My impressions after finishing..

[Sir Cedric]

Excellent analysis Sir Cedric.  K1 hit upon the perfect plot device with the amnesia theme.  It provided a logical and plausible reason for revealing the game in steps.  Of course, to repeat that in K2 would be less than ideal and your idea of flashbacks is a great idea.  I think they tried that a bit with the Test at the Sith Academy.  However, then the weight fell on Kreia to do the rest of the revealing of something, as you point out, I should already know.

 

As far as what went wrong, I made a post earlier in this thread about that.  I traced the development history and found several smoking guns.  You talk about all the other games they've done, but Obsidian is a new company.  Do you mean the work they've done for other companies?  Or am I missing something?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

To clarify, I meant that the people that work for Obsidian for the most part came from Black Isle prior to the Interplay debacle, and those were some of the games that the "movers" of Obsidian worked on. The company is new, but the developers themselves have a pretty extensive RPG resume. Sorry about the confusion.

 

I read your previous post and I think you are right about why things spiralled out of control, but I still feel unfulfilled. I really think one of the developers should post a story synopsis or something, because I have more questions now having played the game then I did prior to owning it.

 

Having mysteries is good for a game, but it assumed that I knew my past. Due to the influence system, I couldn't find out my past without using one of the "perfect" influence walkthroughs. I don't have the will to go through the game again using a meta-game "influence" cheat sheet to get the full story, so I remain unfulfilled.

 

The flashback thing seemed obvious to me, since we are talking about war, and TV has just about ingrained into our society that war means trauma and flashbacks. Maybe Obsidian didn't want to use such an obvious device, but they should have dome something to illuminate my past better.

[chibajoe]

LAME

 

After finishing the game, that's the impression that I'm left with. As illustrous as Obsidian's pedigree is, if this game is any indication of their abilities, then they should save us die-hard RPGers a lot of pain and suffering and close up shop now. I know that sounds a bit harsh, but I'm feeling a bit bitter right now... <_<

 

It has always been my contention that the KOTOR series is mainly an adventure game, but with (lots of) RPG elements. This did not, however, prevent me from enjoying KOTOR I (inability to engage in wanton slaughter of innocents aside ), since it had a coherent plot, engaging NPCs, interesting locales, and an inovative gaming system. It would be reasonable to assume that a sequal would take these elements and improve upon (or, at least, expand) them. Instead, what we get is a plot that is muddled, NPCs that can't even manage to banter, gameplay that is unbalanced, enemy AI that is retarded (dark Jedi with no force powers?!? WTF?), dialog trees that are incomplete, deus ex machina out the wazzo, unresolved technical issues from the first game (Dantoonie is still giving ATI users fits), and the list goes on... What am I missing here ?

 

There have been some excellent posts in t his thread, so I won't bother to touch on the problems with this game (any more than what I've already said); however, I wonder: if Obsidian is willing to put out a game like this, what does that say about their integrity? Alternatively, what does it say about their ability to dictate terms to publishers, should a conflict arise between meeting a deadline and producing a finished product?

As counterpoint, I'd like to bring up Troika. This is a company that is notorious for putting out buggy games. On the other hand, their games are interesting, engaging, full of interesting dialongs, have coherent subplots, are populated with charasimatic NPCs, and are really fun to play (massive, BSOD crashes aside;)).

Both of these companies put out and unfinished product; the question is, which one is worse? Up until KOTOR2, I had always thought the worst thing a developer could do was put out a buggy product, but now I realize that I'd rather have a buggy game that's fun to play as opposed to a lame game that's bug free.

[Spook]

Finished TSL a few days ago as LS Jedi, and I have to agree that it left you wanting for something that was not there.

 

1) Manual did not describe classes (with auto leveling xboxers that probably is not a problem, but for those PC RPG players that want to put together character it is a bother to have no idea what the classes do).

 

2) A lot of things in game screamed of broken/removed quests (don't know which since you only get an indication that something is missing).

 

3) The influence system for NPC really sucked since it did not change when the character changed to LS/DS. It was not all that fun either. Probably would have been more interesting if you gained/lost influence on NPCs by doing quests (quest A give influence on NPC a&b while make you lose some on NPC c), with some options in conversation tree will effect it as well.

 

4) Darth Nihilus was just a big yawn since I never got any feeling for him. They realy should have added a small planet where you could do a few quests and find a small surviving Jedi enclave, so Nihilus could come and kill them all in a cutscene. Then he should kill a few NPCs, that you helped, as you travel. The ship also needed to be more interesting, when you are there, then it was. It did have great potential though. <_<

Scion was rather nice. Though they should have made the place on Malichai more interesting then a hack&slash run. Probably would have beeen nice to have Mira defeat Goto and free the small remote (which means that she probably should have awakened somewhere else, and make her way to where it is after defeating the wookie), and if there was some people that you could convince to tell you some of Scion's weaknesses that you would have to use to defeatr him.

 

5) The encounter at Dantoine with the remains of the Jedi counsile should have been handeled differently I think. It did not get me into the story as it was done.

 

6) Graphic was worse on my PC then KotOR. I had hoped for more choices in appearance (3 body types not tied to class, would have been nice, with a lot more faces). It is strange when the graphic in a sequel is worse then the original.

 

7)As a lot of people have posted the repeating trees was anoying.

 

But in all I think I have played worse games, though I was usualy not as dissapointed by them since I had less hope of them to begine with. I guess one can always hope for a patch to fix some of the problem, even if we never will se one that makes the game as enjoyable as it had potential to have been.

[roflolocopter]

I fealt that KOTOR2's story line was potentialy the far superior storyline and alot more complex but was implemented poorly. Just as the whole amnesia thing is possibly the MOST ANNOYING PLOT DEVICE EVER IN THE HISTORY OF BORING AND ANNOYING PLOT DEVICES, but was carried of with style in KOTOR1.

 

The whole flashback thing was a good idea, would have been good if people had asked you about the war, you'd then had a flashback, then you can chose to say 'I dont want to talk about it' rather than the flat out refusal options we get.

 

I disagree with the council revelation being lame, as throughout the game it is quite clear the Exile thinks the council has cut him off from the force, and does not realize it was himself.

[Opera_Ghost]

And here, I thought I might have been able to write something new about the game and my own impressions.

 

Bugs aside, (And I stepped on a lot that ticked me off, ie. forfeiting a swoop race caused me to even whenever I finished one afterwards it would still say that I had a nasty crash. (Telos Cantina))

 

I could see the potential of some real genius in the ideas of the story for the game. Almost as if someone who was a close friend of the original writers for Kotor 1 knew this person as if they were their own brother. (Kotor's was a slightly higher skilled writer... but Kotor 2's plot ideas weren't bad.)

 

What the game fails at is in it's execution of those ideas. For what ever reason, deadline, budget, or some hackney falling out within the programming staff... doesn't matter to me. What matters to me is the game is left flat and seems that it should have forced there to be something like a Kotor 2.5 or something.

 

I describe it mostly as a screenwriter who works on a script for a good 2 years and then hands it over to a director who says he'd love to make this movie... and when the screenwriter views his work... with his name in the credits. (Meaning his credibility as a writer is at stake in this film... and his career and future earnings will be effected.)... He see's some piece of crap that he had no idea it'd turn out this bad on the screen.

 

(Prime example, anyone realize that the "Batman and Robin" movie, and the screenplay for "A Beautiful Mind" were written by the same guy?)

 

And that's my brief take on what happened with the Sith Lords. Unfortunately, that also means that I won't be touching another game by Obsidian entertainment unless it is reviewed by people who I flat out trust. (Meaning sources within the gaming community that aren't easily bought off for highly placed reviews... like IGN and their 9.3 rating.)

[Mondo]

I agree with most of the posts here except for the one that calls the game Lame, KOTOR 2 was worth getting and playing, it was good but could have been GREAT.

 

I have played MANY other games that are not as good.

 

The most annoying thing to me was the messed up dialog trees and the stuff involving the characters stories that were cut out. Nihilius battle, etc too. Nihilius had the potential to be one of the baddest characters ever. War flashbacks would have been good too.

You got one kind of on Korriban with the Republic soldiers and the minefield.

 

The fact that the game hooked us in to care about it like this has gotta be proof something was done right. I wish it had more time to be completed.

[ATimson]

Huh? That's not worthy of a M rating. Both KOTOR and KOTOR have scenes just as "m". You are so far fetch. Geez..

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It's in the deliberate intent to maim. You really should read the guidelines.

 

Which scenes would those be just for a laugh?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Umm... how about the one where Sion cuts off Kreia's hand? Isn't that equally as bad?

[Master Dahvernas]

Sorry for resurrecting this thread...

 

But I recently (today) created a thread that addresses what I feel are the major shortcomings of TSL and discuss them openly and more in-depth since we are allowed to on the Spoilers Board:

 

http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?showtopic=31221

 

I am cross-referencing this and the other thread because I want to commend you for actually putting into words some of the missing "concepts" that I was struggling with and am going to cite some of them in my most recent post.