Spoiler-Free Review Of The 'KOTOR' Remake
Image Source: GameSpot
Ever since it was first announced, people have been excited for the remaster of the classic, beloved Knights of the Old Republic game. First released in 2003, the game quickly became known as not just arguably the best Star Wars game of all time, but one of the best video games period. From the great story, fun and engaging characters, fascinating planets and overall enjoyment of a nearly perfect game, the new developer had some big shoes to fill.
The result?
It was a blast.
And not at all what I was expecting.
The core game is still very much there. You wake up on the Endare Spire (the developers weren’t that great with some of the spelling and continuity), which is under attack from the Sith who are trying to capture or kill Bastila Shan for her Battle Meditation. You escape onto the planet Taris with Carth Onasi, and the game more or less continues as it does in the 2003 game.
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Carth, Female Player, and Juhani on Taris
Image Source: wccftech
The combat is definitely different this time around. It’s far more traditional for a shoot ‘em up game. For whatever reason, they have Dee Bradley Baker providing the sounds of the weapons themselves. He’s one of the best voice actors in the game, but it was a bit distracting to hear him going “pew pew” and “vroom” whenever there’s a fight going on. It takes you out of the game for the first couple of combat encounters, and it’s something that will probably split players.
Speaking of, the casting is a bit of a mixed bag. It’s like they just threw a bunch of darts at a board of celebrities and cast whoever they hit. Dolly Parton makes a surprisingly good Bastila (though Betty White was recording some voice lines for the role before her death that they left in for some reason, notably when Bastila falls to the dark side), but considering that Jennifer Hale, the original voice of Bastila, was cast as “background extra #4 on Manaan” I have to wonder why they didn’t just… you know, have her do it again. She was right there. Pedro Pascal is a bit mixed as both Mission and Zaalbar, Anne Hathaway as Canderous was a huge swing and a miss, Morgan Freeman as Carth is awesome, Danny Devito as Malak was… a choice, Chris Pratt sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t as HK-47, and Amy Poehler brings a surprising amount of pathos to Juhani, though there was a bit too much Leslie Knope in her performance for my liking. For whatever reason, they used old soundbites of Harlan Ellison’s performance as AM from the radio drama version of his short story I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream for T3.
“Hate. Let me tell you how much I’ve come to hate you since I began to live…”
Image Source: Alexander Murdoch
The highlight of the performances is absolutely Michael Cera as Jolee. I was about halfway through the game before I even realized that it was him, and I had to look it up to make sure that I was hearing right.
It was frustrating because they didn’t seem to know how to wisely spend their voice actor budget. They have these big stars for the starring roles, which makes sense, but that appeared to leave nothing in the budget for some of the other minor characters. The VA for Master Vrook, for example, is credited as “Dave from Best Buy.”
Enough about that, though. The game itself is really fun. The story beats are generally all the same. You escape Taris, go to the Jedi academy, then go find the star maps to lead you to the star forge, all the while fighting your way through hundreds of bad guys and learning more about yourself, your companions, and the galaxy at large.
Male Player and Bastila on Kashyyyk
Image Source: wccftech
You can do the planets in whichever order you like, just as before. I did the order of Tatooine, Kashyyyk, Manaan, Korriban, Earth, and Exegol. I must also insist that you frequently hit the space station on Yavin IV, as you can sell your items for more there, get rare items that you can’t find anywhere else in the game, and unlock an all-new quest that takes about three hours to complete with an ending that I dare not spoil here. Most of the missions are the same, though some are added as you’d expect, and others are taken away. Notably, the universally reviled Sunry murder trial and Genoharadan murder contracts are missing from the remake. The game is better and more streamlined without them.
Something that I did not like at all was that the game added a lot of minigames. The closest thing the original had to a minigame was when your ship would be attacked by enemy fighters on your way to various planets. Here there are several more, and none of them are particularly fun. The worst part is that you can’t even skip them. If you would like to get the Ebun Hawk (told you the spelling was off) or finally use a lightsaber, you’d better get used to grinding with the minigames.
This is how you get off of the Endare Spire. It took me half an hour to get it.
Image Source: YouTube
The difficulty of the game varies. You can do “Aliens” difficulty, where you just nuke the area from orbit from the Ebun Hawk and fly on down to the surprisingly indestructible star map, or “Saving Private Ryan Omaha Beach” difficulty, where a single slash from a weapon or shot from a blaster wipes you out. There are nine levels of difficulty between the two, thus eleven overall, so it’s up to you what kind of challenge you’d like. I chose “Ghostface” difficulty, which is about middle of the road when it comes to how hard the game is.
Thus far, the game has only been released on PC, so anyone who wants to play the game on consoles will have to wait until 2036 as a flagship title for the Switch 5, Xbox XXV, and the PS8. At the time of publication, the game is available on Steam, Epic Games, and some Bay place, for $399.99 USD/$925 CAN, €1043.93, and LBP £35,819,104.50. It is available in no other regions until 2029. Thankfully, I live in America, my local pawnbroker doesn’t ask questions, and thus I was able to pick up a copy.
Juhani, Male Player and HK-47 solving a murder on Dantooine.
Image Source: GameSource
The game offers a lot of little extras that you can buy for between fifty cents and a hundred dollars. Mostly reskins. They’re kind of fun to start off with, but they’re not really worth the money. I did start to wonder if a lot of the cost and delay of the game was the reskins, as you can pick pretty much any IP you can think of to reskin the game into. While initially amusing, it distracts from the overall experience, and I think the developers could have been better served by spending their time and money elsewhere.
But overall, I had a very good time playing this. It was mostly worth the wait, and it brought back a lot of the nostalgia I had for the game. I remember when I was a much younger lad, playing the original game over and over again, exploring the dark and light side paths, making new choices to see how it affected the game’s story and your relationships with your companions, and experiencing one of the best Star Wars stories we’ve ever gotten from a galaxy far, far away. It’s not a perfect game, and they could have changed a few things to get it out earlier and cheaper, but the money I spent on the game by pawning my next-door neighbor’s… it was a fun game overall. Worth it. If you can afford it, check it out. It will be 400 hours and dollars well spent.
Rating: 8.3/11
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