Are KOTOR and The Sith Lords worth it if...

[Callate]

I don't share in the Sith Lords love, but then, I've never played it with the community patches. Out of the box, it's two-thirds to thee-quarters of a good game and one-third to one-quarter "cut and paste a room, fill it with Dark Jedi, repeat." And the climactic encounters drag on way too long for far too little payoff.

(Without the patches. Don't drag me off into the street, please.)

KotOR is still a very good game, but I will say that I played it again off of GOG recently and it seemed to have a few minor but annoying bugs that I don't remember from when I originally played it. I couldn't say if that's from GOG's port or playing it on a (more-or-less) modern system or even some weird latency from playing it off of an external hard drive, but I thought I should note. The graphics never aimed for photo-realism, even compared to games of its time, which makes the graphics easier to accept.

And while knowing about the "big twist" might take a bit of oomph out of that scene, I think there's enough good writing in the thing as a whole to make it well worth it.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

Decided I'll give em a shot!

Anyone have a good link for this TSLRCM mod/patch?

 

[Radoh]

Yes they are worth it, KOTOR II on steam recently got some patch that actually makes it work a lot more than not, but keep in mind that while II is better, it's also stupid easy if you get the third upgraded force push.

 

[spartandude]

Decided I'll give em a shot!

Anyone have a good link for this TSLRCM mod/patch?

Here you go my good sir.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-sith-lords-restored-content-mod-tslrcm

Also it's on steam workshop

 

[BadNewDingus]

It's still a great game, both actually. However, the only times I load it is to get that warm feeling I had when it first came out. After a few minutes of playing, it becomes boring for me sadly. I'm just jaded by the new games, I guess?

Did I just contradict myself?

 

[Fdzzaigl]

Kotor 2 is the better game provided you have installed "The Sith Lords restoration project" mod. Otherwise it's a mess.

However, I would still very much recommend playing KOTOR 1 first. That game's characters aren't as deep, but it establishes the universe and atmosphere of the KOTOR universe much more so than the sequel. KOTOR 2 wouldn't be as great as it is for me without the first game.

 

[DoPo]

Yeah, in the only playthrough I ever finished of Kotor 2 I was a full lightside Jedi Counselor and it was a cakewalk. AoE force stun + spam Force Wave = everything is dead. Sure, I could have been darkside and used Deathfield, but that's just overkill.

I did play dark side Force user. At one point, I just started spamming Force Lightning at the start of each battle as that had a goo chance to just end the battle. Or at least it most of the mooks. If anything survived, I just unleashed the rest of the Force powers on it and done. Final part of the game was laughingly easy even when you were facing armies. Well, those armies were series of a lot of mooks but they simulated an army attacking you. And I just Force Lightning'd each one. It was like they faced the wrath of Zeus.

I would agree that Jedi Knight was the best class in Kotor 1. If you went single saber with a strength/power attack build you were basically unstoppable.

I seem to recall something like that. They also had a passive leap ability, I believe, which meant that you take out one target at the start of battle, almost guaranteed and for the rest of the first turn, you're surrounded by enemies. And more often than not, after that first turn you are surrounded by corpses instead.

 

[IOwnTheSpire]

If you play KOTOR II, pay attention to the character of Kreia. She is one of the best written video game characters of all time.

 

[MysticSlayer]

I've only played KOTOR, and I didn't get far, nor have I looked back with a desire to see if I was missing out on anything. I wasn't a huge fan of the combat mechanics, and the game destroyed my interest in its story and lore early on when characters started telling me the basic controls as if they were reading the first few pages of the game's manual.

 

[StoleitfromKilgore]

I have to agree. I haven't tried the second one yet, but the two hours of KOTOR that I have played were not enjoyable in the least. Main reason for that being the absolutely awful writing. Part of that is that the tutorial is directly integrated into the dialogue, but I could've forgiven that. What's worse is, that the rest of the dialogue and start of the story were just so damn cliched, riddled with lazily implemented info-dumps and just over-all incompetently told.

In what little I have seen of the game I also didn't get the feeling that they actually were trying to establish a setting as distinct from standard Star Wars. Even though the game was supposedely taking place a few thousand years before Yavin.

 

[Flathole]

The Sith Lords is from Obsidian, not Bioware, and is easily the better game, provided you install the community patches.

I would say both are worth to play at least once, but TSL is much better and if you're struggling to set off time for one, let alone two games, I would recommend that over the initial installment of the series.

I'd agree, but both games are so similar in terms of gameplay, visuals, pacing, length, and structure that the only thing that really separates them is the story, and though 2 is the winner here, it's still felt like playing through 1 again, only with an expansion pack installed.

If you play KOTOR II, pay attention to the character of Kreia. She is one of the best written video game characters of all time.

100% this. if the OP prefers grey moral areas to good vs. evil, you will love Kreia.

Spoiler

Except at the ending, of course, which sucks like an industrial vacuum cleaner that decided to take up prostitution.

oh- and like others have pointed out, in both games the difficulty curve slides downwards as powers like Force Lightning+Life Drain or Master Speed + Master Flurry make the game so easy your party members become vestigial in combat.

Also, if you have a Gamecube or Wii you might want to try Rogue Squadron 2, a space combat game much like Star Fox. The story isn't too exceptional, mostly filling in the blanks of what the ordinary, non-jedi rebels were doing during the original trilogy, but it's well told. At least I thought so. And I'm not really a SW fan, so take that as it is.

 

[Asita]

Also, if you're a fan of d20 tabletop systems building characters is fun. Yeah, it's an unbalanced mess, but it's still fun.

And if you're not a fan, that's also fine - play the most wizard class in KOTOR2 and enjoy curbstomping all opponents because you're OP as fuck. I can't exactly remember which class had the advantage in 1 - it might have been the warrior that advanced into Jedi warrior. It was the simplest to build, at least.

Scout to level 8 for Rank 3 Implant, Sentinel to level 12 for a passive immunity to most[footnote]*deep breath* Fear, Horror, Insanity, Force Push, Force Wave, Stun, Critical Strike, Sniper Shot, Concussion Grenades, Sonic Grenades, Flash Mines, Stun Rays, Stasis, Stasis Field, Cryoban Grenades, and Carbonite Projectors *exhale*[/footnote] debilitating effects. With proper planning (and assuming you regularly visit the Yavin Station and grab its Lightsaber Crystals, and the 100% electric resistance belt from Kashyyyk) by the end game you basically become an whirlwind of destruction who is immune to most of what the late game enemies can throw at you and can lock down or destroy half of them with a single force ability.