1/5 ★ – Jrdotan's review of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II - The Sith Lords.

So, Kotor 1 wasnt necessarily my favorite game, but i could push to finish it regardless of how long it took and how boring a bunch of its parts were, Knowing that Kotor 2 was written by Chris avellonne (which is my favorite game writer), instantly grabbed my attention as he is known for his phenomenal job with Fallout 2, new vegas dlcs (mainly dead money) and the very widely known Planescape torment. So i already expected the writing to be improved in comparison to the first one. How this turned out to be then? Well, Kotor 2 ended up being a mess. Not only a mess as a sequel of the first game, but as a game itself and as a Narrative, which was the most surprising aspect. Let me start saying that the actual dialogue most definitively improved. Characters do talk most naturally and even tho it still exist, the problem with aliens refering to their personalities as something general for their "entire race" is much less prominent. Humor also got much better, the timing and placement of dialogue options and quick cuts makes it much funnier than the first one, in particular, one joke in telos revolving a droid made me chuckle quite a lot. Party dialogue also makes more sense and is generally more involving. In general, party is better here than in the first game. But then you go to the main plot and... well, there isnt much going on. you certainly do have a plot. the sith is attacking again and after Kotor 1, the republic was mostly destroyed, resulting in Jedi scattering around the galaxy and hiding until they have a chance to strike back against the sith. You are an exile, banished from the jedi order after you fought in the mandalorian wars against the Republic wishes, one day you wake up in a prison colony and find out a conspiracy plot revolving around the Sith as a result you have to fight against the Sith, finding the remaining Jedi across the galaxy and either joining them against your enemy or killing them for revenge. Standard stuff, right?.... Well, the issue is that for a good portion of the plot, the "find 4 things and progress the story" bioware-kind of plot seems quite disconnected from the overall narrative, with the planets having much more isolated conflicts that have no much bearing in your fight against the Sith, while in Kotor 1 a bunch of the people would either have problems with the Sith or actively be confronted by their empire. On top of that, the progression is slower and theres so much side content in each planet that will make you feel like everything take ages to end. Bad enough? oh it can get worse, plot relevant content was cut before the game was released because of bugs or not fully implemented elements, this was done AFTER the content was made and connected to the game's plot, which is very weird and will make some scenes seemingly come out of nowhere. The systems are very similar to the first game, which means its still very boring, easy, lacking depth and in general you can auto attack most things to death. in fact, due to some changes in the build system such as the implementation of prestige classes, you will be even STRONGER at the end game, than you were in K1, which is ridiculous. in fact, after i ended up the 4 planets i was Lv 23 (15 primary class, 8 with the prestige one) and i was hitkilling the entire game with my PC. One thing i forgot to talk about in the first game review, was about the horrible pathfinding. Pathfinding was a huge issue in Baldurs gate 1 either, but mostly fixed in BG2, i dont know why, but Kotor 1 and 2 had real issues with pathfinding too. in particular, not only people will walk at invisible walls all the time, but if you set them to flee from a battle while moving one character, the others will move all the way back to the enemy in the stupidest way possible. The itemization also got worse due to the more heavy implementation of crafting in this game, including the ability to mess up a lot with lightsaber crafting and the inclusion of robes that wont restrict force power usage (which was one of the things that made equipment choice compelling in the original), the consumables are still quite underwhelming aside from shields and as such, the strenghts of itemization are all restricted to equipment, which its not all bad, but mostly weaker than the first game. (btw, dont ever implement equipment crafting in your games, it ruins the loot progression. do interesting consumable items and design crafting around those.) its atleast polished? no, my friend, this is an >>OBSIDIAN<< game. Instead of describing every single bug in the game, let me just say the worst one here, which is the quick dialogue skips. at times, dialogues will be automatically skipped, if you arent paying attention you might lose vital information without noticing it, which makes an unfinished plot even more confusing than it already is. the solution to the bug is gladly simply reloading your game, so trust me, save often and have multiple saves for your own good. Kotor 2 isnt a good game, its barely a game at this point, instead its more like a bunch of ideas glued together into something that can barely be called "a product", which is why i cant recommend this to anyone. stay AWAY from this game. Rank - 2/10