powerplay, I played the role I had set for myself, and I could not get myself to agree with anything Kreia said, so I lost influence with her constantly. It didn't seem to matter one bit though, she was still with me and my teacher, though she should by rights have hated and despised me. As for Visas, I did everything to convince her of my point of view, the light side. That did matter.. And as for HK, well who didn't want to gain influence with him? ;D But I only managed to get that once, because I didn't want to say or do something not in line with my PC persona. So, I did not play just to get influence, but I did play to gain influence with the people I could, while maintaining my overall personality. And my point is still that the whole influence system was not fleshed out or realized properly anyway, and that roughly half of the characters had stories that lead no where, no matter what influence you might have gained.

 

Also, that I got all out of Mira in one rush, during just one stay in the Ebon Hawk was not my fault, it felt like it was meant to be that way, or could happen that way, and it felt immensely.. Unfulfilling. Nothing like a struggle or getting to know your characters slowly, over time and struggles. In that regard, the Handmaiden and Visas were much better (though they still repeated themselves needlessly, after certain options had been played out). Overall, it felt like many things came out in a rush, some missing 'something', and afterwards, the characters were left to do and say.. Nothing. Like after you having 'conquered' them, they become meaningless, don't say anything new, and the game abandons them. In that regard, I don't really think it is my fault for getting that same impression.

 

Well, sorry for the negativity, I hope it is constructive though, in the sense that it has arguments, reasons and is being put out in a calm manner. Still, depressing to read I am sure.