I stream here and want more people to understand just how bad I am at video games: www.twitch.tv/thesaltfactory_ Schedule- Monday, Tuesday, Friday. Time- 2-4PM EST start, 6-9PM EST end. Thank. Also apparently my gamersupps code doesn't do what I said it did anymore. Now it seems to just give a percentage off. I think the free shipping on free samples was used up by you guys. So solid job there lol
If you know all the things you need to do, you can run through Peragus in about half an hour, maybe add 10 minutes for the Harbinger. But the first time you go through... *Oh fuck no*
Doesn't that depend on whether you use restoration mod or not? I haven't played Kotor in a long time but I don't remember spending so much time on Peragus and no, I didn't use the mod.
Small tidbits: Things like that odd bit of voice acting on Dantooine, some really weird cutscene inconsistencies and the droid planet can't really be blamed on the developers. Some of these weren't just cut content added back in by the Restored content mod, but cut content filled IN by the restored content mod, meaning some of those parts are the modders trying to piece together different data best they can. Think of it like, they have the level layout, they have some voice clips of the last few cutscenes and some loose script for a few of the NPCs and they then have to make up what connects all these assets together. On that note, the old Restored scene for the droid planet has Sion killing the Jedi Master you find there, and a few other scenes where he and Nihlus would interact and fight each other. The reason you don't learn as much about Hanhar is because, during the Nar Shadda story, he becomes the companion for Dark side players instead of Mira. On the subject of the 'black and white' conflicts in the game, it's less about 'One side is good and one side is evil' and more 'one side is appealing while the other side might be better in the long run'. The Onderon conflict being the best example as, while the general might be shadier and more ruthless than the moral Queen, he could ultimately be considered better for Onderon as he stops Onderon from losing all of it's culture and standing when being absorbed into the Republic. The Ithorians vs Czerka was basically a matter of asking if letting the Republic, which is very much on it's last leg, sink so much resource into restoring planets would only further destabilize the Republic. It's basically a microcosm of Kreia's lesson on Nar Shadda, what seems like a good deed in the short run can very well spell a worse fate in the long run if you let blind altruism guide you. Speaking of Onderon, there's a small funny moment where, if you side with the Queen, she rewards you with an artefact from her museum. However, you can steal the item before hand when you pass through there, meaning when you get to this scene, she assumes the General's men took it and she has to give you an extra reward. Kreia sees Nihlus as a failure since he is the ultimate example of what she hates, he's become a mindless incarnation of hunger, unable to do anything but seek life to feed on, relying on the force to stave off starving. He's the opposite of the exile, the representation of what the Exile would have become if they hadn't cut themselves off from the force on Malachor. He repels, you attract. He can't speak at all while you have a full dialouge list. He causes distress, you cause obsession. And in the end (as the darkness takes him), he is nothing, as Kreia told you he would be. Though, he became nothing because Kreia used Tobin/Queenie to lure him into a trap, but nothing none the less! Sion goes back to Kreia because ultimately, he needs her. Like he treats you like her son, he's like Kreia's neglected son who, no matter how hard he tries to forge his own path, he still wants mommy's approval. Well, on male playthroughs. On female playthroughs, Sion has fallen in love with you and wants to kill you to save you from Kreia. Best way to explain some of Atris's contradictions is projection. She's obsessed with you (in love with you if you're a male with some Oedipus-complex vibes, adores you if you're female) and see's you leaving for the Mandalorian War and subsequently your exile as you abandoning her, but that emotion is distasteful for her, so she convinces herself that her anger against you is because you were wrong and that what she's doing is completely different. If she admits that you were right, then she admits why she's really angry with you, and she can't accept that. Probably good you're doing the non-canon playthrough, because canon dictates that after Kotor 2, the Exile meets up with Revan and gets shanked by The Emperor's Wrath to set up The Old Republic MMO.
One thing I always really liked about the general is that he doesn't backstab you once you do what he says. He keeps his word, he offers you shelter should you need it, rewards you, and helps them keep their identity and culture. He's not just evil and doing stupid things to do it.
And there's still more. There's hours of dialogue most people haven't heard about situations they played thru. he keeps joking about exposition characters but, God, he really has no idea. So much dialogue is just unlocked by having a high wisdom alone. Not just other skills. The speech was much more like fallout New Vegas than people realized if you just went in as a tank.
And honestly one more thing, even though you said so many true things, I feel like this guy didn't explore a lot of the quest cuz after you get off telos there's usually more than one way to solve a quest, or even trees to finish storyline quests that are bit light or dark bu not fully. Unless you're really dying to get in the dark side cave on Korriban this is the very easy game to go gray in. And you can solve lots of journal entries on a case to case basis or handle your companions individually the way you want.
@Lovegrip Symposium Have you watched The Philosophy of Kreia video? If you haven't, it's great! Just wanted to let you know in case you hadn't heard of it.
Yeah, that's why I always use the skip Peragus(also here's a lightsaber) mod. Peragus lays down a lot of set-up that you need for the game, but I've played a lot and it definitely drags on
Kreia is one of my favorite RPG villains. Part of what sold her as a character to me is that she's basically the nihilistic subversion of the wise old master trope. Basically Yoda if only Yoda were an old woman, _much_ crankier, judgmental and angry at the entire universe. Somebody who has his strength but whose life turned out all wrong and left her bitter. She's not some Palpatine either. She doesn't give a fig about galactic conquest. And despite all her lies and deception, there's one thing she's completely authentic about. She's a teacher who takes pride in her students. But she wouldn't be a Sith lord if she didn't play favorites with her children. She only has love to spare for two of them. The Dark Side part of her is basically internet neckbeard spite. She really needs to be _right_ and wants the validation of her peers and students. Being condemned for Revan's fall was a real black mark on her pride. She was attempting to win a moral victory by presenting the Exile to the Masters at the climax. And despite herself, actually being a Light Side Exile _is her ideal outcome._ She wants to prove that her methods could produce a Jedi 2.0. The synthesis of the thesis and antithesis of the Jedi and Sith conflict. A more human Jedi more in touch with his lower passions and to the people and the struggles around him and becomes better for it. Not these stiff-necked space priests that had them both tried for heretics. Having the surviving masters reject her magnum opus was more than she could bear.
Jedi: *choking to death* Kreia: if we help him it will only make him weak in the long run. Me: ok Jedi: *dies* Me: *looks at Kreia* Kreia: Of course not helping him will make him weak at the present time.
Your example isn't quite good, a better example would be a man clutching a ledge with one hand, 4 fingers away from falling. But let's go with your example: Kreias' trying to teach you something, if the idiot managed to get himself in such a stupid situation, then he isn't much use in other situations. You going there to Heimlich him will just be wasted effort on you. Him not knowing that you can beat your chest to dislodge the object he was trying to swallow is what you should impart. Make the most, with the least amount of effort, while still knowing the outcome, and all its ramifications. That is the lesson Kreia wanted for you to learn. And in my effort, trying to teach you, i have wasted both my time, for chastising... individuals... that cannot fathom stick from carrot, as well as your time.
You mention reprogramming HK-47 to make him more sympathetic to life, or wording to that effect. You actually can!!!! On Nar Shaddaa you can buy a HK passive component that will make him peace loving, its just a short easter egg and you quickly remove it but its super fun to see.
@@PatheticApathetic so i'll get stronger faster in order to do the rest of the combat faster. Unfortunatly I didn't know the restored edition flipped it around TT
Decades later: Something you may not notice when playing the game is that you can toggle to first person view on characters and different characters have different ways of seeing things, e.g. Visas or droids will have a different filter for how they see the world than other characters do.
remember finding that feature and being fascinated by it as a kid, still kinda wonder why more advanced versions of that aren't used more often in games, different critters would see things wildly different depending on what kinda of light their eyes are sensitive too and so on
“Classic” and “unfinished” are two words forever associated with Obsidian aka Black Isle. Someday their publishers will let them release a finished classic that’ll rip a hole in the fabric of time. And then they’ll get to make Van Burren.
Unfortunately, they did make a full game by themselves, The Outer Worlds. And from that game I really got the impression that their writing team has taken a huge hit after Chris Avellone left (Not commenting on whether or not his blacklisting was the right thing). Outer Worlds has three resolutions to every situation: Bad option number 1, bad option number 2, and compromise option that is objectively better than both bad options. There's no nuance to the story, no interesting revelations. Not going to get into politics, but I genuinely believe that a lot of the positive press from the game came from the people who enjoyed the "capitalism bad" aspect of the story and ignored how black and white every solution was. I absolutely am not saying that you can't make a good game that shows the critiques of capitalism, but The Outer Worlds really didn't reach the level of New Vegas or Kotor 2.
@@sparta2662 the writing was fine, they made it clear in the prerelease stuff that this would be a game about rampant capitalism during a new Manifest Destiny and it was pretty solidly written honestly, although i dont think it has a whole lot of thematic depth. the good news is that moment to moment dialogue is usually great.
@@sparta2662 I somewhat agree with your point, but they needed a game for wide audience. A solid, finished (!), decent game to be released. You can see the game is full of safe decisions, nothing risky or groundbreaking, the writing is witty and mostly good (but Boyarksy's style is still showing its ears), game mechanics are very simple, etc. I understand that and okay with it, I wish they'd done more, but hopefully with the sequel they'll be more daring.
There's actually a upgrade you can get for HK 47 that lets him care about life and his dialogue changes dramatically to where he's a super lovey-dovey loving life kind of droid however both the player character and HK have dialogue where they're just disgusted with how he's acting so they immediately change them back and then he gets like +2 perception
@@MedMed-rq5fx I'm pretty sure you have to complete the quest with the Rodian shopkeep on Nar Shadda (Forgot her actual name) to establish trade routes and increase her stock. This means both completing Dantooine and finishing the Onderon civil war, plus siding with her over a rival shop to begin with so the quest can start. After that, she should have a new item called something along the lines of 'HK unit pacifist package', and once you buy that, you get a new dialogue prompt with HK-47 to start this interaction.
2:50:29 From what I understand, Atris' incoherent philosophy is partly the result of more cut content. The original plan was that you'd have to face someone called "Darth Traya", but it wouldn't necessarily be Kreia. Depending on your path through the game, either Kreia or Atris could've become Darth Traya. I think that's why Kreia says earlier that the Betrayer is yet to be revealed. She knew that there would be a big betrayal (Force visions, I guess), but it wasn't yet certain that she would be the one to betray you. I'm not sure she's being deliberately vague; rather, she's being as specific as she can be about a yet-uncertain future.
I always found the way the Sith holocrons spoke to Atris creepier than Malachor 5, not entirely inconceivable that Traya couldve been manipulating Atris and clouding her thoughts through them
"Dxun load zones are really big and it's a problem to treck back to the ship" That's why they give you a fast travel option by talking with the scout at the gate
3:10:20 Nihlus was deemed a failure because he doesn't just consume the Force, he also consumes life. If left unchecked, he would have consumed all life in the galaxy, not just Force sensitive life. Kreia didn't want all life to end, only the Force.
The Force is life though... It's short for the Living Force. Kreia wanting to destroy the force was just stupid. That would have meant destroying all life.
@@Flismz In Legends canon, which is what KotOR 2 takes place in, that's not necessarily the case. There were different aspects of the force that were completely separate from each other. What Kreia wanted to do was remove the force's influence over the galaxy so that the force could not exert its influence or will over anything else. Besides, if the force was literally life itself, then any beings who were cut off from the force should be dead or simply not exist at all. And we several characters throughout Star Wars who were at one time or another cut off from the force, either by accident or by force of will (either their own or someone elses). The Exile themselves in KotOR 2 is one such example.
@@FalenDragmire always thought the reason that Nihlus was a failure was because he relied on the force to survive by feeding on life through the force which Kreia saw as weakness. Like how Sion was a failure because he relied on the force to hold his body together and stay alive for without it he was nothing.
@@kaiscudz That's certainly part of the reason why he was a failure. Because Kreia didn't want to destroy all life; she wanted to destroy the force. And even then, you could argue she didn't want to destroy the force but rather just wanted to remove it's influence from the galaxy. She just couldn't come up with a better way to do that without destroying it.
55:07 In argument to your questions. Han Solo wasn't attuned to the force, but he still turned on Luke's Saber while he was unconscious. Lightsabers aren't magical items. They are just extremely dangerous so typically only force users weld them
there are also still swords in a universe filled with guns, so unless you have the predictive power of a Jedi in order to doge/redirect bolts their just not very useful.
Honestly some of the characters in KotOR 2 are phenomenal, particularly Atton and Kreia. There's just so much depth to uncover, obviously the game has its flaws but a lot of that is down to its age. It makes me hesitant about a KotOR 3 because it just wouldn't be the same, but I desperately want more content that isn't in the form of an MMO.
Atton is fucking heartbreaking. Going either light side or dark side and talking about the Jedi he "loved" really broke me. You either convince him he was wrong for killing her or feed into his hatred more as he justifies the cruelty of his actions. Carth is nothing compared to Atton Rand.
@@Bludgeoned2DEATH2 honestly I always hated how dull his character arch ended. I always lose the fight with sion because I feel like it a much more satisfying ending to his character than traya saying "he's a fool, and there's not much else to him". Having him die in the exiles arms as he admits that he loves her is a far better ending for him in my opinion.
Pro tip for beating the 5 sisters. Disengage from combat and just walk towards each of them while remaining on the mat. The combat system will compel them to back up to avoid clipping issues, but doing so will force them off the fighting mat and they'll lose.
After some trial and error, I was able to reliably defeat them repeatedly in a straight up fight with a consular character. It’s not an impossible feat.
@@blackhat4206 Right but that would mean that leading up to an early part of the game you'd have had leveled your character a certain way, working with limited items to choose from. It def just seems like it's a device meant to show how much more powerful they were than your character at the time so that we couldn't ask "Hey, why can't just kill them all and take my lightsaber back?"
@@MangoOverthere That’s true. It wasn’t something that one could easily do without an in depth understanding of game mechanics, or the will and foreknowledge to min max your build. I was just pointing out that if a consular could do it with a solid build, then it would likely be easier for a guardian which specializes in melee. Although, I hardly ever played as any class but consular.
Around 2h51 : Attris is going full Darth Bane, using their enemies (the Sith in this case) to wipe the unworthy members of the order to rebuild it in her image. That's why she goes from manipulating the Sith to challenging them head on now that "all" the jedi are gone. Edit About Nihilus : The whole point is that the force consumed everything he was. His body, his mind, his memories... Having him speak and explain his backstory would make zero sense and ruin his role as an eldritch abomination under a Sith guise. He's the end point of the Sith philosophy... Nothing, nobody but raw power. About neutrality and the game mechanics : You kinda miss it by going light side but one of the big messages is that neutrality is hard when there's a magic entity like the Force pushing you to extremes. The game guides and rewards you for those light/dark extremes like the Force does in universe. Choosing neutrality may make you "weaker" from a physical point of view but ... Kreia isn't teaching about physical strength (just look how she treats Hanhaar) but about the mental strenght to walk your own path,no matter the temptation.
If only being "neutral" were actually a worthy goal, and not the most brainwashed of the bunch, this might, doubtfully, but might have been intetesting. But, unfortumately, by it's own holier-than-thou stardards, the fence-sitters are just as pussywhipped by the baddaboom Force they made up to be a tyrrant, that they are literally the exception that would have proved the rule,... if every single other case didn't hit it like an adamantium security door.
@@josephbeckett2330 Ok, english isn't my first language so I'm going to parse what you said to answer. Correct me if I misread or misundertood anything. " If only being "neutral" were actually a worthy goal, and not the most brainwashed of the bunch, this might, doubtfully, but might have been interesting" Neutral in Star Wars means not blindly following a code (jedi) or your own instincts and drive for power (sith). This leaves 95% of the galaxy as various shades of neutral, left to find their own morals ... I don't know if I could call that brainwashed. " But, unfortumately, by it's own holier-than-thou stardards, the fence-sitters are just as pussywhipped by the baddaboom Force they made up to be a tyrant ..." I mean, a mystical entity that controls the fate of the galaxy can be easily seen as a form of tyranny if you consider the Force sentient. As for pussywhipped ... I mean, they don't really get a choice do they ? Hell, the closest we get to "Holier than thou" neutral in Star wars is Kreia and all she asks is that you think for yourself instead of following codes ... " that they are literally the exception that would have proved the rule,... if every single other case didn't hit it like an adamantium security door." I ... Euhhh ... You lost me, sorry.
i get the nihlus thing but, i don't think a further fleshing out of nihlus would have not been nonsensical. there is never an inappropriate time for a backstory. the fact that nihlus became that way instead of starting off that way makes room for a backstory, especially if he is the ehile's counterpart.
@@PaintedHoundie I mean, you can get most of his backstory by context clues and what kreia tells you about him. He was a force user, on the surface of Malachor V when the Exile destroyed it. Probably a jedi fighting for Revan. Instead of dying or cutting himself from the force he survived by the skin of his teeth. He, probably from instincts and despair, stumbled on force drain and started draining survivors to live... How much more backstory does the eldritch monster needs before it stops being eldritch ? That and the fact that he has very little backstory adds to his impact : He was no one special but the force allowed him to become this out of control existential threat.
I mean, I’d go farther and say Nihilus doesn’t need a backstory because he doesn’t just represent an endpoint for the sith, he represents a potential end point for your character. Whatever insight you would get about learning how the man became a monster could be gotten from just doing a dark side run. He even parallels your force bond with Kreia through his own bond to Visas. Like, Hondshoven is super right; we have plenty enough details on Nihilus as is. How much more do you need for your Eldritch Abomination that’s literally just you but hungrier?
Fun fact you can go into first person and look around. If you do so while controlling Visas she can see how good or evil things are, because she sees through the force.
Its because TSF didn't go to her husband in the docks, who is supposed to run to her, instead of her escaping. In fact, it looks like he missed that entire area
@@goose4781 yes, I dont think you can tell lootra about his wife if you haven't met her yet, but im pretty sure he talks about her if you ask him why he's there or some such. He also says he can't go into the refugee sector, and needs you to get her out
@@Pundae convincing Lootra to accept the Exchange job is the best option for this quest as his job will be based out of the Refugee Sector so he will find his wife
@@kentuckyfriedchildren5385 Maybe go all-out villainous next time If you play darkside stupid like I did when I was 20 and murder everyone you can and disrespect Kreia when she tries to advise you, you can bottom out her influence and find out her whole life story before you're halfway through Telos
Fun fact about Kreia's force. If you have high influence on light side she will start to mirror you, but it never really goes above gray with hints of blue or a little redder. However, if you have low influence, she will literally be your anthesis. If you're high blue, she becomes high red. And if you're High Red, she becomes High Blue. She is the only companion who will completely invert their alignment because of influence.
This isn't true at all. Kreia's alignment never changes. Ever. All other companions with low influence will always follow the opposite of your alignment, and all companions with high influence will start to follow your character's alignment. Kreia stays static no matter what.
That’s just a visual thing and it’s temporary, when a character is in the grey it will keep the blue or orange aura tint from the previous character, she never shifts away from the grey.
Hot take; peragus on ur first playthrough is hella weird, dark, mysterious and kinda awesome considering u have to piece everything together to figure out what happened.
Personally I enjoyed Peragus my first time through. I enjoyed solving the mystery of what happened at the station. I can agree though that it definitely dragged on a bit and can see why most people didn't like it.
It starts out a really creepy and eerie, lonely and desperate start to the game. Vastly superior to the first game's tutorial...for the first hour or so and then it really starts to get drawn out
I've always thought of KOTOR and KOTOR 2 as being good representations of two mindsets a big fan of Star Wars could have. KOTOR: There's a massive galactic war going on and YOU are the key to one side winning. YOU are the one who will be the deciding factor. YOU are the hero or villain you've always fantasized about being in the franchise. You meet a group of spectacular people and droids who have incredibly strong personalities and skills that play off each other very well, making you feel like you have a genuine team who will have your back for better and worse. KOTOR 2: The galaxy has gone straight to hell and you're being dragged along for the ride, kicking and screaming. People are making decisions less on good versus evil and more on "Help my side/faction/self survive the complete mess the galaxy has become and maybe profit while I'm at it". The people you meet are more notably flawed and damaged compared to the first crew you could gather in the original KOTOR, but will still have your back within reason. They don't always easily get along with each other or even YOU, but know that they have a better chance surviving as a team than alone in a hostile galaxy. You might not exactly be the 'chosen one' as easily as you were in the first game and the galaxy may be more grim than we imagined it when fantasizing about role playing in Star Wars, but damn if we aren't going to leave our mark on it! In summary: KOTOR: This is what I've always dreamed about when imagining myself as the hero/villain of Star Wars! KOTOR 2: This galaxy is actively trying to beat the crap out of me for just being here and I'm not taking that laying down!
The second mindset isn't even Star Wars. You don't get a sense of the galaxy gone to hell and you being dragged along kicking and screaming from any of the movies or TV shows. It's literally just this game.
@@SteelSpurs It's neither darker, nor more mature. Nor being darker makes anything more mature. This approach appeals to edgy teenagers, not mature adults. The original Star Wars was designed for kids, but it packs a ton of wisdom there, inspired by fundamental religious and philosophical concepts that span cultures and religions. Chris Avellone hated it because he didn't get it. So he attempted to make a game that would critique it. If you truly understand Star Wars, KotOR 2 comes off as stupid and pretentious. It doesn't add anything to the mythology and fails to grasp what's already there.
Why wouldn't you make int a dump stat? Just have someone in your party with high intelligence and throw the excess into something more useful like str or wis
@@phrog849 Because there are solo sections of the game? Personal skillchecks not party skillchecks. Because you get way more put of crafting as a high intelligence high skill character.
@@phrog849 also strength is 100000000% the most USELESS stat. You can make it absolutely unimportant your first level by picking up finesse and stacking dex and AC higher.
@@TheLikenessOfNormal I'm not sure but I think unless you do damage via Blasters and such, Finesse only affects your chance to hit and not your damage.
Between this game and Fallout New Vegas, super super underrated. I mean both games were on a super rushed time frame and they had to cut a TON of content but theyre still 2 of the best games ive ever played, that says alot about how talented they are
Publishers look at them as old school developers because they are really good at making single player story based games. Unfortunately, most publishers look at single player games as less profitable and they are compared to free to play/games as a service games.
@@TyrJustice when does it crash? Because if it's during startup then it might be the opening cinematic that's causing your problem. That's how it was for me, at least. You might be able to just mash escape when you boot the game up to work around that.
Really? That's like three games: this one, Alpha Protocol, and New Vegas! Don't get me wrong! All three of those games absolutely deserve the "unfinished classic" label, but I'm honestly frustrated that Obsidian's reputation for churning out rushed, unfinished games continues to hang on after nearly a decade of solid work. When they released The Stick of Truth, I could kind of understand it. Memories of their earlier stumbles were still fresh in everyone's minds, but after Pillars of Eternity I & II, Tyranny (which had its issues, but bugs weren't exactly at the top of that list), and The Outer Worlds, though, how is it that people continue to lump them in with Bethesda in the QA department?
@@Blarglesnarfe It also doesn't include Alpha Protocol! :( To be clear, I got the joke in the OP. I'm simply saying it's a bit like making jokes about Duke Nukem Forever's release date, at this point! Obsidian has proven they can release solid, stable games... provided the publishers give them enough time to actually finish them!
yeah as a child I hated his character and never bothered talking to him when i didn't have to for the story. As and adult I realized his character was one of the most nuanced in the game other than maybe Kreia.
@@robertcunningham1695 G0-T0 is probably one of the most fleshed out and impactful droids in all of star wars, at least from a lore perspective. All the insight he alludes to in terms of droid directives shines a different light on every other droid in the franchise and leads you to judge their actions and motivates differently You start to think what if astromech and protocol droids don't actually "enjoy" serving their masters despite what they say, but are instead hardwired with some sort of unwilling suicidal devotion There's a really good explanation video called "The Tragedy of Droids in Star Wars" which goes over just how absolutely hellish 'life' as a droid is in the galaxy, I recommend it
@@greasymoth4172 It's a real shame Star Wars writers never delve into that aspect. A lot of people take a dip into the "robot revolution" theme, but as you'd usually expect it's shallow and does not really profoundly interrogate the relations between organics and droids
2:23:00 you joke, but adhesive grenades are actually incredibly valuable for one reason: Master Vrook. If you go Dark Side and go to Dantooine for your first planet and attack Vrook, there is a good chance he will kick your ass because he will dodge EVERY. SINGLE. ATTACK. He will also spam force heal, negating any damage you do. He is probably the toughest of the Jedi masters to fight. Not only does an adhesive grenade guarantee that he cannot move (unlike the ice grenade), he also cannot use force powers. The adhesive grenade was the only way I could beat him my first few times playing this game, and I swear I could barely find any adhesive grenades up until I fought him.
You can be a force gunslinger in this game. I actually played through the whole game as one myself, using force powers and dual blaster pistols. You do not need to use a lightsaber or melee weapons to be a jedi in Kotor2. Atton is actually a pretty damn effective force gunslinger if you ignore him being able to use a lightsaber.
@@Bunk_off he can't be a jedi without going through Nar Shadda first though and most people won't really leave the planet right after doing that just to level him up
@@JJJBunney001 if you want to activate him as a Jedi early you can, I know because that's what I usually do. But you play it your way and I won't tell you you're wrong, as long as you extend the same courtesy to me. I like to hit nar shada, pick up visas, have the atton conversation with the snitch in the refugee sector, then hit duxun and get mandalore.
Kreia is one of my favorite characters of all time. Her motivations and views on the force is probably the most interesting thing in any Star Wars media for me.
But her motivations don't make sense. She preaches not acting unless you have all the information you need, then complains about the Jedi doing the same thing. She complains about how the Force can make you complacent, and then spends the entire game using the Force like crazy. Her dialogue is just written flowery,. Flowery dialogue = good, I guess.
@gladspooky, what she tries to do is teach you that putting trust, support, dependencies on any other person or thing is a possible weakness that can be exploited by someone else in your detriment. The idea is for you to realize that anything and everything in this universe is a possible tool for you to use to further your own goals, listening to the universe, observing society and the flow of people, wishes, struggles and interests, abd then finding the point of leverage in those in order to gain more power / influence / freedom of action / anything that you need. Everything is moving, nothing is static, and all movement rubs and intersects with other different flows in complex ways. She doesn't care what you want to do with this knowledge, but the idea is to not let distractions, relationships and beliefs weaken you. Of course, she does have an ulterior motive, which makes it all the more interesting. Sadly, I am incapable of accurately explaining her and her mentality, but what i can say is that she is possibly the only true gray jedi in the franchise, having seen both dark side and light side of the force, acknowledging the strengths and flaws in both of them, and then being cut of from the force and acknowledging that lacking a connection with the force is harrowing, but not necessarily a weakness in and of itself. The force doesn't care what its users do with it. The force doesn't care if there is light and dark side. The force only cares about bringing everything back to a state of balance, to the detriment of any and all the wills of each individual force user. It is relentless, uncaring and imovable. And that's what she despises most about it, a fact which can be observed through one of the endings of this story. She is an amazing caracter, but not one that tells you anything in your face, but that rather leads you to her way of thinking by giving you little clues and little pushes here and there. I truly hate that there is no true gray path in this game. I would have loves to play as a true gray jedi
@@gladspooky9455 Kreia is a hypocrit with a shallow philosophy, but uses a lot of fancy words, truly believes herself to be smart and her lines are delivered by a great voice actress. Explains why so many people buy her bs
@@WikiHL Next time you try to pretend you're smarter than most people, remember that hypocrite has an "e" at the end and that words are more complex than the sounds coming out of your face hole.
I dont know if you touch on it later in the video but, Bao-dur is supposed to be boring and depressing. He is a man full of regret and sadness and feels responsible for all the devastation at Malachor V. IMO! He has some of the most real emotion to a character despite his monotone voice.
Most of the complaints seem to be due to the restored content mod (changing between cgi + in game cut scenes - really bad voice acting in Jedi Ruins etc) but I guess that is not obvious unless you have played the vanilla.
Yeah, but we can blame the community for that. He wouldn't have played the stuff that Obsidian cut for quality on his first ever playthrough if everyone hadn't told him to do so. That said, I don't think his final verdict would have changed if he had played vanilla.
@@ASpooneyBard Yeah. I'd say the restored content mod definitely over-corrected in adding so much dull, padded content, but it's hard to blame them for doing so. The original game completely falls off a cliff after the (excellent) confrontation with the Jedi Council. Neither experience is perfect.
Which is why I never recommend the mod (TSLRCM) to people for their first playthrough. Much of the restored content is very janky and it absolutely kills the pacing of the story on many occasions. It's like a bloated director's cut to a movie - some of the stuff was left on the cutting room floor for a reason. It does add some cool stuff that can be appreciated on later playthroughs, but I feel the cons outweigh the pros for a first experience. M4-78 is an even worse addition for a newcomer, since it has so many issues that most veterans won't even touch it more than once out of curiosity.
@@silkyfi6652 M4-78 is at least optional and there is another mod which can be used to remove questionable elements of the restored content, like that annoying Jedi Padawan on Dantooine, overall a MUCH more enjoyable experience.
The fact that almost all of the characters are fundamentaly broken in one way or the other makes this game so awesome. Atton is broken because of self-loathing and guilt. Bao-Dur is broken because he is aware of the atrocity he committed to win a war. HK is LITERALLY broken (kinda funny) GO-TO is broken because he was given an unsolvable task and became robot-insane. Mandalore is unawarely broken because he fights for a lost cause, as Kreia tells him in her conversation with him on Dxun. Hanharr is mentally broken as a serial killer with diffuse causes. Nihilus was broken by too much force doses (probably) to the point of non-itentity Sion is (-probably most of all of them-) broken because he's doomed to a meaningless immortality. He is such a pure sith his only reason to exist is to spread pain and suffering just to keep himself alive. If you play canon that is especially emphasised by the fact that he actually falls in love with the exile - which would mean his death since love is not an aspect of the dark side he relies on to keep himself alive. The Sith in this game are broken altogether because all taht is left from them is maggots trying to feed on death. The Jedi are broken because their teachings bring them to a literal dead end. The galaxy is broken in instability. The game is broken because it's unfin.. ok that's probably enough on the issue.
Atton is broken because he automatically revives if the rest of the party is still conscious and because he is a scoundrel/Jedi with sick special features.
Handmaiden is broken because she carries the shame of her mother with her and is considered the black sheep of her sisters. Disciple is broken because he blindly idolizes a severely flawed Jedi council. Visas is broken because she holds onto the loss of her planet and species, and the anger that came with it
Meetra is broken because of the sheer amount of death she felt (and ultimately ordered) through the Force when the bomb went off at Malachor V. Pair that with the Jedi Order refusing to aid worlds being slaughtered by Mandalorians in the name of vague ideals of patience and peace and you have a betrayed, isolated, and traumatized character. Many characters in the game describe her as carrying that trauma like a malignant tumor and the fact that she continues to persist at all is a testament to her strength. I love that the game tells you that there are no heroes in war and even a Jedi renowned for her benevolence like Meetra had to make the morally grey decision to kill millions of people on both sides to bring about peace.
@@FoxyChariot I feel really bad for her. She followed Revan to stop the mandalorians but along the way had to make some really difficult choices that forever scarred her and the galaxy
I think the best part of this game for me is the ability to roleplay. I always enjoyed the approach KOTOR 2 took to letting the player define their character. Yes, you are restricted to a specific backstory that sets up the current story (you followed people into a war you were forbidden to wage, you were a general, you were responsible for turning on a superweapon that decimated an entire planet and you were the one person who returned to your people to stand trial instead of following the rest of your army), but the entire story of the game revolves around the player character explaining their actions and defining their motivations. You meet all the people affected by those actions, you argue with people about those actions, you discuss how those actions effected you and whether you regret them or not. The player is defined enough to have a place in the setting, but with enough gaps left open for the player to give their own character there. Makes the companion conversations more interesting too, since it's not just a rather one-sided conversation of you asking for their backstory, but of them trying to understand how you tick and how you've changed.
Yep, one thing I love about this game is the backwards-roleplaying, or whatever it's called. Let's you carry forward your major decisions from the first game and decide your past in this game somewhat. I haven't seen anything like that in many other games (though I haven't played many RPGs)
Exctally. It's my favorite part, there's enough backstory but nothing too much, stop you from deciding who you are in game. Unlike say fallout 4, Cyberpunk 2077 or witcher. And yeah you indeed roleplay backwards. Lol
@@johnnyfroggo7361 People praise Disco elysium alot, seems like a game with similar premise of you dealing with what you did. Same for planetescape torment.
There's a nuiance to the Mandalorians. It very much mimics the Warrior Culture stereotypes without becoming a direct clone of any of them. I have friends with the Mando'a Skull tattooed on their bodies; I have a friend who modeled his moral code on the EU Mando'a Code. And then there's Canderous Ordo: a man who gives an air of honor and dignity even if he's doing foul acts.
I have grown fond of this game over the years, and I would have loved Kotor 3 even more if Obsidian had finished it. This is the DS9 in the Star Wars franchise.
@@idrinkmilk282 Kotor and Kotor 2 are like Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask Kotor and Ocarina of Time were games that redefined their respective franchises, but they also relied heavily on tried and true adventure formulas that were established in previous things. Both were obviously very successful Kotor 2 and Majora's Mask were games that tried to do something very different and took a lot of risks in the process. As a result, they definitely alienated fans and i admit that when I played both games it took me a while to get into both of them (MM in particular, i gave up on it and didn't touch it for about 14 years). But man were they so much more rewarding when all was said and done
@@skippythealien9627 i just realized how similar these two games are in a way, ocarina of time and Kotor 1 is the more adventurous and feel like an adventure while MM and Kotor 2 is more darker of the former
@@zetterburger perhaps he wanted to play it on the Duke for nostalgia. Or perhaps didn't feel like buying something he already owned a second time. Or any other damn reason. People are entitled to enjoy shit as they please within the bounds or moral contract.
Yeah Jedi Consular into Master is OP as hell if built right. Basically endless force points, which lets you ignore opposite force alignment penalty and just take all the best force powers.
For me it was sentinel in to Watchmen. Everything is skill based and they give you so many extras. Of course in the original game I just used the Korriban glitch to max experience and it didn't matter how I built my character when I'm level 40.
@@Gestaltzerfall "Infinite force points" means basically nothing in this game. Hell, as a level 20ish Jedi Guardian (not even prestiged) with pure light side and a few points into Charisma I can spam Force Storm through encounters. Master/Lord is basically worse than Consular because, while you get extra (useless) force points, you actually get less Force Powers (which do matter a little bit).
@@bobwalrus5 my memory is fuzzy on this part of the video, was this about the Jedi Master prestige class? He’s absolutely correct, it is very easily the worst of the three prestige classes, even for a pure caster consular.
@@Green-Raccoon777 but, like he said in the video, the player character gets so massively OP anyway that using the party members is like a handicap. I get it adds replayability to use them more and in theory they can help balance out the weaker parts of the player character’s build but there basically never really are any weak parts. So why do I even care if my party members are Jedi or not when I honestly could solo the game, even if it takes longer
9:40 The part I found interesting about this conversation back when I was a kid first playing it was that depending on how you answer Atton through these "exposition dumps" you're actually setting up the history of the first game without having to import a save or anything.
It's so refreshing to hear someone talk about the KOTOR games and not leave everyone in a sugar coma afterwards. I love the fluidity of your presentation, seamlessly transitioning between positive and negative points while also interjecting your own observations and thoughts. Quality work, both videos.
This guy's kotor review pretty much sums up every reason why i refuse to pay 10 bucks on steam to get it. it really has not aged well at all Kotor 2 hasn't aged that well either, but i found it infinitely times more enjoyable when i played it again about eight-ish years ago. the restored content mod helps tremendously that being said, it is by no means a "flawless" game
@@skippythealien9627 I can absolutely agree there. 2 just has a lot more substance to the sidequests and areas, and KOTOR 1 is always so slooooow, going through several hours of play before you can finally do any real exploration.
At 36:50, as someone who lives in a country half run by criminal familirs/sindicates, the exchange being criminal but sort of legal in the open is a very realistic view for a videogame, imo
Hell I went to school in a city in the US (Im assuming that’s where TSF is from, though it could be Canada) where we knew that certain out of place restaurants and businesses were connected to criminal organizations. It was just accepted by everybody and as long as no waves were made then nobody hassled them.
One of my favorite star wars stories despite feeling the game was incomplete. Long have I wished more recent star wars stories would abandon the good v evil conflict and take a harder look at the force in general and what that means in the context of the history of Star wars. Is everything that happens the will of the force? Does the force want balance or just constant conflict? IF something like that does exist, is there such a thing as free will. And would freedom be something to desire when faced with the prospect it could lead to the destruction of EVERYTHING.
Yup. Over the years, I've realised that Both sides are flawed in their acts and philosophy, and going Grey is the only way. That is the balance they speak of.
@@RantRadio You're right, problem is fanboys will going mad if you say something like this. Many times in the old canon is showed that the jedi and the sith are flawed, balanced and inner peace is more of a personal journey because their view of the Force and the life is incomplete but no, is just light side the balance and dark side is a perversion of the Force, there will be no peace in the galaxy without the jedi. Well everybody knows how Star Wars fandom is
@@MultiNumenor Yeah, current fandom is as you say, and that's also why currently we have twisted view of the force, that light side is balance, when in truth is not, and darkness is evil, which is also false. That's also why Revan story was rewritten, because Kreia said; "that he "fallen" out of necessity (or even never truly fell)", and now, canonically we have that Emperor corrupted and lured him to the Dark Side..., the difference is colossal. There is many more subtle, and also obvious changes to the SW universe, to make it in the one direction; that Jedi are saints no matter what they do, when we saw in the prequel trilogy (also in Clone Wars), that they are equal evil, or even more so, than Sith are.
A lot of the choppy loading scene transitions- particularly with the shuttle landing on Telos and the duros talking to each other on Nar Shadaa, are cut content added back in with the restored content mod. Problem is, they were cut for a VERY good reason, which leads to some additional criticism in this review when said cut content is on screen.
Yep, and it could've been another masterpiece had Obsidian worked on and finished this game in 18 months or longer instead of the 14-month development time they were given.
Yeah a lot of people seem to automatically think that any cut content in a game was cut for time and it could have been great. When the reality is most of it is unnecessary or just trash
For the record with Kreia, you can usually make light side decisions and then "reassure" her on her own terms that would make sense to her. It prevents you from losing influence. When she confronts me about helping the Ithorians for example, I just respond that "perhaps they will be useful in helping us find our ship" and it shuts her up, preventing me from losing influence. Falsely reassuring your comps will in the very least prevent you from losing influence regardless of your decisions
I think overall Kreia doesn't care too much if you are a "dickhead Sith Lord" or a "bleeding heart altruist Jedi", so long as you can have some sort of logic to justify your choice in how you believe it'll benefit you in the long run. She doesn't care for good vs evil philosophies, only that you're a free thinker in making your own choices, but at least wise enough to determine what your end goal is for that decision
You put it a lot better than me. Basically kreia doesn't give a shit as long as her goals are achieved she's going to betray you. She's called Darth treya ffs...
I used to do that, however, there's a mod on Steam that allows you to have successful influence conversations with all characters regardless if you have a high influence with them or not.
@@NumbingDisasterAnon That's why I felt he vastly oversimplified her morality. Which really confused me because she's one of the most complicated characters in Star Wars, at least to me. She doesn't care about good or evil at all. She wants you to think about the consequences of your actions. She makes some extremely good points about how doing something may appear to help someone but could infact cause them to suffer more in the short to long term. Like people who win the lottery and then end up poor or addicted to drugs. Seems like a great thing to happen to them, but it destroyed their lives. Is the lottery bad? No. Was it bad for that person? Yes. Was helping that person good for you? No not really but it helped them. Did it? They're getting mugged now because you helped them, that wouldn't have happened if you didn't intervene. Etc etc. She's super interesting and definitely the best part of the game.
55:05 Focusing crystal aside, lightsabers are just tech, you don't need to use the force to activate one (just to wield it effectively). The better question is why it stuck into the stone rather than fall down since the blade should cut right through it.
As for the need to focus the force to active the lightsaber, that is an actual design some users utilize. The downside of them is if the focus is disrupted so is the blade.
Speaking as someone who adored Atton, he's the very reason KOTOR II sticks in my head as such a phenomenal game. When I was a kid, I struggled just to play through Telos and Peragus; I hardly remember how I managed it honestly, but somehow Atton won me over from a young age. All his complexities and moral greys, his ability to shine a light in the Jedi's biggest flaws, without being a hundred % right in his assessment. All of it, so amazing to me. Just, happy someone else managed to enjoy his presence as much as I did.
I can’t tell you how glad I am that you really “got” Kreia in the end. She’s by far my favorite SW character. As for how the series moves on, well...it did. With both the Revan novel and the MMO. I probably don’t have to say this, but Bioware really shit the bed and just hard reversed course back to black/white and Revan Jesus. They did my girl The Exile dirty. As for who could make a KotOR 3? No one. Both devs have ranged from mediocre to just awful for almost a decade and I don’t know who could possibly fit the bill anymore.
I think Obsidian has the potential, if they had the time and money to throw at it. Outer Worlds was okay-ish, but I think it suffered from not being a big budget game while also being a brand new IP. I'm anxious to see how Avowed goes, the Pillars games were some of their highlights in recent years and it'll be their first RPG with Microsoft money behind it.
@@martyshrekster Outerworlds was as black and White as Bioware games soooo thats kinda sad. Also didnt the BioWare MMO kinda undo alot of Kotor 2, i guess it gets mentioned from time to time but still it has this BioWare aftertaste :/ even tho i like the MMO but its sooo much closer to KotOR 1 then 2.
Congrats on the marraige! On the topic of the game: NOT getting a prestige class to be neutral like Kreia may have been the point. An example: if you are dark side, you get Hanharr and not Mira as a companion... If you build enough influence with him, Kreia offers to help you tap into his rage and it'll have an actual mechanical enhancement (strength bonus)... But you can turn it aside staying that you'd no longer be relying on your own strength, and then she says, satisfied, that you *are* learning... No mechanical bonus, but proof of thinking critical on the themes (and influence with Kreia, I guess).
Doesn’t the prestige discussion start once you hit level 15? I guess if more impertinent dialogue is flagged to initiate before you have the prestige discussion with Kreia, she should instantly begin her dialogue to prestige you. Again, It has nothing to do with LS or DS shift in the PC’s character
I love how you dropped Dexterity and Intelligence when they're generally the two most important stats in the game. Intelligence nets you more skill points and helps you automatically solve a lot of puzzles. You don't need Charisma that much at all, and you definitely don't need Strength. Dexterity improves your chances of not getting hit, and increases your chances of hitting.
I’ve become addicted to this style of retrospective gaming video. I love the recap of the story with the funny commentary. It would be cool to see a retrospective for the Mass Effect trilogy.
Obsidian: "Harsh deadlines that'll result in tons of cut content sitting in the code unused and loads of memory leak issues and buggy questlines as a result of all that cut content? Sign us up, we'll get you your sequel out in only a little over a year!"
What story?? Theres not much story in this game. Its barely even a star wars story at all. You really dont get much cool star wars stuff at all in this entire game. Weak as hell compared to kotor 1.
I've heard a lot of praise of Kreya over my years browsing online, but never heard her motivations. Now understanding her viewpoint, God damn is it brilliant! I can only dream what a debate between Kreya and Yoda would sound like.
Yoda is much older than kreia but he doesn't understand the dark side as well as Darth Traya. "To truly understand something you need contrast, not adhere to a single ideal." Personally I think Kreia is the wisest character in all of star wars by a long shot, she truly has seen it all
It would end with Yoda probably turning the jedi order into a Grey jedi order. Yoda was always open to listen and kreya is usually outright completely right about certain things with no way to argue
Wait..if I watch with YT premium does he not get any revenue...bc that's what I do and if thats the case I need to let videos play on another profile after I watch them...im not trying to screw anybody..I just don't want to watch ads
@@indylockheart3082 As long as you pay for Premium, yes they get paid. TH-cam Red was the original name for premium. Since money is calculated on watch time, me watching every minute (even the audible commercial which was hilarious) pays him just a bit more. Basically when an ad would come up, instead TH-cam just throws some pennies at them. If I remember correctly a YT premium member actually ends up giving MORE than a regular member to the creator (by like 10x). But if you use an adblocker, Google doesn't see the ad spot and will not pay.
@MySqueezingArm thats awesome. I don't use n ad block so its the best of both worlds...I dont have to see ads and the content creators get paid a little more...thanks for the info
So a fun theory about Brianna (the Haidmaiden) is that her mother, Arren Kae, is actually Kreia. It doesn't matter too much, but its an interesting thing to think about.
47:25 "No way! How'd you get here before us?!" "...How DID we get here before them, Kronk?" "You got me; by all accounts it doesn't make sense." "Ah well, back to business."
Treya didn't consider nihilus as a success because he feeds on both force and life, he would literally devour the life in the whole universe, and that's not Treya's goal
@@googleforcedhandle There's no victory in death, Kreia doesn't wish to kill anyone really, she wishes for them to learn and see that her teaching were true, she says so if you go DS and kill the Jedi masters. Kreia sees Nihilus as a failure because he is a slave to his hunger. Much like Sion is to his rage, or the Jedi to their teachings. All of them slave in one way or the other, to the Force.
Statement: Love is knowing your target, putting them in your targeting reticle, and together, achieving a singular purpose... against statistically long odds...
The dancing bit on Nar Shaddaa is there because you can sneak into the door behind him by putting both him to sleep by dancing and his dogs to sleep by putting booze in their water dish. There's a conversation you can sneak and ease drop on to learn about putting the dogs to sleep.
No, she supports you getting power. The true lesson of strength is to turn away from strength which is not your own. Using the prestige classes as an example, to forsake them is to forsake power. But that power is granted to you by either the light or dark side, it's a power that would make you more susceptible to the Force's influence.
First time i played through this game as a kid, i did not speak a single lick of English, and i managed to beat the game through pure Guesswork and Trial n Error...and i loved every second of it.
the thing that gives this a few more layers is that it's not as simple as "the jedi did nothing, therefore they're cowards." Because there was a time when the Jedi did go to war. It was during the clone wars, and their becoming warriors rather than "keepers of peace" was their eventual undoing. According to the Jedi teachings the Jedi do not wage war, so following that commandment it's the right choice for the Jedi to abstain. But that's the problem with the Jedi code, it's just flawed as shit and adhering to it closely just leads to catastrophe. I like to imagine the Jedi during the clone wars learned from what happened and joined the war because they were afraid of Jedi leaving en masse like they did in the mandalorian wars. That's why they decide to fight even though Windu says "the Jedi are keepers of the peace, not soldiers"
Her original goal as Darth Traya was to destroy the Force. But she had another goal working at cross purposes to this, which was her greatest hope. For the Exile to beat her and lead a new generation of Jedi following her teachings about not relying on the Force. That's why she trained the Exile to be strong enough to beat her, and why she arranged for the old Sith to show themselves and be defeated, including herself. If the Exile had lost, the echo would have been released at the heart of Malachor and spread across the Galaxy, yes. But she wanted the Exile to win, because that would be her greater triumph; that she trained a paragon of her ideology, even greater than Revan, and thus armed her champion to fight against the True Sith waiting in the darkness. If she truly wanted to carry out her original plan, she wouldn't have bothered training the Exile or contriving to have Nihilus defeated.
@@Kenneth_A_H God I wish Bioware or Obsidian would make a Kotor 3. Retcon the mmo and continue the story where it was left off in Kotor 2 with the Exile looking for Revan in the unknown region.
@@Sesharon maybe with Nihilus she realized that destroying the force would kill all life and a new method of becoming independent of the force was beeded.
I'm only 50 minutes into this review, and scrolling down through the comments to see if everyone was calling this guy out on all the stuff he got wrong because he just wasn't paying attention to things or thinking about how things worked without the game spoon feeding them to him. Glad to see someone is pointing things out, but pretty bummed out that he's gonna keep being this clueless throughout the video...
Visas Mar is a character who is strongly influenced by the main character from the get go. If you're light side she's lights side. The influence is affected by things like your charisma. Within the story, the Exhile has unique gift of forming strong force bonds with the people around them. Mira the bounty hunter once she joins the crew admits following the Exhile causes her to act against her standard ways. As a Bounty hunter, she's known for refusing to kill of at all possible. Following even a light side Exhile, she finds herself readily killing hundreds of people just because she's with the Exhile, and she's horrified by it. That's what the force bonds can do to other people.light side Story wise you can convert Anton, Mira, The Handmaiden/historian and boa dur to Jedi. It's a mixed bag whether it's useful or not. There are game guides out there that tell you how to do so. In converting them to Jedi, they serve as the lost Jedi who piece the order back alongside Bastila after the Exhile joins Revan in the unknown regions to face the true Sith.
I always think about getting it but then, I always end up not because that just ruins my immersion in the game. Not only that, but it reduces the time spent on the game which I don't want to do, and I also prefer Paragus over the first planet.
i have the same problem with oblivion, i really like the game but the quest where you have to clear 6 oblivion Gate is so boring i haven't touched it all day because of it
55:15 lightsabers have a button on them. There are plenty of non force users that use lightsabers such as general grevious and pre viszla. So the lightsaber in the stone scene is accurate
@@idrinkmilk282 I blame China, if Disney wasn't trying so hard to pander to them I feel like he would of been a great character. I loved him and Poe in force awakens and I'm so mad they got shafted in the next 2 movies, especially rise of skywalker
@@MrPsyren99 I'm not a low life insecure sheep that feels the need to follow the pack in order to aquire a feeling of belonging, and therefore can happily openly admit that force awakens, like it or not, is at the very least an extremely competent star wars movie, and more over, is actually just really good in general, if not perfect. Flawed. What followed however, only served to make TFA look worse in hindsight due to all of the built up plot points essentially just being scrapped and shit on. I agree that these characters could've been better. That's why it was a trilogy. So the foundations can be built upon. However, when you're shifting around directors film to film, bring directors in that have no place doing a SW movie, and then by extension destroy the entire foundation laid by the important first movie in the trilogy, you have more or less got a case of starting over. Which is just fucking stupid given that these movies are supposed to be one big continuous and coherent story line like the OT. I still like force awakens and the character work that was done. I walked out of that movie with a smile on my face. So did a lot of people. Check it's imdb score. More people like it than don't. Vocal minority makes it seem otherwise. However, I can no longer watch force awakens as a part of a story. I refuse to be subjected to those other two atrocities ever again. So, force awakens, in turn, has been transformed into a standalone story for me. Significantly weakening reasons to watch it at all let alone be immersed by it. It all could have been so much better. Incompetence is the word.
Regarding Darth Nihilus, I always read his character as a version of the whole “vague evil force,“ kind of like in the fifth element. Also, he’s kind of what would happen if you took his nihilist (real subtle there, Obsidian) philosophy to its extreme. Nothing matters to him, except to feed. He doesn’t care about ideology, or race, or power. His name and past don’t matter, he just lives to consume now.
I keep forgetting he has mods to restore the game to a more finished state, cause it's like, I keep seeing portions like "I don't remember that" and "I remember something different."
Trading for the crystal on onderon gave you dark side points because if you force persuade her to reveal why she wants the visa, she explains she is transporting a huge shipment of explosives to kill people with.
That isn’t the reason. Receiving dark side points relates to doing an evil or cruel task intentionally as light and dark is related to personality and attitude not necessarily the consequences you didn’t know about. You wouldn’t fall to the dark side because of some butterfly effect
@@UkNoobGamerzz imagine if you could. Pick up a follower and a couple months later you’re the most evil person in the universe because of a series of whacky events that led to genocide
@@UkNoobGamerzzIts evil regardless, you're giving a visa to recieve a "crystal of dark power" instead of giving it to those in need. Its a selfish act, therefore dark side.
I stream here and want more people to understand just how bad I am at video games: www.twitch.tv/thesaltfactory_
Schedule- Monday, Tuesday, Friday. Time- 2-4PM EST start, 6-9PM EST end.
Thank.
Also apparently my gamersupps code doesn't do what I said it did anymore. Now it seems to just give a percentage off. I think the free shipping on free samples was used up by you guys. So solid job there lol
thabks
thanks dad
Shit dude, I love your sense of humor. I'll check it out for sure :D
Screw my court date I'm watching this...
I was thinking to myself: When will Salt post again?
Not disappointed. Thank you very much for the video :D
Basically, you can start the game and this video at the same time and by the time this video ends you'll still be in Peragus
Played it so many times I can speed run Peragus blindfolded. I am almost sure can get to Telos in 3 hours. ;)
Peragus takes about half an hour. I’m dead serious. When I realized that, it confirmed to me that time isn’t real.
If you know all the things you need to do, you can run through Peragus in about half an hour, maybe add 10 minutes for the Harbinger. But the first time you go through... *Oh fuck no*
I’ve only played once, but Peragus was only about an 30 - 50 minutes for me
Doesn't that depend on whether you use restoration mod or not? I haven't played Kotor in a long time but I don't remember spending so much time on Peragus and no, I didn't use the mod.
"Canderous, is that you?"
*"No, I'm his twin brother, Manderous."*
Think you mean mandelorous
@@richardbaker308 Murderous would fit too =)
lol.
Couldderous? Can't De Rous?
For anyone who doesn’t know, this is a reference to ye olde video called “mandalf” which is a dub over lord of the rings and a real gem.
Small tidbits:
Things like that odd bit of voice acting on Dantooine, some really weird cutscene inconsistencies and the droid planet can't really be blamed on the developers. Some of these weren't just cut content added back in by the Restored content mod, but cut content filled IN by the restored content mod, meaning some of those parts are the modders trying to piece together different data best they can. Think of it like, they have the level layout, they have some voice clips of the last few cutscenes and some loose script for a few of the NPCs and they then have to make up what connects all these assets together.
On that note, the old Restored scene for the droid planet has Sion killing the Jedi Master you find there, and a few other scenes where he and Nihlus would interact and fight each other.
The reason you don't learn as much about Hanhar is because, during the Nar Shadda story, he becomes the companion for Dark side players instead of Mira.
On the subject of the 'black and white' conflicts in the game, it's less about 'One side is good and one side is evil' and more 'one side is appealing while the other side might be better in the long run'. The Onderon conflict being the best example as, while the general might be shadier and more ruthless than the moral Queen, he could ultimately be considered better for Onderon as he stops Onderon from losing all of it's culture and standing when being absorbed into the Republic. The Ithorians vs Czerka was basically a matter of asking if letting the Republic, which is very much on it's last leg, sink so much resource into restoring planets would only further destabilize the Republic. It's basically a microcosm of Kreia's lesson on Nar Shadda, what seems like a good deed in the short run can very well spell a worse fate in the long run if you let blind altruism guide you.
Speaking of Onderon, there's a small funny moment where, if you side with the Queen, she rewards you with an artefact from her museum. However, you can steal the item before hand when you pass through there, meaning when you get to this scene, she assumes the General's men took it and she has to give you an extra reward.
Kreia sees Nihlus as a failure since he is the ultimate example of what she hates, he's become a mindless incarnation of hunger, unable to do anything but seek life to feed on, relying on the force to stave off starving. He's the opposite of the exile, the representation of what the Exile would have become if they hadn't cut themselves off from the force on Malachor. He repels, you attract. He can't speak at all while you have a full dialouge list. He causes distress, you cause obsession. And in the end (as the darkness takes him), he is nothing, as Kreia told you he would be. Though, he became nothing because Kreia used Tobin/Queenie to lure him into a trap, but nothing none the less!
Sion goes back to Kreia because ultimately, he needs her. Like he treats you like her son, he's like Kreia's neglected son who, no matter how hard he tries to forge his own path, he still wants mommy's approval. Well, on male playthroughs. On female playthroughs, Sion has fallen in love with you and wants to kill you to save you from Kreia.
Best way to explain some of Atris's contradictions is projection. She's obsessed with you (in love with you if you're a male with some Oedipus-complex vibes, adores you if you're female) and see's you leaving for the Mandalorian War and subsequently your exile as you abandoning her, but that emotion is distasteful for her, so she convinces herself that her anger against you is because you were wrong and that what she's doing is completely different. If she admits that you were right, then she admits why she's really angry with you, and she can't accept that.
Probably good you're doing the non-canon playthrough, because canon dictates that after Kotor 2, the Exile meets up with Revan and gets shanked by The Emperor's Wrath to set up The Old Republic MMO.
One thing I always really liked about the general is that he doesn't backstab you once you do what he says. He keeps his word, he offers you shelter should you need it, rewards you, and helps them keep their identity and culture. He's not just evil and doing stupid things to do it.
And there's still more. There's hours of dialogue most people haven't heard about situations they played thru. he keeps joking about exposition characters but, God, he really has no idea. So much dialogue is just unlocked by having a high wisdom alone. Not just other skills. The speech was much more like fallout New Vegas than people realized if you just went in as a tank.
And honestly one more thing, even though you said so many true things, I feel like this guy didn't explore a lot of the quest cuz after you get off telos there's usually more than one way to solve a quest, or even trees to finish storyline quests that are bit light or dark bu not fully. Unless you're really dying to get in the dark side cave on Korriban this is the very easy game to go gray in. And you can solve lots of journal entries on a case to case basis or handle your companions individually the way you want.
wow, this game has layers upon layers, upon layers.
@Lovegrip Symposium Have you watched The Philosophy of Kreia video? If you haven't, it's great! Just wanted to let you know in case you hadn't heard of it.
Started in 2006 and I finally just got out of Peragus. Can’t wait for the rest of the story.
You can get off of Peragus???!!!
There’s a world outside Peragus?!
😭
😂😂😂😂
Actually lying you can’t leave
"Why am I still on Peragus?" That's a question KOTOR II fans have been asking for years
sit down an wait for rescue - HK
Yeah, that's why I always use the skip Peragus(also here's a lightsaber) mod. Peragus lays down a lot of set-up that you need for the game, but I've played a lot and it definitely drags on
I actually enjoy Peragus, it has good atmosphere for me, but I guess it can be childhood nostalgia
@@7MacYou the ere silence of nothing but beeps from machinery
I didnt like Peragus when the game came out, but now its got that nostalgia factor going for it and i kind of love it.
Kreia is one of my favorite RPG villains. Part of what sold her as a character to me is that she's basically the nihilistic subversion of the wise old master trope. Basically Yoda if only Yoda were an old woman, _much_ crankier, judgmental and angry at the entire universe. Somebody who has his strength but whose life turned out all wrong and left her bitter. She's not some Palpatine either. She doesn't give a fig about galactic conquest. And despite all her lies and deception, there's one thing she's completely authentic about. She's a teacher who takes pride in her students. But she wouldn't be a Sith lord if she didn't play favorites with her children. She only has love to spare for two of them.
The Dark Side part of her is basically internet neckbeard spite. She really needs to be _right_ and wants the validation of her peers and students. Being condemned for Revan's fall was a real black mark on her pride. She was attempting to win a moral victory by presenting the Exile to the Masters at the climax. And despite herself, actually being a Light Side Exile _is her ideal outcome._ She wants to prove that her methods could produce a Jedi 2.0. The synthesis of the thesis and antithesis of the Jedi and Sith conflict. A more human Jedi more in touch with his lower passions and to the people and the struggles around him and becomes better for it. Not these stiff-necked space priests that had them both tried for heretics.
Having the surviving masters reject her magnum opus was more than she could bear.
This comment deserves more likes
Well thought out and expressed comment.
She's not really a "villain" though, at least not by the time you find her and she joins the crew. Your descriptions of her are extremely good though.
She was right. Loved her character also.
@@Masarys Yep, this video breaks down Kreia's philosophy: th-cam.com/video/-Z0S0Z8lUTg/w-d-xo.html
Jedi: *choking to death*
Kreia: if we help him it will only make him weak in the long run.
Me: ok
Jedi: *dies*
Me: *looks at Kreia*
Kreia: Of course not helping him will make him weak at the present time.
Influence Gained: Kreia
Influence Lost: Kreia
@@Ale-dd3ek *dark side points: increased*
and with this comment section, i'm fucking dead with my sides in orbit.
Your example isn't quite good, a better example would be a man clutching a ledge with one hand, 4 fingers away from falling.
But let's go with your example:
Kreias' trying to teach you something, if the idiot managed to get himself in such a stupid situation, then he isn't much use in other situations. You going there to Heimlich him will just be wasted effort on you. Him not knowing that you can beat your chest to dislodge the object he was trying to swallow is what you should impart. Make the most, with the least amount of effort, while still knowing the outcome, and all its ramifications. That is the lesson Kreia wanted for you to learn. And in my effort, trying to teach you, i have wasted both my time, for chastising... individuals... that cannot fathom stick from carrot, as well as your time.
@@TheKueiJin nerd
2:02:05 you passed by mandalorian that would let you fast travel back to the Ebon Hawk. So you missed the fast travel feature in both KOTOR 1 and 2 😂
I was going to say this haha, there's a few fast travel methods in this game they just aren't obvious
🙏
@@james583mklet the y
😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊@@james583mk
You mention reprogramming HK-47 to make him more sympathetic to life, or wording to that effect. You actually can!!!!
On Nar Shaddaa you can buy a HK passive component that will make him peace loving, its just a short easter egg and you quickly remove it but its super fun to see.
pretty sure that's also an achievement
@@michalnowacki1489 they added achievements?
@@StonedGoth1919 the Steam version has achievements alright
@@StonedGoth1919 sonic adventure has achievements lmao
Where can you get this component?
Imagine playing male exile and not choosing Space Jesus for your avatar
XD imagine playing male exile and not getting space prophet to turn evil later on
59:33 Here's your Space Jesus
Imagine not playing Jesus, heathen
@@zetterburger evil jesus it is then
I... actually played LS with Space Jesus avatar, I just didn't notice the resemblance then.
pro tip: don't kill those sith guard on Peragus with the laser turret. If you let them onto the ship, you get a fuck tonne of XP
The Sith Lord Restored Content Mod actually fixed this so you get more XP from turrenting them
Thanks for the tip!
This game isn't difficult enough for this tiny amount of XP to matter.
Why would you want to slog through more ADAD combat mechanics just to make the game even more easy?
@@PatheticApathetic so i'll get stronger faster in order to do the rest of the combat faster. Unfortunatly I didn't know the restored edition flipped it around TT
Decades later: Something you may not notice when playing the game is that you can toggle to first person view on characters and different characters have different ways of seeing things, e.g. Visas or droids will have a different filter for how they see the world than other characters do.
remember finding that feature and being fascinated by it as a kid, still kinda wonder why more advanced versions of that aren't used more often in games, different critters would see things wildly different depending on what kinda of light their eyes are sensitive too and so on
“Classic” and “unfinished” are two words forever associated with Obsidian aka Black Isle. Someday their publishers will let them release a finished classic that’ll rip a hole in the fabric of time. And then they’ll get to make Van Burren.
Ohh Van Buren, I wanted to play that so much. Beyond boulder dome game a little fix and made it worse!
Unfortunately, they did make a full game by themselves, The Outer Worlds. And from that game I really got the impression that their writing team has taken a huge hit after Chris Avellone left (Not commenting on whether or not his blacklisting was the right thing). Outer Worlds has three resolutions to every situation: Bad option number 1, bad option number 2, and compromise option that is objectively better than both bad options. There's no nuance to the story, no interesting revelations.
Not going to get into politics, but I genuinely believe that a lot of the positive press from the game came from the people who enjoyed the "capitalism bad" aspect of the story and ignored how black and white every solution was. I absolutely am not saying that you can't make a good game that shows the critiques of capitalism, but The Outer Worlds really didn't reach the level of New Vegas or Kotor 2.
OOOOOH VAN BUREN
SHATTERED BY SOMEONE
OR SOMETHING
*_I DOUBT YOU COULD EVEN IMAGINE IT_*
@@sparta2662 the writing was fine, they made it clear in the prerelease stuff that this would be a game about rampant capitalism during a new Manifest Destiny and it was pretty solidly written honestly, although i dont think it has a whole lot of thematic depth. the good news is that moment to moment dialogue is usually great.
@@sparta2662 I somewhat agree with your point, but they needed a game for wide audience. A solid, finished (!), decent game to be released. You can see the game is full of safe decisions, nothing risky or groundbreaking, the writing is witty and mostly good (but Boyarksy's style is still showing its ears), game mechanics are very simple, etc. I understand that and okay with it, I wish they'd done more, but hopefully with the sequel they'll be more daring.
Who’s going to tell him that on Dxun you can talk to the Mandalorian at the exit of the camp to fast travel back to the ship?
Or that Nar Shadaa you can use the speeders to fast travel
Or Telos you can use the terminals
3 and a half hours....and yet....
Ive played these games 6-8 times each and I didn’t know that either
@@keflas3842 failed you have
There's actually a upgrade you can get for HK 47 that lets him care about life and his dialogue changes dramatically to where he's a super lovey-dovey loving life kind of droid however both the player character and HK have dialogue where they're just disgusted with how he's acting so they immediately change them back and then he gets like +2 perception
Disappointed Statement: how revolting
Where do you find that?
@@MedMed-rq5fx I'm pretty sure you have to complete the quest with the Rodian shopkeep on Nar Shadda (Forgot her actual name) to establish trade routes and increase her stock. This means both completing Dantooine and finishing the Onderon civil war, plus siding with her over a rival shop to begin with so the quest can start. After that, she should have a new item called something along the lines of 'HK unit pacifist package', and once you buy that, you get a new dialogue prompt with HK-47 to start this interaction.
Oh wow! I've beaten KoTor 2 like 6 times and I never knew that!
2:50:29 From what I understand, Atris' incoherent philosophy is partly the result of more cut content. The original plan was that you'd have to face someone called "Darth Traya", but it wouldn't necessarily be Kreia. Depending on your path through the game, either Kreia or Atris could've become Darth Traya.
I think that's why Kreia says earlier that the Betrayer is yet to be revealed. She knew that there would be a big betrayal (Force visions, I guess), but it wasn't yet certain that she would be the one to betray you. I'm not sure she's being deliberately vague; rather, she's being as specific as she can be about a yet-uncertain future.
I thought Atris became Darth Traya when the handmaiden "betrayed" her by siding with the exile?
And the biggest betrayal in the game… those goddamn SwoOp RaCeS!!!
I always found the way the Sith holocrons spoke to Atris creepier than Malachor 5, not entirely inconceivable that Traya couldve been manipulating Atris and clouding her thoughts through them
"Dxun load zones are really big and it's a problem to treck back to the ship"
That's why they give you a fast travel option by talking with the scout at the gate
3:10:20 Nihlus was deemed a failure because he doesn't just consume the Force, he also consumes life. If left unchecked, he would have consumed all life in the galaxy, not just Force sensitive life. Kreia didn't want all life to end, only the Force.
Yeah, Nihilus was like wanting an assassin that could kill a single, albeit very powerful target, and getting a nuclear bomb instead
The Force is life though... It's short for the Living Force. Kreia wanting to destroy the force was just stupid. That would have meant destroying all life.
@@Flismz In Legends canon, which is what KotOR 2 takes place in, that's not necessarily the case. There were different aspects of the force that were completely separate from each other. What Kreia wanted to do was remove the force's influence over the galaxy so that the force could not exert its influence or will over anything else. Besides, if the force was literally life itself, then any beings who were cut off from the force should be dead or simply not exist at all. And we several characters throughout Star Wars who were at one time or another cut off from the force, either by accident or by force of will (either their own or someone elses). The Exile themselves in KotOR 2 is one such example.
@@FalenDragmire always thought the reason that Nihlus was a failure was because he relied on the force to survive by feeding on life through the force which Kreia saw as weakness. Like how Sion was a failure because he relied on the force to hold his body together and stay alive for without it he was nothing.
@@kaiscudz That's certainly part of the reason why he was a failure. Because Kreia didn't want to destroy all life; she wanted to destroy the force. And even then, you could argue she didn't want to destroy the force but rather just wanted to remove it's influence from the galaxy. She just couldn't come up with a better way to do that without destroying it.
Keira dual wielding pistols is the most cursed thing I've ever seen.
keira renounces the force and used superior firearms
why use a laser sword when you can just use very complex advanced technology known as a gun
@@D00000T I think there is a build where you coul be a dual pistol, and it break the game xD
@@EldenLord1142 That would actually be in-character for her lmao
@@Peniche94 Sith Assassin pistols are god tier...
55:07 In argument to your questions. Han Solo wasn't attuned to the force, but he still turned on Luke's Saber while he was unconscious. Lightsabers aren't magical items. They are just extremely dangerous so typically only force users weld them
there are also still swords in a universe filled with guns, so unless you have the predictive power of a Jedi in order to doge/redirect bolts their just not very useful.
@@cjcolehour2778 insert Indiana Jones shooting the swordsman ;)
@@TheStoodUpKid Basically mandalorians, "deflect lasers, eat buckshot fucko"
Vador trained a stormtrooper Sergeant how to use a lightsaber.
@@samweber6157 Vader*
Only the french changed the name for whatever reason
"Obsidian's Unfinished Classic"
thats not very specific
especially when they have 2-3 other games that can also fall under that label
@@D00000T thank you captain obvious, could you explain the joke a bit more please?
@@D00000Tthat’s what they just said
Honestly some of the characters in KotOR 2 are phenomenal, particularly Atton and Kreia. There's just so much depth to uncover, obviously the game has its flaws but a lot of that is down to its age. It makes me hesitant about a KotOR 3 because it just wouldn't be the same, but I desperately want more content that isn't in the form of an MMO.
Atton is fucking heartbreaking. Going either light side or dark side and talking about the Jedi he "loved" really broke me. You either convince him he was wrong for killing her or feed into his hatred more as he justifies the cruelty of his actions. Carth is nothing compared to Atton Rand.
@@Bludgeoned2DEATH2 honestly I always hated how dull his character arch ended. I always lose the fight with sion because I feel like it a much more satisfying ending to his character than traya saying "he's a fool, and there's not much else to him". Having him die in the exiles arms as he admits that he loves her is a far better ending for him in my opinion.
You can play the MMO just like a singleplayer game actually, don't be scared of it. The character campaigns are even longer than KotOR's
@@nicocee2431 it’s actually really good too
"I'm going to make my own jedi order! With pazak and handmaidens!"
i knew someone in the comments would make that joke
In fact, skip the Pazak and Jedi part!
Pro tip for beating the 5 sisters. Disengage from combat and just walk towards each of them while remaining on the mat. The combat system will compel them to back up to avoid clipping issues, but doing so will force them off the fighting mat and they'll lose.
Thank you
It's a shame that even doing this is painful in its own right and you're not rewarded for a pulling such a near impossible feat.
After some trial and error, I was able to reliably defeat them repeatedly in a straight up fight with a consular character. It’s not an impossible feat.
@@blackhat4206 Right but that would mean that leading up to an early part of the game you'd have had leveled your character a certain way, working with limited items to choose from. It def just seems like it's a device meant to show how much more powerful they were than your character at the time so that we couldn't ask "Hey, why can't just kill them all and take my lightsaber back?"
@@MangoOverthere That’s true. It wasn’t something that one could easily do without an in depth understanding of game mechanics, or the will and foreknowledge to min max your build. I was just pointing out that if a consular could do it with a solid build, then it would likely be easier for a guardian which specializes in melee. Although, I hardly ever played as any class but consular.
"I despise the jedi council for their inaction"
Wow, it's almost like Apathy is Death
Apathy is death.
Apathy is Death
Apathy is death
Apathy is death.
Apathy is Death
I saw this video was 3 hours long and assumed the first hour was just peragus
My first 2 hours were on the ship lmao
Finally beat the game like a week ago gonna finish the video now lol it was enjoyable for the most part and only had a few bugs
I think I was stuck on peragus for like 5 monthes
@@tempski9373 yeah at first it's a drag but replaying it is pretty fun
This is my opinion btw, do not expect to feel the same.
@@tempski9373 my sister (who introduced me to the series) started KOTOR II a few years ago. rumor has it, she's still there
Around 2h51 : Attris is going full Darth Bane, using their enemies (the Sith in this case) to wipe the unworthy members of the order to rebuild it in her image. That's why she goes from manipulating the Sith to challenging them head on now that "all" the jedi are gone.
Edit
About Nihilus : The whole point is that the force consumed everything he was. His body, his mind, his memories... Having him speak and explain his backstory would make zero sense and ruin his role as an eldritch abomination under a Sith guise. He's the end point of the Sith philosophy... Nothing, nobody but raw power.
About neutrality and the game mechanics : You kinda miss it by going light side but one of the big messages is that neutrality is hard when there's a magic entity like the Force pushing you to extremes. The game guides and rewards you for those light/dark extremes like the Force does in universe. Choosing neutrality may make you "weaker" from a physical point of view but ... Kreia isn't teaching about physical strength (just look how she treats Hanhaar) but about the mental strenght to walk your own path,no matter the temptation.
If only being "neutral" were actually a worthy goal, and not the most brainwashed of the bunch, this might, doubtfully, but might have been intetesting. But, unfortumately, by it's own holier-than-thou stardards, the fence-sitters are just as pussywhipped by the baddaboom Force they made up to be a tyrrant, that they are literally the exception that would have proved the rule,... if every single other case didn't hit it like an adamantium security door.
@@josephbeckett2330 Ok, english isn't my first language so I'm going to parse what you said to answer. Correct me if I misread or misundertood anything.
" If only being "neutral" were actually a worthy goal, and not the most brainwashed of the bunch, this might, doubtfully, but might have been interesting"
Neutral in Star Wars means not blindly following a code (jedi) or your own instincts and drive for power (sith). This leaves 95% of the galaxy as various shades of neutral, left to find their own morals ... I don't know if I could call that brainwashed.
" But, unfortumately, by it's own holier-than-thou stardards, the fence-sitters are just as pussywhipped by the baddaboom Force they made up to be a tyrant ..."
I mean, a mystical entity that controls the fate of the galaxy can be easily seen as a form of tyranny if you consider the Force sentient. As for pussywhipped ... I mean, they don't really get a choice do they ?
Hell, the closest we get to "Holier than thou" neutral in Star wars is Kreia and all she asks is that you think for yourself instead of following codes ...
" that they are literally the exception that would have proved the rule,... if every single other case didn't hit it like an adamantium security door."
I ... Euhhh ... You lost me, sorry.
i get the nihlus thing but, i don't think a further fleshing out of nihlus would have not been nonsensical. there is never an inappropriate time for a backstory. the fact that nihlus became that way instead of starting off that way makes room for a backstory, especially if he is the ehile's counterpart.
@@PaintedHoundie I mean, you can get most of his backstory by context clues and what kreia tells you about him.
He was a force user, on the surface of Malachor V when the Exile destroyed it. Probably a jedi fighting for Revan. Instead of dying or cutting himself from the force he survived by the skin of his teeth. He, probably from instincts and despair, stumbled on force drain and started draining survivors to live...
How much more backstory does the eldritch monster needs before it stops being eldritch ?
That and the fact that he has very little backstory adds to his impact : He was no one special but the force allowed him to become this out of control existential threat.
I mean, I’d go farther and say Nihilus doesn’t need a backstory because he doesn’t just represent an endpoint for the sith, he represents a potential end point for your character. Whatever insight you would get about learning how the man became a monster could be gotten from just doing a dark side run. He even parallels your force bond with Kreia through his own bond to Visas.
Like, Hondshoven is super right; we have plenty enough details on Nihilus as is. How much more do you need for your Eldritch Abomination that’s literally just you but hungrier?
Fun fact you can go into first person and look around. If you do so while controlling Visas she can see how good or evil things are, because she sees through the force.
Fucking what
You can also get that ability for the Exile by finishing her sidequests
Never had any bugs with the refugee quests. Those were actually some of the more satisfying payoffs. The camp layout design did fucking suck though.
Its because TSF didn't go to her husband in the docks, who is supposed to run to her, instead of her escaping. In fact, it looks like he missed that entire area
@@goose4781 I've done this quest plenty of times and never had lootra enter the refugee sector, it's always clearing the way for the wife
@@Pundae either way I'm certain you got to talk to both of them rather than just the one
@@goose4781 yes, I dont think you can tell lootra about his wife if you haven't met her yet, but im pretty sure he talks about her if you ask him why he's there or some such. He also says he can't go into the refugee sector, and needs you to get her out
@@Pundae convincing Lootra to accept the Exchange job is the best option for this quest as his job will be based out of the Refugee Sector so he will find his wife
An almost 3 and a half hour salt factory video? You’ve blessed my Tuesday greatly.
hell yeah free goods and services
A blessing from the Lord
And on one of my favorite games ever
@@JambleBramble I mean, it's arguably one of THE best games of all time.
FYI: Hanharr does join your party if you follow the Dark Side and then he is getting more fleshed out.
I was dark side and didn't get him
Kreia makes it a slave to the Exile.
@@kentuckyfriedchildren5385 I think you have to be Dark side enough, I'm pretty sure you got Mira if you're neutral too
@@Cunnysmythe Yup got Mira instead
@@kentuckyfriedchildren5385 Maybe go all-out villainous next time
If you play darkside stupid like I did when I was 20 and murder everyone you can and disrespect Kreia when she tries to advise you, you can bottom out her influence and find out her whole life story before you're halfway through Telos
Fun fact about Kreia's force. If you have high influence on light side she will start to mirror you, but it never really goes above gray with hints of blue or a little redder.
However, if you have low influence, she will literally be your anthesis. If you're high blue, she becomes high red. And if you're High Red, she becomes High Blue. She is the only companion who will completely invert their alignment because of influence.
Wait really? When does this happen? I’ve played the game so many times and never seen this happen.
This isn't true at all. Kreia's alignment never changes. Ever. All other companions with low influence will always follow the opposite of your alignment, and all companions with high influence will start to follow your character's alignment. Kreia stays static no matter what.
That’s just a visual thing and it’s temporary, when a character is in the grey it will keep the blue or orange aura tint from the previous character, she never shifts away from the grey.
Hot take; peragus on ur first playthrough is hella weird, dark, mysterious and kinda awesome considering u have to piece everything together to figure out what happened.
Personally I enjoyed Peragus my first time through. I enjoyed solving the mystery of what happened at the station. I can agree though that it definitely dragged on a bit and can see why most people didn't like it.
That’s the real problem the first time you play it’s amazing then every time after it’s a giant slog and not enjoyable
The first time it’s great, like something out of resident evil. Now I put the god mode cheat on and speed run it 😅
@@linkhero60 Generally the problem with similar starting zones in most rpgs, like the dungeons that start fallout 2 or baldurs gate 2
It starts out a really creepy and eerie, lonely and desperate start to the game. Vastly superior to the first game's tutorial...for the first hour or so and then it really starts to get drawn out
I've always thought of KOTOR and KOTOR 2 as being good representations of two mindsets a big fan of Star Wars could have.
KOTOR: There's a massive galactic war going on and YOU are the key to one side winning. YOU are the one who will be the deciding factor. YOU are the hero or villain you've always fantasized about being in the franchise. You meet a group of spectacular people and droids who have incredibly strong personalities and skills that play off each other very well, making you feel like you have a genuine team who will have your back for better and worse.
KOTOR 2: The galaxy has gone straight to hell and you're being dragged along for the ride, kicking and screaming. People are making decisions less on good versus evil and more on "Help my side/faction/self survive the complete mess the galaxy has become and maybe profit while I'm at it". The people you meet are more notably flawed and damaged compared to the first crew you could gather in the original KOTOR, but will still have your back within reason. They don't always easily get along with each other or even YOU, but know that they have a better chance surviving as a team than alone in a hostile galaxy. You might not exactly be the 'chosen one' as easily as you were in the first game and the galaxy may be more grim than we imagined it when fantasizing about role playing in Star Wars, but damn if we aren't going to leave our mark on it!
In summary:
KOTOR: This is what I've always dreamed about when imagining myself as the hero/villain of Star Wars!
KOTOR 2: This galaxy is actively trying to beat the crap out of me for just being here and I'm not taking that laying down!
This comment is art
Exile in the beginning be like: F*ck i just wanted to stay quiet from all the wars between the jedi and sith and now they're dragging me back?
The second mindset isn't even Star Wars. You don't get a sense of the galaxy gone to hell and you being dragged along kicking and screaming from any of the movies or TV shows. It's literally just this game.
@@Pyro-Moloch That’s just because people only want the “good vs evil” shtick. That doesn’t mean a darker, more mature perspective isn’t Star Wars.
@@SteelSpurs It's neither darker, nor more mature. Nor being darker makes anything more mature. This approach appeals to edgy teenagers, not mature adults. The original Star Wars was designed for kids, but it packs a ton of wisdom there, inspired by fundamental religious and philosophical concepts that span cultures and religions. Chris Avellone hated it because he didn't get it. So he attempted to make a game that would critique it. If you truly understand Star Wars, KotOR 2 comes off as stupid and pretentious. It doesn't add anything to the mythology and fails to grasp what's already there.
"I made dex and intelligence my dump stats"
Everyone whose played the game before: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Literally physically painful
Why wouldn't you make int a dump stat? Just have someone in your party with high intelligence and throw the excess into something more useful like str or wis
@@phrog849 Because there are solo sections of the game? Personal skillchecks not party skillchecks.
Because you get way more put of crafting as a high intelligence high skill character.
@@phrog849 also strength is 100000000% the most USELESS stat.
You can make it absolutely unimportant your first level by picking up finesse and stacking dex and AC higher.
@@TheLikenessOfNormal I'm not sure but I think unless you do damage via Blasters and such, Finesse only affects your chance to hit and not your damage.
Obsidian really is an underrated developer. No publisher treats them fairly.
They made my favorite RPG of all time, South Park: Stick of Truth.
Between this game and Fallout New Vegas, super super underrated. I mean both games were on a super rushed time frame and they had to cut a TON of content but theyre still 2 of the best games ive ever played, that says alot about how talented they are
@@Just_normal_youtube_channeland Fractured But Whole. 😋
Publishers look at them as old school developers because they are really good at making single player story based games. Unfortunately, most publishers look at single player games as less profitable and they are compared to free to play/games as a service games.
@eqw alle so basically Obsidian yields better results when working under pressure? That is ironic. Kinda sad too.
Anyone who's played an unpatched version of Kotor 2 really understands that "unfinished" for sure.
i downloaded recently too and my game keeps crashing, any tips?
@@TyrJustice delete system 32
@@johnathen9322 haha wow ur funny first time on the internet boomer?
@@TyrJustice when does it crash? Because if it's during startup then it might be the opening cinematic that's causing your problem. That's how it was for me, at least. You might be able to just mash escape when you boot the game up to work around that.
Its still the only version ive ever played lmao id fucking love to play the patch/complete version
"Obsidian's Unfinished Classic"
Do you know how little that narrows it down?!
Really? That's like three games: this one, Alpha Protocol, and New Vegas!
Don't get me wrong! All three of those games absolutely deserve the "unfinished classic" label, but I'm honestly frustrated that Obsidian's reputation for churning out rushed, unfinished games continues to hang on after nearly a decade of solid work.
When they released The Stick of Truth, I could kind of understand it. Memories of their earlier stumbles were still fresh in everyone's minds, but after Pillars of Eternity I & II, Tyranny (which had its issues, but bugs weren't exactly at the top of that list), and The Outer Worlds, though, how is it that people continue to lump them in with Bethesda in the QA department?
Fine! "Obsidion's Unfinished Classic, that is a sequel to a game they didn't make. It's rushed, but has been patched up."
@@Blarglesnarfe do you know how little that narrows it down?!
@@Blarglesnarfe That doesn’t help at all.
@@Blarglesnarfe It also doesn't include Alpha Protocol! :(
To be clear, I got the joke in the OP. I'm simply saying it's a bit like making jokes about Duke Nukem Forever's release date, at this point! Obsidian has proven they can release solid, stable games... provided the publishers give them enough time to actually finish them!
I think a lot of people ignored G0-T0 but if you maxed out influence with him he was arguably the best lore dump in the game.
yeah as a child I hated his character and never bothered talking to him when i didn't have to for the story. As and adult I realized his character was one of the most nuanced in the game other than maybe Kreia.
@@robertcunningham1695 G0-T0 is probably one of the most fleshed out and impactful droids in all of star wars, at least from a lore perspective. All the insight he alludes to in terms of droid directives shines a different light on every other droid in the franchise and leads you to judge their actions and motivates differently
You start to think what if astromech and protocol droids don't actually "enjoy" serving their masters despite what they say, but are instead hardwired with some sort of unwilling suicidal devotion
There's a really good explanation video called "The Tragedy of Droids in Star Wars" which goes over just how absolutely hellish 'life' as a droid is in the galaxy, I recommend it
@@greasymoth4172 It's a real shame Star Wars writers never delve into that aspect. A lot of people take a dip into the "robot revolution" theme, but as you'd usually expect it's shallow and does not really profoundly interrogate the relations between organics and droids
@@greasymoth4172 I thought G0-T0 was just a remotely operated drone? I need to go replay the game lol.
@@aniquinstark4347 it wasn't?
2:23:00 you joke, but adhesive grenades are actually incredibly valuable for one reason: Master Vrook. If you go Dark Side and go to Dantooine for your first planet and attack Vrook, there is a good chance he will kick your ass because he will dodge EVERY. SINGLE. ATTACK. He will also spam force heal, negating any damage you do. He is probably the toughest of the Jedi masters to fight. Not only does an adhesive grenade guarantee that he cannot move (unlike the ice grenade), he also cannot use force powers. The adhesive grenade was the only way I could beat him my first few times playing this game, and I swear I could barely find any adhesive grenades up until I fought him.
just use mines
Kreia is Avellone's best character, and he's written some awesome characters
Kreia is one of the greatest characters in all of gaming.
Half-written. He never meets deadline.
You can be a force gunslinger in this game. I actually played through the whole game as one myself, using force powers and dual blaster pistols. You do not need to use a lightsaber or melee weapons to be a jedi in Kotor2. Atton is actually a pretty damn effective force gunslinger if you ignore him being able to use a lightsaber.
I always find I build Atton around surviving the assassin twins and the Sion duel, which basically means single lightsaber.
@@mranthonymills you have to activate his Jedi powers before the fight. It takes some planet hopping, but it's possible.
@@Bunk_off he can't be a jedi without going through Nar Shadda first though and most people won't really leave the planet right after doing that just to level him up
@@JJJBunney001 if you want to activate him as a Jedi early you can, I know because that's what I usually do. But you play it your way and I won't tell you you're wrong, as long as you extend the same courtesy to me. I like to hit nar shada, pick up visas, have the atton conversation with the snitch in the refugee sector, then hit duxun and get mandalore.
@@Bunk_off yeah, i saw somewhere that nar shadaa is really the First planet to Go canonicaly, but i do exactly as you do... Fk the goddamn CaNnOn
Kreia is one of my favorite characters of all time. Her motivations and views on the force is probably the most interesting thing in any Star Wars media for me.
Yeah it’s great, Star Wars never been explored like that before, although yes the game and some of her character is a bit unpolished
But her motivations don't make sense. She preaches not acting unless you have all the information you need, then complains about the Jedi doing the same thing. She complains about how the Force can make you complacent, and then spends the entire game using the Force like crazy. Her dialogue is just written flowery,. Flowery dialogue = good, I guess.
@gladspooky, what she tries to do is teach you that putting trust, support, dependencies on any other person or thing is a possible weakness that can be exploited by someone else in your detriment. The idea is for you to realize that anything and everything in this universe is a possible tool for you to use to further your own goals, listening to the universe, observing society and the flow of people, wishes, struggles and interests, abd then finding the point of leverage in those in order to gain more power / influence / freedom of action / anything that you need. Everything is moving, nothing is static, and all movement rubs and intersects with other different flows in complex ways. She doesn't care what you want to do with this knowledge, but the idea is to not let distractions, relationships and beliefs weaken you.
Of course, she does have an ulterior motive, which makes it all the more interesting. Sadly, I am incapable of accurately explaining her and her mentality, but what i can say is that she is possibly the only true gray jedi in the franchise, having seen both dark side and light side of the force, acknowledging the strengths and flaws in both of them, and then being cut of from the force and acknowledging that lacking a connection with the force is harrowing, but not necessarily a weakness in and of itself.
The force doesn't care what its users do with it. The force doesn't care if there is light and dark side. The force only cares about bringing everything back to a state of balance, to the detriment of any and all the wills of each individual force user. It is relentless, uncaring and imovable. And that's what she despises most about it, a fact which can be observed through one of the endings of this story.
She is an amazing caracter, but not one that tells you anything in your face, but that rather leads you to her way of thinking by giving you little clues and little pushes here and there.
I truly hate that there is no true gray path in this game. I would have loves to play as a true gray jedi
@@gladspooky9455 Kreia is a hypocrit with a shallow philosophy, but uses a lot of fancy words, truly believes herself to be smart and her lines are delivered by a great voice actress.
Explains why so many people buy her bs
@@WikiHL Next time you try to pretend you're smarter than most people, remember that hypocrite has an "e" at the end and that words are more complex than the sounds coming out of your face hole.
I dont know if you touch on it later in the video but, Bao-dur is supposed to be boring and depressing. He is a man full of regret and sadness and feels responsible for all the devastation at Malachor V. IMO! He has some of the most real emotion to a character despite his monotone voice.
Most of the complaints seem to be due to the restored content mod (changing between cgi + in game cut scenes - really bad voice acting in Jedi Ruins etc) but I guess that is not obvious unless you have played the vanilla.
Yeah, but we can blame the community for that. He wouldn't have played the stuff that Obsidian cut for quality on his first ever playthrough if everyone hadn't told him to do so. That said, I don't think his final verdict would have changed if he had played vanilla.
@@ASpooneyBard Yeah. I'd say the restored content mod definitely over-corrected in adding so much dull, padded content, but it's hard to blame them for doing so. The original game completely falls off a cliff after the (excellent) confrontation with the Jedi Council. Neither experience is perfect.
Which is why I never recommend the mod (TSLRCM) to people for their first playthrough. Much of the restored content is very janky and it absolutely kills the pacing of the story on many occasions. It's like a bloated director's cut to a movie - some of the stuff was left on the cutting room floor for a reason. It does add some cool stuff that can be appreciated on later playthroughs, but I feel the cons outweigh the pros for a first experience. M4-78 is an even worse addition for a newcomer, since it has so many issues that most veterans won't even touch it more than once out of curiosity.
@@silkyfi6652 M4-78 is at least optional and there is another mod which can be used to remove questionable elements of the restored content, like that annoying Jedi Padawan on Dantooine, overall a MUCH more enjoyable experience.
He complains plenty about vanilla, don’t try and dismiss what is wrong with this game
The fact that almost all of the characters are fundamentaly broken in one way or the other makes this game so awesome.
Atton is broken because of self-loathing and guilt.
Bao-Dur is broken because he is aware of the atrocity he committed to win a war.
HK is LITERALLY broken (kinda funny)
GO-TO is broken because he was given an unsolvable task and became robot-insane.
Mandalore is unawarely broken because he fights for a lost cause, as Kreia tells him in her conversation with him on Dxun.
Hanharr is mentally broken as a serial killer with diffuse causes.
Nihilus was broken by too much force doses (probably) to the point of non-itentity
Sion is (-probably most of all of them-) broken because he's doomed to a meaningless immortality. He is such a pure sith his only reason to exist is to spread pain and suffering just to keep himself alive. If you play canon that is especially emphasised by the fact that he actually falls in love with the exile - which would mean his death since love is not an aspect of the dark side he relies on to keep himself alive.
The Sith in this game are broken altogether because all taht is left from them is maggots trying to feed on death.
The Jedi are broken because their teachings bring them to a literal dead end.
The galaxy is broken in instability.
The game is broken because it's unfin.. ok that's probably enough on the issue.
No, please do go on.
Atton is broken because he automatically revives if the rest of the party is still conscious and because he is a scoundrel/Jedi with sick special features.
Handmaiden is broken because she carries the shame of her mother with her and is considered the black sheep of her sisters.
Disciple is broken because he blindly idolizes a severely flawed Jedi council.
Visas is broken because she holds onto the loss of her planet and species, and the anger that came with it
Meetra is broken because of the sheer amount of death she felt (and ultimately ordered) through the Force when the bomb went off at Malachor V. Pair that with the Jedi Order refusing to aid worlds being slaughtered by Mandalorians in the name of vague ideals of patience and peace and you have a betrayed, isolated, and traumatized character. Many characters in the game describe her as carrying that trauma like a malignant tumor and the fact that she continues to persist at all is a testament to her strength.
I love that the game tells you that there are no heroes in war and even a Jedi renowned for her benevolence like Meetra had to make the morally grey decision to kill millions of people on both sides to bring about peace.
@@FoxyChariot I feel really bad for her. She followed Revan to stop the mandalorians but along the way had to make some really difficult choices that forever scarred her and the galaxy
I think the best part of this game for me is the ability to roleplay. I always enjoyed the approach KOTOR 2 took to letting the player define their character. Yes, you are restricted to a specific backstory that sets up the current story (you followed people into a war you were forbidden to wage, you were a general, you were responsible for turning on a superweapon that decimated an entire planet and you were the one person who returned to your people to stand trial instead of following the rest of your army), but the entire story of the game revolves around the player character explaining their actions and defining their motivations. You meet all the people affected by those actions, you argue with people about those actions, you discuss how those actions effected you and whether you regret them or not. The player is defined enough to have a place in the setting, but with enough gaps left open for the player to give their own character there.
Makes the companion conversations more interesting too, since it's not just a rather one-sided conversation of you asking for their backstory, but of them trying to understand how you tick and how you've changed.
This
Yep, one thing I love about this game is the backwards-roleplaying, or whatever it's called. Let's you carry forward your major decisions from the first game and decide your past in this game somewhat. I haven't seen anything like that in many other games (though I haven't played many RPGs)
Exctally. It's my favorite part, there's enough backstory but nothing too much, stop you from deciding who you are in game.
Unlike say fallout 4, Cyberpunk 2077 or witcher. And yeah you indeed roleplay backwards. Lol
@@johnnyfroggo7361 People praise Disco elysium alot, seems like a game with similar premise of you dealing with what you did. Same for planetescape torment.
@@alsaiduq4363 Cool, I might look into it. I just got the Bioshock collection, so I've got to get through that first.
3:09:11 "Kills Sion 3 times"
Sion: "So anyway, about Kreia..."
HK-47 saying "Apathy is death." gets me everytime
“Statemennt: Apathyyy is deathhhhh”
The real HK is so sarcastic, even the force ghost pretending to be him couldn't help but deliver that line as facetiously as possible.
It's a perfect punchline to what should be a pretty serious scene, gotta love HK.
I spit my drink out lol so unexpected
Good ol’ HK, the ultimate killing machine
the way HK said "apathy is death" like an old school horror movie announcer made me lose my mind laughing
It was KotOR 1 & 2 that made me truly adore the Mandalorians. Such a vivid culture
I mean they're basically Space Spartans a la 300
There's a nuiance to the Mandalorians. It very much mimics the Warrior Culture stereotypes without becoming a direct clone of any of them. I have friends with the Mando'a Skull tattooed on their bodies; I have a friend who modeled his moral code on the EU Mando'a Code. And then there's Canderous Ordo: a man who gives an air of honor and dignity even if he's doing foul acts.
@@BR4IN1N4J4R they aren’t real mate
@@idrinkmilk282 nah really? Couldn't tell. Clearly I'm a delusional wacko. Fully aware BTW. My sarcasm can be a bit on the rough side my dude
@@BR4IN1N4J4R you talk about them as if they're real, it's an observation.
I have grown fond of this game over the years, and I would have loved Kotor 3 even more if Obsidian had finished it. This is the DS9 in the Star Wars franchise.
It’s better than the original kotor, especially with the mod that completes it
@@idrinkmilk282 Kotor and Kotor 2 are like Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask
Kotor and Ocarina of Time were games that redefined their respective franchises, but they also relied heavily on tried and true adventure formulas that were established in previous things. Both were obviously very successful
Kotor 2 and Majora's Mask were games that tried to do something very different and took a lot of risks in the process. As a result, they definitely alienated fans and i admit that when I played both games it took me a while to get into both of them (MM in particular, i gave up on it and didn't touch it for about 14 years). But man were they so much more rewarding when all was said and done
@@skippythealien9627 i just realized how similar these two games are in a way, ocarina of time and Kotor 1 is the more adventurous and feel like an adventure while MM and Kotor 2 is more darker of the former
Look at our boi stretchin' to pass 10 minute mark
no integrity andy
Went to my moms house, tore apart the attic, definitely breathed in asbestos, found my old Xbox, thank you.
Worth it
Had to buy it again. But it actually plays great on the X
Lol it’s on PC and MOBILE. You can even play it on mobile with the restoration mod.
@@zetterburger perhaps he wanted to play it on the Duke for nostalgia. Or perhaps didn't feel like buying something he already owned a second time. Or any other damn reason. People are entitled to enjoy shit as they please within the bounds or moral contract.
DAMN STRAIGHT YOU DID
"Jedi Master sucks"
*me, looking around at the army that's been stuck in stasis for the past 20 minutes*
...Okay
"Unga bunga, hit thing good." XD
Yeah Jedi Consular into Master is OP as hell if built right. Basically endless force points, which lets you ignore opposite force alignment penalty and just take all the best force powers.
@@Gestaltzerfall You can get practically unlimited force points as pretty much any class. Force Storm everything.
For me it was sentinel in to Watchmen. Everything is skill based and they give you so many extras. Of course in the original game I just used the Korriban glitch to max experience and it didn't matter how I built my character when I'm level 40.
@@Gestaltzerfall "Infinite force points" means basically nothing in this game. Hell, as a level 20ish Jedi Guardian (not even prestiged) with pure light side and a few points into Charisma I can spam Force Storm through encounters. Master/Lord is basically worse than Consular because, while you get extra (useless) force points, you actually get less Force Powers (which do matter a little bit).
“I’m gonna go Sentinel, the class that’s really well set up for a skill and dex-defense build. I’m gonna make dexterity and intelligence lower.”
I pick Sentinel due to the massive buffs to my CON from a maxxed out Light side bar + The Jedi Watchman prestige class.
"The regular Master is useless in every way." Flaming Hot take, holy fuck.
@@bobwalrus5 my memory is fuzzy on this part of the video, was this about the Jedi Master prestige class? He’s absolutely correct, it is very easily the worst of the three prestige classes, even for a pure caster consular.
@@cameronmeyferth753 But Masters get double influence points with followers, so it's great if you wanna make jedi out of your party members asap.
@@Green-Raccoon777 but, like he said in the video, the player character gets so massively OP anyway that using the party members is like a handicap. I get it adds replayability to use them more and in theory they can help balance out the weaker parts of the player character’s build but there basically never really are any weak parts. So why do I even care if my party members are Jedi or not when I honestly could solo the game, even if it takes longer
9:40 The part I found interesting about this conversation back when I was a kid first playing it was that depending on how you answer Atton through these "exposition dumps" you're actually setting up the history of the first game without having to import a save or anything.
It’s also fun because if I remember correctly, Atton assumes the opposite of canon (female dark side), so it’s fun to read his interpretation.
@@eugenideddis And that's cool because that makes you want to correct him because Fem DS is probably the least played Revan
Mans throws in a random "I'm married" there at the end. Congragulations.
Its just one man.
Spoiler alert!
@@mina7572 Prove it.
@UCgFYNOx6myAXEyK-J8W7K4w If you don't speak like an idiot then these things aren't problems
It's so refreshing to hear someone talk about the KOTOR games and not leave everyone in a sugar coma afterwards. I love the fluidity of your presentation, seamlessly transitioning between positive and negative points while also interjecting your own observations and thoughts. Quality work, both videos.
This guy's kotor review pretty much sums up every reason why i refuse to pay 10 bucks on steam to get it. it really has not aged well at all
Kotor 2 hasn't aged that well either, but i found it infinitely times more enjoyable when i played it again about eight-ish years ago. the restored content mod helps tremendously
that being said, it is by no means a "flawless" game
@@skippythealien9627 I can absolutely agree there. 2 just has a lot more substance to the sidequests and areas, and KOTOR 1 is always so slooooow, going through several hours of play before you can finally do any real exploration.
@@HollandTHG Bro Kotor 1 takes hours? Kotor 2 takes an extra 2 hours to get to the galaxy map and be able to explore than Kotor 1.
This guy certainly makes good videos, so I second this comment.
At 36:50, as someone who lives in a country half run by criminal familirs/sindicates, the exchange being criminal but sort of legal in the open is a very realistic view for a videogame, imo
Hell I went to school in a city in the US (Im assuming that’s where TSF is from, though it could be Canada) where we knew that certain out of place restaurants and businesses were connected to criminal organizations. It was just accepted by everybody and as long as no waves were made then nobody hassled them.
One of my favorite star wars stories despite feeling the game was incomplete. Long have I wished more recent star wars stories would abandon the good v evil conflict and take a harder look at the force in general and what that means in the context of the history of Star wars. Is everything that happens the will of the force? Does the force want balance or just constant conflict? IF something like that does exist, is there such a thing as free will. And would freedom be something to desire when faced with the prospect it could lead to the destruction of EVERYTHING.
Yup.
Over the years, I've realised that Both sides are flawed in their acts and philosophy, and going Grey is the only way.
That is the balance they speak of.
@@RantRadio You're right, problem is fanboys will going mad if you say something like this.
Many times in the old canon is showed that the jedi and the sith are flawed, balanced and inner peace is more of a personal journey because their view of the Force and the life is incomplete but no, is just light side the balance and dark side is a perversion of the Force, there will be no peace in the galaxy without the jedi.
Well everybody knows how Star Wars fandom is
@@MultiNumenor Yeah, current fandom is as you say, and that's also why currently we have twisted view of the force, that light side is balance, when in truth is not, and darkness is evil, which is also false. That's also why Revan story was rewritten, because Kreia said; "that he "fallen" out of necessity (or even never truly fell)", and now, canonically we have that Emperor corrupted and lured him to the Dark Side..., the difference is colossal.
There is many more subtle, and also obvious changes to the SW universe, to make it in the one direction; that Jedi are saints no matter what they do, when we saw in the prequel trilogy (also in Clone Wars), that they are equal evil, or even more so, than Sith are.
@@rohenthar8449 Really? Jedi are more evil than mass genocide?
@@grafphal5103 Indeed they are, after all they have genocides on their hands too.
I’ll enjoy watching this over the course of the next several years
accurate
It yes
💯
I wish I made this comment, because it’s exactly how I felt when I saw how long this video is.
Couple times a day*
Bao-dur's voice acting comes off as a calm tech person, just there for logic, that is what I got so bias of nostalgia
A lot of the choppy loading scene transitions- particularly with the shuttle landing on Telos and the duros talking to each other on Nar Shadaa, are cut content added back in with the restored content mod. Problem is, they were cut for a VERY good reason, which leads to some additional criticism in this review when said cut content is on screen.
What reason is that?
Care to explain...
Cut content=unfinished content. It can make the end experience feel more disjointed and janky by adding stuff that in some cases is half-baked.
Yep, and it could've been another masterpiece had Obsidian worked on and finished this game in 18 months or longer instead of the 14-month development time they were given.
Yeah a lot of people seem to automatically think that any cut content in a game was cut for time and it could have been great. When the reality is most of it is unnecessary or just trash
For the record with Kreia, you can usually make light side decisions and then "reassure" her on her own terms that would make sense to her. It prevents you from losing influence. When she confronts me about helping the Ithorians for example, I just respond that "perhaps they will be useful in helping us find our ship" and it shuts her up, preventing me from losing influence. Falsely reassuring your comps will in the very least prevent you from losing influence regardless of your decisions
I think overall Kreia doesn't care too much if you are a "dickhead Sith Lord" or a "bleeding heart altruist Jedi", so long as you can have some sort of logic to justify your choice in how you believe it'll benefit you in the long run. She doesn't care for good vs evil philosophies, only that you're a free thinker in making your own choices, but at least wise enough to determine what your end goal is for that decision
You put it a lot better than me. Basically kreia doesn't give a shit as long as her goals are achieved she's going to betray you. She's called Darth treya ffs...
I used to do that, however, there's a mod on Steam that allows you to have successful influence conversations with all characters regardless if you have a high influence with them or not.
@@NumbingDisasterAnon That's why I felt he vastly oversimplified her morality. Which really confused me because she's one of the most complicated characters in Star Wars, at least to me. She doesn't care about good or evil at all. She wants you to think about the consequences of your actions. She makes some extremely good points about how doing something may appear to help someone but could infact cause them to suffer more in the short to long term. Like people who win the lottery and then end up poor or addicted to drugs. Seems like a great thing to happen to them, but it destroyed their lives. Is the lottery bad? No. Was it bad for that person? Yes.
Was helping that person good for you? No not really but it helped them.
Did it? They're getting mugged now because you helped them, that wouldn't have happened if you didn't intervene.
Etc etc.
She's super interesting and definitely the best part of the game.
@@NumbingDisasterAnon Exactly! And that is why I love Kreia.
55:05 Focusing crystal aside, lightsabers are just tech, you don't need to use the force to activate one (just to wield it effectively). The better question is why it stuck into the stone rather than fall down since the blade should cut right through it.
I always thought this even as a kid lol it's cool but that's not how lightsabers work
maybe he pushed it in far enough so the hilt stuck in idk
Its okay, this guy just never watched Revenge of the Sith. Grievous who??
Don't forget, Han used a lightsaber to turn the tauntaun into a makeshift hotpack for Luke...
As for the need to focus the force to active the lightsaber, that is an actual design some users utilize. The downside of them is if the focus is disrupted so is the blade.
So a funny thing about the dancing bit is that you can actually get Mira to do it by provoking her into doing it like the Tsundere she is.
She can also be a jedi
You can rob vogga after he sleeps and you have poisoned his dogs.
Speaking as someone who adored Atton, he's the very reason KOTOR II sticks in my head as such a phenomenal game. When I was a kid, I struggled just to play through Telos and Peragus; I hardly remember how I managed it honestly, but somehow Atton won me over from a young age. All his complexities and moral greys, his ability to shine a light in the Jedi's biggest flaws, without being a hundred % right in his assessment. All of it, so amazing to me.
Just, happy someone else managed to enjoy his presence as much as I did.
I can’t tell you how glad I am that you really “got” Kreia in the end. She’s by far my favorite SW character. As for how the series moves on, well...it did. With both the Revan novel and the MMO. I probably don’t have to say this, but Bioware really shit the bed and just hard reversed course back to black/white and Revan Jesus. They did my girl The Exile dirty. As for who could make a KotOR 3? No one. Both devs have ranged from mediocre to just awful for almost a decade and I don’t know who could possibly fit the bill anymore.
I think Obsidian has the potential, if they had the time and money to throw at it. Outer Worlds was okay-ish, but I think it suffered from not being a big budget game while also being a brand new IP. I'm anxious to see how Avowed goes, the Pillars games were some of their highlights in recent years and it'll be their first RPG with Microsoft money behind it.
@@martyshrekster Outerworlds was as black and White as Bioware games soooo thats kinda sad.
Also didnt the BioWare MMO kinda undo alot of Kotor 2, i guess it gets mentioned from time to time but still it has this BioWare aftertaste :/ even tho i like the MMO but its sooo much closer to KotOR 1 then 2.
The voice actor for kreia is also awesome. She barely had any other roles after that *where is she!!*
Also I'm pretty sure Chris Avellone's career is over.
@@360Jopo I hope not and im pretty sure it wont be.
Congrats on the marraige!
On the topic of the game: NOT getting a prestige class to be neutral like Kreia may have been the point. An example: if you are dark side, you get Hanharr and not Mira as a companion... If you build enough influence with him, Kreia offers to help you tap into his rage and it'll have an actual mechanical enhancement (strength bonus)... But you can turn it aside staying that you'd no longer be relying on your own strength, and then she says, satisfied, that you *are* learning... No mechanical bonus, but proof of thinking critical on the themes (and influence with Kreia, I guess).
I could be wrong but I think you actually get a bonus to wisdom if you turn down her offer along with the influence gain.
Doesn’t the prestige discussion start once you hit level 15? I guess if more impertinent dialogue is flagged to initiate before you have the prestige discussion with Kreia, she should instantly begin her dialogue to prestige you. Again, It has nothing to do with LS or DS shift in the PC’s character
Basically you trade strength for a wisdom buff if you listen to Kreia with Hanharr. The problem is that strength is like the best stat though.
@@Edax_Royeaux not when you’re clearing rooms with force storm
@@Edax_Royeaux only if you are a weapon focused class.
I love how you dropped Dexterity and Intelligence when they're generally the two most important stats in the game. Intelligence nets you more skill points and helps you automatically solve a lot of puzzles. You don't need Charisma that much at all, and you definitely don't need Strength. Dexterity improves your chances of not getting hit, and increases your chances of hitting.
I’ve become addicted to this style of retrospective gaming video. I love the recap of the story with the funny commentary. It would be cool to see a retrospective for the Mass Effect trilogy.
Well, you've got your wish
Bioware said: "You're not giving us enough time!"
EA: "How about even less?"
Obsidian: "Harsh deadlines that'll result in tons of cut content sitting in the code unused and loads of memory leak issues and buggy questlines as a result of all that cut content? Sign us up, we'll get you your sequel out in only a little over a year!"
i hate how often this shit happens
Bioware: but we had a deal!
EA: I am altering the deal pray I don't alter it any further.
The Padawan under the enclave was fan-voiced as part of the restoration mod project
Gotta love Czerka: "We don't understand what 'restoring nature' even *means* but whatever it is, it's both silly *and* prohibitively expensive!"
This is clearly a flawless masterpiece. A story unparalleled in modern society, you heathen.
@Yonel Julien mate it’s a joke you incompetent heathen
@Yonel Julien Yes, be less heathen
@@yeetdragon1629 i'm not incompetent!
no, wait, the other thing....
I'm not a heathen!!!
@Siberian Wow! That’s sick! Can you tell me more?
What story?? Theres not much story in this game. Its barely even a star wars story at all. You really dont get much cool star wars stuff at all in this entire game. Weak as hell compared to kotor 1.
I've heard a lot of praise of Kreya over my years browsing online, but never heard her motivations. Now understanding her viewpoint, God damn is it brilliant! I can only dream what a debate between Kreya and Yoda would sound like.
Kreia is one of the best written characters in all of Star Wars lore
Yoda is much older than kreia but he doesn't understand the dark side as well as Darth Traya. "To truly understand something you need contrast, not adhere to a single ideal." Personally I think Kreia is the wisest character in all of star wars by a long shot, she truly has seen it all
Kreya good Yoda bad
It would end with Yoda probably turning the jedi order into a Grey jedi order. Yoda was always open to listen and kreya is usually outright completely right about certain things with no way to argue
It wouldn't be a debate, it would be Yoda declaring Kreia is a sith over and over again, in the face of all of her counter arguments
I'm going to watch every minute.
Get that youtube red money Salt.
I will re watch at least 2 times dont worry .
Wait..if I watch with YT premium does he not get any revenue...bc that's what I do and if thats the case I need to let videos play on another profile after I watch them...im not trying to screw anybody..I just don't want to watch ads
@@indylockheart3082 As long as you pay for Premium, yes they get paid. TH-cam Red was the original name for premium. Since money is calculated on watch time, me watching every minute (even the audible commercial which was hilarious) pays him just a bit more.
Basically when an ad would come up, instead TH-cam just throws some pennies at them. If I remember correctly a YT premium member actually ends up giving MORE than a regular member to the creator (by like 10x). But if you use an adblocker, Google doesn't see the ad spot and will not pay.
@@MySqueezingArm Today I learned
@MySqueezingArm thats awesome. I don't use n ad block so its the best of both worlds...I dont have to see ads and the content creators get paid a little more...thanks for the info
So a fun theory about Brianna (the Haidmaiden) is that her mother, Arren Kae, is actually Kreia. It doesn't matter too much, but its an interesting thing to think about.
47:25
"No way! How'd you get here before us?!"
"...How DID we get here before them, Kronk?"
"You got me; by all accounts it doesn't make sense."
"Ah well, back to business."
Treya didn't consider nihilus as a success because he feeds on both force and life, he would literally devour the life in the whole universe, and that's not Treya's goal
She doesn't consider him a success because unlike the exile he can't survive without the force, she doesn't care if he does kill everything or not
@@googleforcedhandle It's was never Treya goal to destroy the galaxy but to save it from the Force
@@googleforcedhandle There's no victory in death, Kreia doesn't wish to kill anyone really, she wishes for them to learn and see that her teaching were true, she says so if you go DS and kill the Jedi masters.
Kreia sees Nihilus as a failure because he is a slave to his hunger. Much like Sion is to his rage, or the Jedi to their teachings. All of them slave in one way or the other, to the Force.
Statement: Love is making a shot to the knees of a target 120 kilometers away using an Aratech sniper rifle with a tri-light scope.
Meters*
Statement: Love is knowing your target, putting them in your targeting reticle, and together, achieving a singular purpose... against statistically long odds...
Yes
@@JC-zj2is no its Kilometers, th-cam.com/video/hab3R_TRazg/w-d-xo.html 120 Meters wouldn't be impressive in the slightest
@@JC-zj2is aCtUally
The dancing bit on Nar Shaddaa is there because you can sneak into the door behind him by putting both him to sleep by dancing and his dogs to sleep by putting booze in their water dish. There's a conversation you can sneak and ease drop on to learn about putting the dogs to sleep.
You missed Kreia's lesson on strength, that strength isn't power unto itself, but to turn away from it.
Says the woman who was cast out of strength and spends the whole game preaching grabbing strength wherever you can.
@@gladspooky9455 Kreia wanted to destroy the Force, which was the source of her power.
one who is meek must posses the potential for violence and choose not to use it. choosing peace without having the power to enforce it is weakness.
No, she supports you getting power. The true lesson of strength is to turn away from strength which is not your own.
Using the prestige classes as an example, to forsake them is to forsake power. But that power is granted to you by either the light or dark side, it's a power that would make you more susceptible to the Force's influence.
It's not about refusing strenght, is about getting strength by yourself instead of someone babyfeeding it to you.
First time i played through this game as a kid, i did not speak a single lick of English, and i managed to beat the game through pure Guesswork and Trial n Error...and i loved every second of it.
I would love to see one of these on Dragon Age: Origins
the thing that gives this a few more layers is that it's not as simple as "the jedi did nothing, therefore they're cowards." Because there was a time when the Jedi did go to war. It was during the clone wars, and their becoming warriors rather than "keepers of peace" was their eventual undoing. According to the Jedi teachings the Jedi do not wage war, so following that commandment it's the right choice for the Jedi to abstain. But that's the problem with the Jedi code, it's just flawed as shit and adhering to it closely just leads to catastrophe. I like to imagine the Jedi during the clone wars learned from what happened and joined the war because they were afraid of Jedi leaving en masse like they did in the mandalorian wars. That's why they decide to fight even though Windu says "the Jedi are keepers of the peace, not soldiers"
Kreia's goal is to destroy the force. It's a pretty epic goal.
Her original goal as Darth Traya was to destroy the Force. But she had another goal working at cross purposes to this, which was her greatest hope. For the Exile to beat her and lead a new generation of Jedi following her teachings about not relying on the Force. That's why she trained the Exile to be strong enough to beat her, and why she arranged for the old Sith to show themselves and be defeated, including herself. If the Exile had lost, the echo would have been released at the heart of Malachor and spread across the Galaxy, yes. But she wanted the Exile to win, because that would be her greater triumph; that she trained a paragon of her ideology, even greater than Revan, and thus armed her champion to fight against the True Sith waiting in the darkness. If she truly wanted to carry out her original plan, she wouldn't have bothered training the Exile or contriving to have Nihilus defeated.
@@Sesharon too bad the book and mmo did the exile dirty.
I'd say more like overcome the force, only if that's not possible, then destroy it.
@@Kenneth_A_H God I wish Bioware or Obsidian would make a Kotor 3. Retcon the mmo and continue the story where it was left off in Kotor 2 with the Exile looking for Revan in the unknown region.
@@Sesharon maybe with Nihilus she realized that destroying the force would kill all life and a new method of becoming independent of the force was beeded.
The Oblivion Guard voice clips got me
MDB Pogey! love you dude
@@zaldbathar4866 Thanks man!
@@MahDryBread lol what weirdness exactly? Dudes just making a joke
Hey look its big league mdb. What ars you gona do continue to be cool.
@@MahDryBread Hey, MDB... what fossil did you take?
"this dude acts like we never met before"
Because you didn't. It's another guy of the same specie, and his boss
Lol
@@abesehon3548 lmao tbf they literally all look the same. Not even a change in wardrobe to indicate it's someone else
Damn space racist.
Quarren lives matter
I'm only 50 minutes into this review, and scrolling down through the comments to see if everyone was calling this guy out on all the stuff he got wrong because he just wasn't paying attention to things or thinking about how things worked without the game spoon feeding them to him. Glad to see someone is pointing things out, but pretty bummed out that he's gonna keep being this clueless throughout the video...
Visas Mar is a character who is strongly influenced by the main character from the get go. If you're light side she's lights side. The influence is affected by things like your charisma.
Within the story, the Exhile has unique gift of forming strong force bonds with the people around them. Mira the bounty hunter once she joins the crew admits following the Exhile causes her to act against her standard ways. As a Bounty hunter, she's known for refusing to kill of at all possible. Following even a light side Exhile, she finds herself readily killing hundreds of people just because she's with the Exhile, and she's horrified by it. That's what the force bonds can do to other people.light side Story wise you can convert Anton, Mira, The Handmaiden/historian and boa dur to Jedi. It's a mixed bag whether it's useful or not. There are game guides out there that tell you how to do so. In converting them to Jedi, they serve as the lost Jedi who piece the order back alongside Bastila after the Exhile joins Revan in the unknown regions to face the true Sith.
this mf said exhile
There's reason why "skip Paragas" is a hugely popular mod
It's so buggy that i didn't continue because an hour of figuring out the tutorial got wasted after the assassin droid bugged out
What and skip like 20 percent of the game
I like paragas even if it gets boring after your tenth playtrough or is that just me
I always think about getting it but then, I always end up not because that just ruins my immersion in the game. Not only that, but it reduces the time spent on the game which I don't want to do, and I also prefer Paragus over the first planet.
i have the same problem with oblivion, i really like the game but the quest where you have to clear 6 oblivion Gate is so boring i haven't touched it all day because of it
You can turn Mira into a Jedi/Sith too by the way, but you'll have to bring her back to Nar Shaddaa to do it.
The only one (other than the droids duh) you can’t turn Jedi/sith is hanharr because George Lucas
@@Revanbzn Or Mandalore...
Emelefpi *For Mandalore!
55:15 lightsabers have a button on them. There are plenty of non force users that use lightsabers such as general grevious and pre viszla. So the lightsaber in the stone scene is accurate
How you forget my boy Finn going up against tr-8r with a lightsaber
@@MrPsyren99 or Han Solo in Empire Strikes Back.
@@MrPsyren99 because Finn is an entirely forgettable character… that may have something to do with it
@@idrinkmilk282 I blame China, if Disney wasn't trying so hard to pander to them I feel like he would of been a great character. I loved him and Poe in force awakens and I'm so mad they got shafted in the next 2 movies, especially rise of skywalker
@@MrPsyren99 I'm not a low life insecure sheep that feels the need to follow the pack in order to aquire a feeling of belonging, and therefore can happily openly admit that force awakens, like it or not, is at the very least an extremely competent star wars movie, and more over, is actually just really good in general, if not perfect. Flawed.
What followed however, only served to make TFA look worse in hindsight due to all of the built up plot points essentially just being scrapped and shit on.
I agree that these characters could've been better. That's why it was a trilogy. So the foundations can be built upon. However, when you're shifting around directors film to film, bring directors in that have no place doing a SW movie, and then by extension destroy the entire foundation laid by the important first movie in the trilogy, you have more or less got a case of starting over. Which is just fucking stupid given that these movies are supposed to be one big continuous and coherent story line like the OT.
I still like force awakens and the character work that was done. I walked out of that movie with a smile on my face. So did a lot of people. Check it's imdb score. More people like it than don't. Vocal minority makes it seem otherwise.
However, I can no longer watch force awakens as a part of a story. I refuse to be subjected to those other two atrocities ever again. So, force awakens, in turn, has been transformed into a standalone story for me. Significantly weakening reasons to watch it at all let alone be immersed by it.
It all could have been so much better. Incompetence is the word.
Regarding Darth Nihilus, I always read his character as a version of the whole “vague evil force,“ kind of like in the fifth element. Also, he’s kind of what would happen if you took his nihilist (real subtle there, Obsidian) philosophy to its extreme. Nothing matters to him, except to feed. He doesn’t care about ideology, or race, or power. His name and past don’t matter, he just lives to consume now.
Kriea is the best Star Wars character ever. The lead designer basically wrote her with the issues he has with the force.
I keep forgetting he has mods to restore the game to a more finished state, cause it's like, I keep seeing portions like "I don't remember that" and "I remember something different."
What a ride that was. Kreia is by far the most compelling villain I have ever experienced. I'm glad you enjoyed her and the Exile's story.
To me Kreia is not a villain. An antagonist, perhaps.
@@mauriciofontes Well, she does want to exterminate the force directly and force users indirectly, that's pretty villainesque to me
Trading for the crystal on onderon gave you dark side points because if you force persuade her to reveal why she wants the visa, she explains she is transporting a huge shipment of explosives to kill people with.
That isn’t the reason. Receiving dark side points relates to doing an evil or cruel task intentionally as light and dark is related to personality and attitude not necessarily the consequences you didn’t know about.
You wouldn’t fall to the dark side because of some butterfly effect
@@UkNoobGamerzz imagine if you could.
Pick up a follower and a couple months later you’re the most evil person in the universe because of a series of whacky events that led to genocide
@@UkNoobGamerzzIts evil regardless, you're giving a visa to recieve a "crystal of dark power" instead of giving it to those in need. Its a selfish act, therefore dark side.