'Knights Of The Old Republic': A Retrospective
Image source: Fanatical
The Star Wars universe has given rise to endless media from a galaxy far, far away. Books, movies, TV shows, toys, and, of course, video games. The saga has hundreds of games, ranging from small apps to major titles. They’ve varied in quality over the years, but arguably none of them are as beloved or have had as much impact as the Knights of the Old Republic games. The first one, released in 2003, was set thousands of years before the events of the films, and is widely considered one of the best video games of all time. The second, released in 2004, was praised, but severely damaged by the rush to release it before the Christmas deadline. Regardless, they came out over twenty years ago. How do they hold up? Are the stories and characters just as good as we remember? I replayed the games to get a fresh take.
I started with the first one. You wake up as a nobody on a ship called the Endar Spire that’s under attack from Sith forces. You have to find a Jedi Knight named Bastila, as she has a power called Battle Meditation that the Sith want to either destroy or control for themselves. You escape onto the planet Taris with decorated war hero Carth. You have to find Bastila, escape the planet, get to the Jedi, and defeat Darth Malak.
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A main strength of this game is obviously the story. It’s not basic, but everything is presented to you in a way that if you barely knew Star Wars, you’d still be able to follow along really well. That keeps fairly consistently throughout the game. It’s hard to make a storyline engaging when all of the major events that the other characters are talking about happened before the events of the game, but KOTOR pulls it off. You’re given enough information about the past war that everything makes sense, while at the same time it isn’t over explained. Darth Revan is frequently mentioned, and his shadow is constantly over the game, even though Darth Malak is the bigger threat.
Image source: Space
That’s not to say that the story is perfect. Taris can kind of drag a little bit, as does Dantooine. Plus, this is a game where you can make choices. On Taris, you can make the choice of which gang to side with, and it is a pretty easy good gang/bad gang choice. There are a few others like that. However, no matter what, Malak destroys Taris and kills pretty much everyone on the planet, so your choices are completely meaningless beyond getting a few dark or light side points. Once you get off of Taris, though, things start to pick up. You make it to the jedi academy on Dantooine, and finally get your Jedi training. This means a lightsaber, and fighting with one of those is far more fun than with a random sword or blaster. Naturally.
The game picks up even more once you get off of Dantooine and can finally start searching the galaxy for Star Maps to help you find the Star Forge. There isn’t a miss in any of the planets that you visit. Some are better than others, the Sith world Korriban is probably the most fun, but each of them are a blast to play, and they have completely varied stories in each one. A lesser game would copy/paste what you have to do to find the Star Maps on each planet, but the writing is strong, and no planet is exactly the same.
A minor gripe is that your choices between dark side/light side tend to be pretty black and white. There aren’t any choices that are “the light side would be better, but maybe the choice that will give me dark side points is for the greater good.” It would add a little emotional complexity to the game, and give some of your choices a little more weight. That’s a minor gripe, though.
Along the way you pick up a colorful cast of companions, from the slightly stuck up Bastila to the Mandalorian mercenary Canderous to Juhani, a Cathar seeking redemption, and more besides. The dialogue options with each of them are always a blast, and it’s well worth it to actually talk to them to get to know them better, or get their perspective on the last mission.
Another huge benefit is that the main villain is actually threatening. You barely interact with Darth Malak, the former apprentice of Darth Revan who, in the style of the Sith, betrayed Revan when the opportunity arose and took the mantle of Dark Lord of the Sith for himself. He’s one of the most heinously evil characters in the Star Wars saga. He feels that it’s taking too long to find Bastila on Taris, so to speed things up, he orders the entire planet wiped out. That’s some serious grade-A evil, and it really drives home that this guy is a serious threat.
Image source: Nintendo Everything
The combat of the game is solid, but probably a little dated. In the beginning of the game, you can’t hit the broad side of a barn, despite being a trained soldier. This gets better as you level up, but it’s a little irritating. However, most PC players fall victim to the current glitch where you can’t move after combat, so in the end you generally just end up spamming force lightning, which kind of takes away a little fun. Don’t get me wrong, it can be a blast walking into a room full of half a dozen enemies and wiping them out with a few force storm blasts, but you have a lightsaber, and I want to use it. The fact that you can’t move after combat seems to be a feature not a bug when it comes to the PC version is really annoying, and quick saving and reloading after each combat encounter (F4 then F5) makes the game drag a bit.
But we should probably talk about the biggest moment of the game. The one that turned this game from good to a masterpiece. The entire game you keep hearing about Darth Revan, and how terrible he was and how much of a threat he was to the Jedi. Then you finally run into Darth Malak, and find out that Darth Revan is…you. It’s genius. Whoever thought of that plot point deserves a massive raise. It completely recontextualizes the entire game, and adds a lot of depth to the story. Plus, it’s a twist that becomes slightly more obvious once you replay the game. The breadcrumbs are there, but they’re hard to spot unless you know what to look for. It’s a perfect example of a twist done right.
Overall, the game totally holds up, and I had a blast replaying it for this article. It shows its age a little bit, and it’s disappointing that we’ll probably never get that remake, but it still rightfully holds its spot as one of not just the best Star Wars games of all time, but one of the best period. Definitely replay it if you get the chance. It’s pretty cheap on Steam most of the time.
Two years after the release of the first game, we got Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. If there’s one word that truly defines the sequel, it’s potential. The game is fun. Really fun. I’ve played it more than I’ve played the original game, and I’ve played the original game a lot. However, you need to play it with the Restored Content Mod to get the full experience. The game was seriously rushed to meet a Christmas deadline, and as such, a lot was cut out of the game. The RCM adds a lot of it back in, but not everything that was planned. Who knows what’s missing? But once you add the RCM, you never want to play the game without it. It adds so much more to the game and shows how special it really is. There are actually a lot of mods on the Steam workshop that add to the fun. Check them out. Not the droid planet, though. Don’t do the droid planet. It’s a maze, it’s incredibly boring, and it’s not worth it at all.
Okay, all that aside, how’s the game? You follow the path of the jedi exile Meetra Surik (if you’re going with the canon character, which we will here for simplicity’s sake) as she travels the galaxy looking for Jedi masters. A new triumvirate of Sith lords has appeared and essentially wiped out the Jedi to a degree not seen again until Order 66. You’ve been cut off from The Force due to the events of the Mandalorian War, and have returned from where you wandered, and slowly began regaining your connection. You passively create a Force Bond with another former Jedi that you meet on the Peragus mining facility which could have deadly consequences, so you set out to find the Jedi masters who exiled you from the Jedi Order to determine what to do about it.
Image source: YouTube
The game is very similar to the first one. You start on two planets, this time Peragus and Telos, then when you leave the second, you travel the galaxy in whatever order you wish, finding each of the Jedi masters hiding on each of the planets. Like the first one, the game does start out a little slow with the initial planet, or asteroid in this case. The mystery of what happened on Peragus is a good hook, as you wake up to find everybody dead with no explanation of what happened to them or why you’re even there in the first place. It kind of drags a little bit, which is probably why there are mods to skip it. It’s not bad, it’s just not as fun as the rest of the game.
The combat is more or less copy/paste from the first game, and unfortunately, that means that this game has the movement after combat bug, too. Time to spam more force lightning if you don’t want to have to F4/F5 every time you encounter an enemy. I know that there are a few fixes online, but none of them have ever worked for me.
The basic format is the same as the first game, except instead of finding Star Maps, you’re finding jedi masters. If I had to nitpick, I’d say that there isn’t a ton of depth to them. They have a little personality and they’re certainly unique from each other, but they’re all kind of bare bones. The one with the most character is the Ed Ashner (Carl from Up) Jedi Master, and his main character trait… his only character trait, is grumpy. But that’s a nitpick. They were never meant to be complex characters, they were meant to be the ultimate objective on each planet.
Just like the last game, you travel with a colorful cast of characters (including some familiar ones in HK-47 and T3-M4) and I have to say, I think the cast is a bit stronger here. It’s frustrating that you can’t get the Handmaiden or the Disciple based on which gender you pick for your character, but what can you do? Mods. Anyway, there’s a real comradery this time that’s a bit deeper than the original game, as most of your companions are bonded together with the trauma of both the Mandalorian war, and the sith attack afterwards. You can have some great conversations where your companions go into their trauma, their rage, their desire for revenge, their longing for better days, and so on. It adds a lot of great complexity to them that’s really enjoyable. If I had to pick a companion that was a bit of a miss, it would be G0-T0. If you can pry his backstory out of him, he’s really interesting, but as a companion he’s next to useless. I’ve never used him all that much in any of my playthroughs. A huge advantage is that you can turn most of your humanoid companions into Jedi by helping them through their trauma, which is a great aspect of the game, because none of them are really typical Jedi.
Image source: Space
But, the best companion, and arguably the best character in any Star Wars game, is Kreia. I brought up in the section for the first game that all of your choices are too black and white. Kreia completely throws all of that out the window. From the moment you meet her, she just seems…off. She’s clearly hiding a detailed backstory from you, but what that is is hard to peel back. She acts as your mentor character in the game, but unlike the other Jedi mentors you have, Kreia has a very dim view of the galaxy. There’s nothing in her teachings about living in harmony with everyone and making sacrifices for those less fortunate, or any of that usual Jedi nonsense. One of her best moments is when you’re on Nar Shadda, and a beggar asks you for five credits. She responds with disdain whichever option you pick, lecturing you about how even the smallest choices you make have positive or negative consequences. She delves into the philosophy of The Force far more than most any Star Wars character, and provides a lot of unique insight. When it’s revealed that she’s a Sith Lord near the end of the game, it’s not a huge twist, and again, a dialogue option from her can trigger a flashback where she’s shown directly to be one, but the fact that she’s been pulling strings throughout the galaxy while traveling with you is great.
I personally think that the villains are stronger in this game, too. Darth Malak was certainly a threatening presence, and definitely evil, but he would be wiped out with little effort by Darth Sion and especially Darth Nihilus, one of the most terrifying characters in all of Star Wars. What’s great about them isn’t just that they’re super cool and threatening, but there’s also an undercurrent of tragedy to both of them, which adds needed complexity. Both of them are slaves to their respective attributes, pain and hunger respectively, and don’t know life without it. You don’t even end up beating Sion by hitting him with a lightsaber a bunch of times, although you do that, you get your final victory by convincing him to let go of his hatred and rage, and when he does, he’s relieved that it’s all over. Nihilus has the power to wipe out entire planets in a vain attempt to feed his limitless hunger for force energy, but that wasn’t something he chose for himself. Him being a wound in the Force is a result of the end of the Mandalorian war, and now he wanders the galaxy on a shell of a ship searching for his next “meal.”
Image source: YouTube
The second game holds up just as well as the first, especially if you add restored content, which is the only way to go. Like the first one, it’s usually pretty cheap on Steam, so if you haven’t fired it up in a while, give it a go. It’s still a blast.
The Knights of the Old Republic games represent the absolute pinnacle of Star Wars games. From the writing to the characters to the story, people definitely brought their A game with them. Yes the modern glitch of not being able to move after combat is incredibly annoying. Yes it would have been better if more time was devoted to finishing and polishing the second one, but it’s still a very fun game. While the remake of the first one is less and less likely as time goes on, and we’re definitely never getting the third game that was planned, which is too bad as the description of it sounds awesome, we at least have these two games to replay over and over again. I’ve played them both a dozen times, and I’m sure I’ll play them many more times in the future.
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