Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II – The Sith Lords

Kotor 2 is a complex game. Not because its combat is obtuse or difficult, no. If you wanna kick its ass, focus on two weapon fighting, max your strength as much as possible and look for anything that gives you bonuses to Strength, Constitution, Dex, Attack, and Defense, in that order. Spam force Speed and its upgrades and just march through the game undefeated. Nor because the story is somehow impenatrable. No, just pay attention to what your companions or force users say, and you'll most likely get what's going on pretty solidly by the time you reach the end. No the complexity comes from the fact that besides The Main Story and the expansion of character building options... Kotor 2 kinda sucks. The worlds are flat and lifeless, devoid of things to do. Theres maybe 1 or 2 quests outside the main line of each planet, and you can easily just blow right past them without any effort. The combat is even easier than it was in 1, and lemme tell you, 1 is not exactly standing toe to toe with Dark Souls, you know? Everything that isn't related to the Main Story feels shallow and poorly thought out. We know why this is, the game was rushed out the door and its a miracle we got a game as good as we did, but that doesn't change the fact that Kotor 2 is noticeably Less than Kotor 1 in a lot of subtle, but no less important ways. Playing through the game, you're spending what feels like 60 of the 80 hour run time in grey boxes with one or two nameless npcs walking around randomly. Like if you follow the usual progression people suggest, you go from Paragus Station to Citidel Station to Nar Shaddah and you only get a tiny little 1 hour break to frolic on a field on Telos before you're stuffed back in Sci-Fi Corridor #6531 for another 15 hours. You spend half the run time on Dantooine underground in a Sci-Fi Corridor, too. Korriban is a short jaunt, maybe an hour at most before you're done and out of there. So really, only Onderon offers anything different to Sci-Fi Corridor for long enough to matter. NPCs that aren't your companions or Force Sensitives are flat as a board, with almost zero nuance to them. Very often the names and faces are meaningless, just their role. This is The Well Meaning Friend. The Slicer. The Mandalorian. The Other Mandalorian. The Fifth Mandalorian. The Rhodian. So on and so forth. And the vaunted increase in depth to the game? It's not real. It's just bigger numbers. It doesn't create new styles of play that weren't there in Kotor 1. Kotor 2 didn't make blasters suddenly viable, in fact, Blaster Jedi was one of the strongest builds in Kotor 1. In the end, you still have the same 5 Classes of Character. Blaster guy. Melee force user. Lightning spammer. Normal Sword Guy. And Skill Monkey. There's no reason to really delve into the complexities of the system because its not that interesting. Just stack Wisdom and pick Stasis/Fear for casters, and Stack Strength and swing two swords as a guardian. You won the game! It's not hard at all. But why do I still have this as a reccomended game? Because despite all that winging the story is just that good. Every world is connected to the main plot thematically. Everything revolves around a THEME. A real, genuine "I'm trying to say something substantive about Star Wars" theme. The Main Villain is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ great. They are one of the best villains in all of Star Wars because, in the end, they aren't comically evil. They have a point. A great point. Probably the best point ever had in a Star Wars story. And that makes them more terrifying than Palpatine or Vader ever could be. So yeah. I recomend the game, but I won't tell you it's the best game ever made like some people will. I won't try and hype you into buying this and playing it because that will just lead you into disappointment. No, I'll just say: "This is a game that has stuck with me for 20 years and changed how I view one of my all time favorite fictional universes, giving it more genuine philisophical depth than a thousand Legends Novels did."

graphics show age but is better then the first. disney wishes they could come up with a game as good or better.

Praise: A masterpiece of adventure and atmosphere. Its open-world exploration, stunning visuals, and memorable characters are unmatched in the genre. Condemnation: The game suffers from a frustrating, buggy combat system (had to restart my playthrough a few times because of Bugs) Overall: A visually stunning but mechanically flawed title that is highly recommended for fans of open-world games despite its flaws. 10/10