[kotor] Brotherhood of Shadow: Solomon's Revenge

[Arillius]

I just finished playing this mod. Overall, I encountered only one bug and only one issue trying to move forward with the game. They were, really though, small things. My impression of the mod is mixed. I'll give more detailed below. I thought it was good and had the potential to be amazing, but fell just short because of narrative issues. Beware spoilers below.

 

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On the one hand, it is a very good mod, adding a layer of depth to times that had only been briefly touched upon in the original game. Certain issues I might have had with it were actually resolved in such a way as to make me feel better about it. (The force bond was introduced as something Revan could have been doing, to both Shadow and the army. As if seeing this as a cop out the writer instead had Shadow admit her own guilt for her failings. That is brilliant, especially because I was more then a tad upset at how Solomon was trying to excuse what she did, and thus invalidate the choices she made. I loved instead how it ended up being used to save her. It was a little ham fisted, the introduction of this idea, but it was very well used after that.) Finally, the writing and the story is solid. Only once or twice did it give me pause and since I can't rightly remember when or what, it's almost a non-issue.

 

On the other hand, there are problems. First there are too many flashbacks. I understand their purpose and at first I thought it was rather brilliant. This tool should have probably used a little more sparingly. Perhaps spread out across more, smaller missions. My second problem is tied to this. Because of the flashbacks, the pacing of the story is very off kilter. Just as I'm starting to enjoy Revan and Shadow hanging out, boom another flashback. Oh, I'm talking to her, exploring her character? Boom, another flashback. That's not to say the flashbacks themselves aren't brilliant but they are crammed together, making me sick of the mechanic near the end of the story.

 

Which leads me to my last issue. If Revan only ever appeared in the Flashbacks and we followed Shadow and her boytoy (who I liked, his name is just hard to get right), this mod would have probably been a tighter, more intuitive experience. Instead, the main character of the game is made largely superfluous. Oh, sure, being able to redeem the Brotherhood of the sith as a light side user is pretty cool (paragon, baby) but the Brotherhood of Shadow also felt superfluous in Solomon's revenge. It was the villain for Revan himself to confront, giving him something to do while the others had all the real character development without him.

 

I could see the potential here but I also see the problem with implementing it. This mod has one end. Ultimately, Kotor was about choice though, and I never really felt that my choices, or Revan's nature, ever impacted Shadow. Shadow was, for me at least, the best part of this mod and her story was clearly the focus of it. I even saw the many parallels that could be drawn between the varied cast you had. Yet Revan... Here's a good example of the problem I had I saw, early on, that she could comment on each of my companions. I was thrilled that she was in this dark side mind set about how Revan could manipulate each of them and I waited, hopefully, for the conversation prompt where Revan says 'I ain't that guy anymore'.

 

Instead, Revan gets to go back and ask questions about other things. There is no comment on who Revan is anymore, whether he's the same guy or different. Even in the scenes where we could have given him a more badass moment, he felt superfluous. It was only when fighting the Brotherhood did he really seem like Revan and that's because that part of the story was written for him. It also cut him off from the other half. Revan had so little to say to Solomon. Revan and he never argue. I never got the chance to defend Sera or corrupt her or worry about her. Revan can talk to Shadow, sometimes, but Shadow rarely, actually, talks to him.

 

Let me repeat that, because it's important. Shadow, a new companion to Revan, a main character in a game loved for how the main character can interact with their companions so much so that even the MMO based of it included the mechanic, rarely ever talks to Revan. She answers his questions and we get some insight into her character, sure, but that's it. Where's the conversations about where Revan is or what he's doing? Where's the 'I'm not that guy anymore.' moment where Revan reveals his fall? I felt awkward, as a lightside Revan, having never once tried to correct this supposed 'servant' (who goes out of her way, when you first meet her, to say she doesn't care what path your on) about what sort of guy he was now.

 

Hell, there's more of that when he's talking to her boy toy near the end, when the blue guy finally gets told who Revan is. Shadow never comments. Shadow, for all intent and purpose, does not seem to care much about Revan, or his opinion, or even his goals. Which is a good thing at the end as she becomes her own person, but at the beginning, where Revan was supposed to be her other half? It just doesn't fit, not with the narrative and not with the type of game Kotor is.

 

This mod is good. Real good. But when the main character of the game is made superfluous in his own game, then something's going to be off. It's only the brilliant writing and story that saved this mod, and save it, it did. In the future, I'd advise making stories like this a separate entity. Cut Revan out entirely if you can't give him the meat (meat = story, character development, etc) that he deserves. Make it a mod about Shadow, focused on her, with jumping off points if we want to take a break from the mod, with Revan only appearing in flashbacks.

 

This isn't pertinent to the story as a whole but I have to mention it. The suspenseful elements of this mod are very, very well done. The Orion was genuinely creepy and unsettling and the mining facility had me actually nervous and jittery. I was playing a pretty powerful Revan (I've played Kotor over a dozen times, I know how to get the good stuff) and I was still freaked out by, of all things, random miners. That is amazing.

 

On the gameplay side of things it holds up pretty well. I feel like the battle with Solomon on Taris could have been handled better. I struggled to win that fight on the Impossible difficulty and when I finally did, I lost anyway. I personally dislike games that do that and would rather it have been just a cut scene if I didn't have a chance.

 

Other times when I was playing Revan I noticed a lack of real options fighting wise. My Revan was made into a dual wielding monster and in the flashbacks, having him use one saber only was making a good portion of my feats and tactics useless. Perhaps a second lightsaber in the inventory for those who want it?

[Bardet]

Well, the 1.1 might fix your issue, depending on how it's fixed. You can DL it from here:

 

https://www.mediafire.com/?0uib26efoit8bdd

 

I'm having the same problem, and also the patch did not fix it. Seems I cannot progress without crashing when in the caves. Windows 8 here. Any help would be welcome

[grolschhorne]

Hi, I have been playing this mod and have suddenly got to a point where the game crashes every time I try to carry on.

 

I have just entered Mandalore's Bridge and you are immediately attacked by two droids and two turrets. In the background there are some Mandalorians that start to run towards you too. For some reason, If I (or my companions) take one step into the room where the droids are, then the game crashes to desktop. This is really frustrating and I just want to continue playing the game. I have literally no idea what to try to fix it, so any suggestions are welcome.

 

I am a Windows 10 user, GTX 980, 32gb of Ram, AMD FX8350 Processor.

[Fair Strides 2]

Hi, I have been playing this mod and have suddenly got to a point where the game crashes every time I try to carry on.

 

If you haven't already, try adding this

 

"Disable Vertex Buffer Objects=1"

 

without the quotes to the end of the Graphics Options section of your swkotor.ini file.

[grolschhorne]

If you haven't already, try adding this

 

"Disable Vertex Buffer Objects=1"

 

without the quotes to the end of the Graphics Options section of your swkotor.ini file.

 

Hi,

 

This is already showing in my Graphics options in Kotor.ini, but thanks anyway.