The Greatest Star Wars Game Ever Made II
[May the 4th Special Part 2] Knights of the Old Republic's enigmatic sequel.
It’s a testament to both the intrigue and to the wholly unique nature of KOTOR II that beneath part 1 of this double-feature review, even by self-professed preferers of the original game, it was this sequel that generated the most lively discussion.
Like I said 2 weeks ago, I actually played KOTOR II first but didn’t finish the game until a few years later once I’d polished off the original; I’d like to tell you that I got busy with other titles or that between the ages of 6-9 young Lawrence was off karting to be scooped up by Scuderia Ferrari for the Junior Formulae… but in reality, this game always creeped me out a bit. KOTOR II features such characters as a zombified Sith Lord who speaks in a Scottish accent and can raise himself from the dead and another who speaks in a demonic, mystery tongue and devours planets using the force, you can bet firing up Battlefront after school was more palatable when I was young.
Setting that aside, there are personal circumstances that contribute towards the KOTOR II mystique for me.
I grew up playing these games on the original Xbox, not on PC and Knights Of The Old Republic II was already unstable on the desktop but the limitations of the console brought it to a whole other level. KOTOR II, even with an immaculate disc, regularly fails to load new areas, comes packed with all the same bugs and glitches and regularly corrupts saves if you’re brave (read as: foolish) enough to only use 1 save file slot. This was a game that devoured my save files regularly, crashed when I needed it least and at one point had to be resurfaced at my local GAME; my current copy of the game doesn’t work properly either, this is becoming a cursed game for me. As such, I still feel a bit lucky when I play this game today on PC: lucky that it’s working and I get to play it.
In the past decade or so, the appreciation and the analysis of this game has grown so much that it almost blots out the love for the original… but is it warranted? Let’s find out.
The Echoes Of War
Knights Of The Old Republic II kicks off about 5 years after the first game, not in an era of peace or of newfound freedom but an era of silence.
The Galactic Republic lumbers on, battered, struggling to exert power and spread dangerously thin after 3 huge wars in quick succession: the Great Sith War, the Mandalorian Wars and the Jedi Civil War have bled its fleet white. The Jedi Order as a centralised, galaxy-wide organisation has ceased to exist with its members slain or in exile, dozens of worlds remain dead: scoured clean by Sith bombardments and the likes of Czerka Corporation or the criminal minds of The Exchange are only too willing to aid the reconstruction efforts in return for political clout.
KOTOR II is a dark game. This isn’t a story full of horrendous fates and horrible deaths like The Last Of Us, or of relentless grimdark like Warhammer, instead, this vision of the Star Wars universe is one without a moral compass or hope for the future; the Sith and the Jedi are nothing more than a handful of traumatised force wielders and without the guidance of the Jedi, the Republic feels akin to a civilisation on its last legs, in a state of frozen collapse. The galaxy is at peace but spiritually? The people are broken.
KOTOR II opens with your character: seemingly the last of the Jedi, drifting through space on a ravaged Ebon Hawk, critically wounded, at the mercy of fate… and a little astromech droid named T3M4.
The contrast between KOTOR I and II’s opening minutes best demonstrates the gulf in sensibilities between these 2 titles. While the original game opens with a space battle, a lightsabre duel and 2 interstellar armies doing battle: classic Star Wars, KOTOR II opens with the player at death’s door and should you skip the prologue, coming back to consciousness in an infirmary filled with corpses suspended in kolto.
This is not a game about Empire vs Republic or a war between rebels and oppressors, instead this is a spiritual conflict; the politicking and the war-waging of the previous generations are gone, instead, the last of the Jedi and Sith fight a duel in the dark over the nature of the force and philosophy. KOTOR II isn’t at its best when you’re facing down Sith lords or dealing with planetary politics, its most effective moments instead come when discussing a lifetime of war with a tired old soldier, when dissecting the nature of the force with an elderly Jedi or when the player is made to imagine how they would process the agony of the Exile’s life.
The main quest ostensibly sees the player tracking down the last surviving Jedi Masters in order to form some kind of resistance against Darth Sion and Nihilus: two Sith Lords who seek to destroy you and to plunge the galaxy in darkness but the real quest is of a personal nature.
Knights Of The Old Republic II was not developed by Bioware, instead, in a story strikingly similar to that of Fallout: New Vegas, Obsidian were drafted in to work on the sequel and had to get the game off the ground in a blisteringly fast 14-month development cycle. As a result, KOTOR II had to find other means of differentiating itself from the original; gameplay changes are minor, graphical fidelity is only the slightest touch improved and the writing takes on a philosophical, ponderous tone that many love but some hate. It’s always been curious to me that KOTOR II has come to carry this immaculate reputation in recent years since when it came out, despite being loved by critics, it was quite common to hear the game being described as a disappointment, or as much inferior to the first. I get the impression that the events of Order 66: the Jedi slaughter that took place during Episode III and continued until A New Hope, are the most popular Star Wars stories among Gen Z and since my generation now sits in the cockpit of internet culture, it makes a lot of sense that KOTOR II was so favourably reassessed; the timeline is different but this is essentially the same story: the story of the Jedi being wiped out with just a few true believers left to pick up the pieces.
Chris Avellone is one of those video game industry figures that attracts a bit of a para-social, irritating following but whether you count yourself among one of his fans or not, given how many critically acclaimed games he has contributed too, KOTOR II is worth seeking out to see the origins of what would come later.
One Right Answer
I’d like to offer some nuance in regards to the different versions of KOTOR II but truthfully? I don’t see why you would play this game anywhere other than on the PC.
As I mentioned earlier, KOTOR II is unstable on Xbox and anecdotally, finding good condition discs for the original Xbox is a struggle too. You can get this game on Switch, Android and all those other platforms I mentioned in part 1 but I don’t imagine that mods are as easy to install as they are in PC, which is a deal breaker since KOTOR II had such huge amounts of cut-content due to its rapid turn-around that the developers endorsed a fan made mod that adds much of it back into the game; you’ll want those community fixes as well.
Furthermore, unlike the original, KOTOR II on Steam has actually been patched to run at modern resolutions right out of the box, this does give the game a look that’s more smooth and sharp, which doesn’t always compliment those old 3D models but it is more convenient for modern players.
If you mod your original Xbox I believe there are ways to get it going modded on there but I don’t like messing around with historical hardware too much, it feels a bit like painting an Egyptian sarcophagus pink.
KOTOR II comes with a few new planets along with the return of Korriban and Dantooine, both of which are in a derelict state after the events of the first game and the past 5 years since. I don’t have much to say about this game’s presentation: it’s the first game with a wider variety of attack animations and slightly different UI, so I’ll be moving on to the main locations.
In my opinion, KOTOR II’s locations are one of the game’s biggest weaknesses.
Dantooine and Korriban are not only less interesting than their equivalents in the prior game (Korriban being my favourite location in KOTOR I) but the latter can also be finished in about 10 minutes if you know where to go. Nar Shaddaa is the third floating/space station-type location in the game and by then, I’m always tired of the same metallic backdrop; I love Dxun, it’s wonderfully atmospheric but Onderon feels like a second Taris, it even has a similar colour palette.
I think the purpose of every sequel, however small the refinements are, should be to improve upon its predecessors and a key factor in why I prefer the first game to this one is that KOTOR II takes the original game’s biggest issues: the pacing and glacial opening hours… and makes them worse. Peragus, on a first playthrough, is a wonderfully eerie and oppressive ghost station filled with corpses and rampant mining droids, learning the fate of the miners and uncovering the different plots members of staff had to cash in your unconscious body for a hefty bounty and unravelling the mystery behind why everyone died is great fun but it has no replay value and the 2-3 hours it takes to get through feels like a tedious drag when you come to replay the game.
Telos: the next location you’re locked into, is even worse. This is my least favourite location in the whole The Old Republic era of Star Wars games and that’s including the MMO.
Taris in KOTOR I wasn’t the best planet but it was filled with intriguing characters, fun side-quests like the arena and the Upper, Lower and Undercities each gave you a different impression of life under Sith occupation and their neglect of the planet; the three levels were aesthetically distinct and it served to show the player how this society was a thinly veiled hellhole masquerading as a predominantly human, rich city. Telos’ Citadel Station on the other hand sees you running back and forth between 4, samey looking areas with a boring space skybox outside and a bland ambient track that doesn’t change, except for when you enter the Cantina: the most interesting place on Citadel Station that gets completely underutilised.
Now, I’ve criticised KOTOR II a lot so far in regards to its unambitious environments and lack of presentational improvements but there is one area where I think the sequel is superior: the soundtrack. This game wasn’t actually composed by Jeremy Soule and instead by Mark Griskey who later composed both The Force Unleashed and The Old Republic MMO as well.
In KOTOR II, rather than a hub of prospective Sith and fallen Jedi, Korriban is a dead world infested with supernatural beasts that feed on the Dark Side and charred corpses. The planet’s eerie theme captures this perfectly and when I was younger, this music always made me hesitant to enter the ruins of the academy; I’m not sure what the instrument is called but there’s a sound in here that’s reminiscent of Tatooine in A New Hope too which gives the piece a distinctly Star Wars flavour.
In the original KOTOR, the Ebon Hawk shared its theme song with Tatooine’s Anchorhead settlement; reused music was an issue with that first game that KOTOR II does manage to iron out. This can be quite an intense game at times with horror-themed planets and themes of trauma and war, so it’s nice to come back an to an Ebon Hawk that feels distinctly homely and lived-in this time around. I dare say it but the relaxing music makes this place feel… c-c-cosy. Blegh!
The ruins of the Jedi Enclave, to my ear, have the most Original Trilogy-sounding ambient music in the game. Both the Exile and assuming you’ve played the first game, the player underwent their Jedi training on this planet so the emotions in this piece’s more sombre moments feel like a unification of both the player and the character’s feelings. There is something else here too: a tinge of resentment and the minute seed of hope.
My favourite combat theme in KOTOR II plays on the jungle moon of Dxun. A lot of the combat you’ll be doing on this planet is against local wild beasts and the enemies of the Mandalorian compound; that’s what this piece sounds like to me with the drums and all that: man clashing against nature.
An Ostrine Edge
KOTOR II’s rapid development cycle meant that there wasn’t enough time to introduce the sweeping gameplay changes that, in my opinion, were needed after the first game’s not particularly enjoyable combat system but the refinements made by Obsidian are welcome and do improve the experience while offering more strategic depth.
As an exiled Jedi, slowly regaining their connection to the force through another character’s presence and tutelage, you actually begin the game with the ability to use the force and unlock powers from the get go; no obsolete starting class and no waiting 5+ hours to unlock the incredibly useful Stun/Kill Droid power or Stasis. Though later on, more specialised class options do come, they are tied more to fine-tuning your build and bound to your alignment. Like I said before, the pacing is worse in this one but early access to force powers means that while your patience suffers, your build does not. The restriction on force powers while using heavier types of armour is removed as well.
Feats: those moves like Flurry or Power Attack you can use in combat had the same animation regardless of level or weapon in the first game but in KOTOR II a wider variety can be seen. This is a purely visual improvement but it helps fights appear more like a real combat encounter than 2 parties having a fight to the death using a cup of dice and a D&D handbook.
My favourite addition to KOTOR II’s combat are the lightsaber forms. Any Star Wars dweeb deep into the lore will know that there are 7 lightsaber forms: 7 different schools of thought regarding lightsaber combat that each have their own strengths and weaknesses, in KOTOR II you can learn these forms and swap between them on the fly depending on the situation. Not only is this an incredibly lore-friendly way to introduce more strategy into the game but it further differentiates the lightsabers from standard melee weapons, which was needed because they felt identical to use in KOTOR I. There are also 4 force forms for the player to swap between.
KOTOR II also adds the ability to swap between 2 separate loadouts in combat and different behaviour settings for your companions in combat but truthfully? I’ve never used these too much; I said it in part 1 and I’ll say it again: I tend to stick the combat on Easy because it’s my least-favourite part of the game and I want to get through the encounters quick and painlessly.
I would rank the planets like I did for the first game in this section but truthfully? I only like Dxun, Nar Shaddaa and Korriban, the rest are either forgettable, a chore on a second playthrough or outright unenjoyable. Sorry KOTOR II fans, I have a strong preference for the first game.
I Can Feel Your Anger
Ladies, gentlemen and everyone in-between adjacent or interdimensional, we now come to the section where I will make a million KOTOR II fans cry out in terror: I think KOTOR II’s companions are heavily carried by Kreia, not only that but I feel this cast is less interesting overall and were she to be removed from the game, not only would these characters be unanimously labelled inferior but KOTOR II fans would also see thsi game for what it is a bit more clearly.
I get that the central theme of KOTOR II is trauma and the motif of dark secrets serves to illustrate the psychological wounding of these characters but did absolutely everyone have to have a superhero origin story and an outrageously dark past that, in one way or another, always loops back to the Mandalorian Wars or the Jedi? Whenever you talk to a new companion I almost wish there was a dialogue option to tell them to spit it out already.
Ebon Hawk background music
“Yes, General?”
1. What do you know about this place?
2. Do you have any shields for me?
3. I know you have some kind of dark secret or tragic backstory, why don’t you just spit it out before I cut off your stupid, prickly Zabrak head and mount it to the front of the Ebon Hawk?
Dark Side Points Gained
Look, I’m not trying to mock KOTOR II, truly, I enjoy this game but I’m also tired of the near-mythic status it’s acquired in the past 15 years or so and the constant claims that it’s a masterpiece and is the ‘best written’ video game ever, I’ve been playing this thing most of my life and have seen its reputation do a 180 degree turn so I think I’ve earned the right to wail on it a bit. KOTOR II’s themes and writing have all the subtlety of Darth Malak’s metal jaw and your companions feel like the occupants of a therapist’s waiting room; not only is the influence system that allows you to steer them towards your moral alignment flawed but I actually prefer it not being in the game at all. In KOTOR II it’s as if everyone’s lives revolve around you and they exist to be bent to your will, you can train several of them to be Jedi all by yourself: something that, although cool, shouldn’t really be possible based on everything we know about the force and the fact that they can all be shaped and moulded into Jedi or Sith in your image makes this cast of characters feel less autonomous to me. Considering that miserable old crone Kreia loves to prattle on about choices mattering and autonomy (we’ll get to that later) it’s ironic that we erode the free will of others with every turn.
In KOTOR I, some of those characters would literally rather die than turn to the Dark Side with you. Nonetheless, it is awesome to see both Canderous and HK-47 come back in the sequel.
Let me lay off the punches a second though and offer some praise: Kreia, as impossible to please, witchy and persistently in disagreement to you as she is, by far is KOTOR II’s most compelling companion and the subject of at least 100, multi-hour long video essays, she provides insight into the nature of the force on a level that no other character in the Star Wars universe has before or since. Under Kreia’s tutelage you will come to see Jedi and Sith not as a binary moral choice but as two flawed, diametrically opposed philosophies, each with a complete set of hypocrisies, contradictions and deep-seated, dogmatic beliefs. With every conversation you will acquire a more complete view of the force and come to see this binary view as juvenile and either philosophy as incomplete… which ends up being a moot point because the game will still drive you towards picking one of them but I digress.
Kreia also reveals some fascinating details that tie back to the original game, particularly in regards to one of her former students but I will leave you to discover that for yourself.
Atton Rand (played by actor Nicky Katt who passed away just over a year ago RIP) is a highlight among your companions, coming across as another Han Solo rip-off until you dig deeper and it’s enjoyable to learn more about your character’s past in the Mandalorian Wars via Bao-Dur; there is a wonderful interaction with HK 47 too where he explain, in detail, how one goes about hunting and killing Jedi but he is a recurring character so I’m hesitant to give KOTOR II all the credit for this one.
I’d love to rank all the companions in this section like I did last time but some are mutually exclusive: locked depending on your character’s gender or alignment and let’s be honest, even the most ardent KOTOR II fan remembers Kreia, Atton, HK and maybe Bao Dur but not much of the rest. Kreia does a lot of the heavy lifting.
Duel Of The Fates
WARNING: This section contains massive spoilers for the main story and companions of KOTOR II, if you’ve never played KOTOR II and want to do so, please skip this section.
KOTOR II’s greatest flaw is that its third act is abrupt, unfinished and reliant on the player having paid close attention to Kreia’s many lessons on the force… this also makes it somewhat difficult to explain and confusing. I have finished KOTOR II many times and I still had to look up some of the more abstract concepts while writing this; Avellone and company were so impressed with their moralising and pondering through Kreia that they forgot to make elements of this story comprehensible.
The Exile: you, are a walking wound in the force, this is why Nihilus and Sion hunt you, because you are a rival to their own power; Nihilus, himself a wound in the force, became an all consuming entity that needs to feed on life itself to survive after his wounding and even lacks a physical body, so what could the Exile become? After gathering the Jedi masters on Dantooine they too fear the Exile and Kreia kills them for their arrogance, revealing herself to be a Sith Lady… a reveal that falls flat because we already have learned that Sion, Nihilus and even Revan were former pupils of hers.
You eventually slay Nihilus aboard his flagship: the Ravager in one of the most anticlimactic boss fights ever when he launches an assault on Telos, once the deed is done you must return to Malachor V: the planet where the Exile ended the Mandalorian Wars with a devastating superweapon and the site of Kreia: Darth Traya’s Academy in order to confront her. It’s on Malachor V that you convince Darth Sion: a Sith Lord literally too angry to die, to finally accept death and discover Traya’s ultimate plan: to use the Exile to create a galaxy-sized wound in the force, to cut all life off from it… because she hates the force.
The difficulty I’ve faced in recounting Act 3 of this insane plot and the fact that it’s taken me 3 paragraphs, a lifetime of playing the game and multiple lore posts/videos to explain in relatively simple terms what actually occurs in this game is why I will never follow the ‘KOTOR II is better’ crowd: if you remove the flowery language, the moralising and the pseudo-philosophy, what you have is a difficult to grasp plot with a villainous goal that ends up being this universe’s equivalent to detesting something as ubiquitous as microscopic life or bacteria.
I have to be honest… I love the force. You can shoot lightning out of your finger tips, brainwash people, put them in stasis… Nihilus even consumes whole planets with the stuff, how cool is that?
A Long And Crooked Road
It’s time to wrap this up… ad muddy the waters even further.
I actually love-hate-love KOTOR II… I think? Sure, I’ve ripped it apart a bit in this review, the constant parroted opinions about it being ‘peak Star Wars’ get on my nerves and I think the voice talent of Kreia’s actress: Laurence Olivier Award winner Sara Kastelman, who delivers one of gaming’s greatest performances, is enough to impress people so much that they lap up what they’re being fed but this is also a title that means a lot to me personally. I grew up with KOTOR II, I remember the days where this was seen as the crappy sequel to an all-time classic so on some level it is gratifying to see the redemption of a game I have always liked; some of you may be convinced I hate this thing by now but you don’t play a game for 20 years if you don’t like it. On a more personal level, events in my own life had led me too to feel like someone returning to the world after a long time away, just like the Exile, so I relate to that.
There’s something about KOTOR II… something mysterious, unnerving and seductive. Its music is bleak and foreboding, the Sith Lords in it are genuinely scary and that feeling of being constantly hunted is executed better than in the original, where every now and then 3 low-level Dark Jedi show up to chat utter wet and get killed. This is the Majora’s Mask to KOTOR I’s Ocarina Of Time: it’s not a better video game, neither does it improve enough to be an unambiguously great sequel but the ideas are fresh enough and the atmosphere so intoxicating that everybody should play it.
Do I love KOTOR II? Probably. Do I hate it? Definitely. Should you play it? Absolutely yes. Is it better than the first? No.
TL;DR: Love it or hate it, there’s nothing quite like KOTOR II. An unfinished third act, glacial pacing, unenjoyable planets and ponderous moralising are carried by enjoyable gameplay changes, rich atmosphere and some of the coolest Sith lords in Star Wars.
Join me next time as I return to the Every Nintendo 64 FPS series.
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I agree the companions are inferior (with the exception of Kreia), the locations are dull, and the gameplay isn’t much improved over KOTOR I, but you’ve to be kidding about the motivations behind Kreia! Her motivation is probably the most interesting villain motivation in the entire Star Wars canon.
The dominant Jedi/Sith paradigm is shallow, very cinematic, but not very philosophically interesting. Kreia is interesting. She hates the Force, she hates that it has a will, that it uses people for its own ends. She rejects both Jedi and Sith and comes up with an entirely new metaphysics for the Star Wars universe. Even as a kid, I thought she was fascinating. Yeah sure it was cooler to be Revan, but being the reluctant student of a compelling, convincing Dark Lord is a fantastic premise I’ve never seen done anywhere else
The thing about Kotor II is it's been remastered and Kotor I has not. I'd love to play a modernized version of I. You also didn't mention crafting which was a great add. Also, EASY combat? It's already so easy, especially with the aforementioned crafting.