Improvements you appreciated

[><FISH'>]

i liked the way you could learn stuff of your companions and actually strive to do so .... i hate all these kiddies complaining about how difficult the influence system is when it was incredibly easy

[Toreyn]

Making the mini-games optional - I absolutely hated them in KOTOR 1. Not having to dread another turret gun incident every time every time I jumped to hyperspace was wonderful. :D

 

Making blasters a viable weapon, and DEX-based classes more powerful.

Improved inventory screen.

Skills opening up dialogue options.

Prestige classes and lightsaber forms.

Auto-save system.

New animations for Force powers and alignment shifts.

More moral ambiguity (Kreia, Visas, etc) in the plot-line.

 

Influence system was interesting, but it was sad that it got cut from having any meaningful role in the end-game. Hopefully, a patch or mod will bring that back.

[Sir Fink]

Better use of skills was nice.

 

Awareness was actually good for something other than just detecting traps (will BioWare ever make a game where enemies use stealth?) and Security actually has a use (I think there are maybe 2 locks in all of KOTOR1 that require security and can't just be bashed open).

 

And of course skills used in conversations (other than just Persuade).

 

I also liked the deeper, more subtle use of Dark side and Light side, something that was only hinted at a bit in KOTOR1 when talking to Uthar and that Sith Twilek woman. Otherwise it was just "I shall save you for no reward!" or "hand over your credits or else, punk!"

[KingofThieves]

The combat animations get my happy face.

 

I felt the lightsaber fighting was made much more interesting simply by adding the few new extras that they did. Combat felt much more intuitive and fluid.

 

I remember at the later stages of my first playthrough I had a rush of joy as I force-jumped on top of one opponent, dropping him, then immediately jump-turned in the air to crash my saber down on the head of the guy standing next to him, and then spun-around in a circle meeting a third opponent with a stylish slew of swings, and as the fourth and final guy charged in did a flip in the air, old school KotOR power attack style. I was like "WOO!" Throw some more of 'em at me! This is intense!

 

Spins and flips galore. With some accurate fencing strikes and wild charging swings to boot.

 

Once you get to the higher tiers of a couple of combat feat trees, you REALLY DO notice a difference in the quality of the action. When the action gets hot - you just feel like your character is going off.

 

I found Lightsaber fighting in KotOR 1 never got old, but one of my prereq quips for enjoying KotOR II was that they still needed to elaborate on the swordplay a bit - and they did.

 

I enjoyed this aspect considerably.

 

The hand to hand is also really nice... But kind of feels a little out of place in the Star Wars universe.