Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

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……… O_O

I… *whew* yeah, hey. Wow. Um… *gulp*….

SPOILERS AHEAD!

Now let’s see, what do I do here… oh, right, talk about the story. I…

*takes deep breath*

Okay. This game takes place around 4,000 years before the movies during the “Jedi Civil War,” called as such because it is led by fallen Jedi Darth Malak. You play as a person working for the Republic aboard the ship known as the Endar Spire. The Spite is attacked by Sith troopers intent on capturing the Jedi called Bastila, a renowned master of the use of Battle Meditation. You and Captain Carth Onasi escape the doomed vessel after realizing Bastila has escaped. Now I’m not going to go in-depth here; there is a lot of story to cover. Suffice it to say, you find her while gathering many allies before, finally, becoming a Jedi yourself and embarking on a galaxy-wide adventure to stop Darth Malak.

… No, I’m not going to say it. I refuse. Chances are, you know what I’m talking about. If you do, don’t be a jerk by telling everyone else. If you don’t and you want to look it up, be my guest, I won’t stop you. You’re only hurting yourself.

Unlike any game before, this one truly makes one feel as if they are in the Star Wars universe. The atmosphere is so immersive; it’s easy to get lost in it. Every one of your party members is unique and interesting. There are homages to the movies aplenty throughout. They can get a little annoying and too in-your-face, but they’re a little forgivable. I did not particularly mind this too much. It was not so bad that it made the movies seem like “rip offs” of an old time. The only thing I will concede on is that the difference in technology between this and the movies is a little too close for comfort. Tales of the Jedi had worse tech than what is shown in this game, and that took place a few decades before this game. I suppose we’re led to believe that technological advances occur sporadically every few millennia. I considered the Hammerhead-class frigates and the Leviathan-class destroyers to be good “prototype,” if you will, of the Corellian Corvette and the Imperial Star Destroyer, respectively. The Ebon Hawk – another obvious homage – is a bit too similar to the Millennium Falcon, in my opinion. I wouldn’t mind if it looked different, but it just seems odd that this ancient vessel is by far more resilient and less prone to malfunction than the “newer” Falcon. What did you do to her, Solo? Lando probably would have taken better care of it… but, then, he is the one who bet the Falcon, so who am I to say?

You may recall that I criticized the dialogue from this game in the Bounty Hunter review. I still stand by that, but it doesn’t take away from this game. The main characters feature good voice actors; it’s just the other unnamed or unimportant characters who have very unenthusiastic voices. Overall, they are not terrible. As for the dialogue itself, well, some of it is very corny and cliché, which I cannot stand. This I find incredibly hard to swallow. But it seems to lessen as you progress, for some odd reason.

The gameplay is pretty standard for an RPG. While the lightsabers don’t quite feel realistic, they’re not supposed to. It’s an RPG and they never do in RPGs. I will say, however, that the duels do look rather nice. Typically, if you pause mid-battle, you’ll generally get a nice shot. Which is not to say that the graphics are fantastic; I had some issues with the graphics on occasion, but they are by no means terrible. Just not amazing.

Despite my criticism in this review, you must keep in mind that I really struggled to find flaw. I just love this game so much. While this review is a bit short, that’s primarily because of my lack of problems and because saying too much about this game would cheapen it. KOTOR is an amazing game. It stands proudly in the #1 spot on my top favorite Star Wars games, if not my single favorite game of all time.