After playing KOTOR how did TSL make you feel?

[Blix]

So the general vibe of KOTOR that I got was upbeat, fun, heroism wins over evil, the guy gets the girl (sorta) and saves the galaxy. When I played TSL I felt sort of depressed and almost felt forced to play (some parts of) the game. I know that the two games share drastically polar opposite themes/views but what I want to know is how did you feel when playing TSL after finishing the first KOTOR?

[The Doctor]

On my first playthrough, I was more confused than anything else. Between the cut content and my own impatience, I missed out on pretty much the entire meat of the plot by skipping through or just plain avoiding dialogue. When I reached the end of the game and it stopped so abruptly, I was pretty pissed off. I didn't play the game for almost a year after I first got it, because I really and honestly felt it was a ****ty game.

 

Then a friend urged me to try playing the game again and put more effort into pursuing dialogue. I humoured him, and was pleasantly surprised to have a good number of the questions I had from my first playthrough answered, usually by Kreia or G0-T0. I also found that the game felt more complete when played as a female character, though I could just feel that way because my first playthrough was male and, as I mentioned, that was a terrible experience. Now, with the all-but-entirely-completed TSLRP (or even the slightly less extensive but still quite helpful) TSLRCM, the game feels much more cohesive and intelligent instead of rushed and tossed together. The plot is still very much dialogue based, however, far more so than its predecessor.

 

As for the emotional feel, I definitely agree that it was much darker and more vague about the lines of good and evil (when it comes to the bigger picture, anyway; the dark and light options for your PC couldn't be more blatant). With the first game, my desire to play came from the action and characters themselves. In the second, I find I'm compelled to play more out of a desire to hear or learn something I haven't in a previous playthrough. This despite the fact that I've played it countless times now; I still hope to see or hear something new every time I play.

 

I will agree that in more recent playthroughs, both Peragus and Telos are a massive drag. I can take as long as a week to play through them, in only - at the absolute most - eight to ten hours of gameplay. I just can't put myself through them for too long in one go.

[TKA-001]

I played TSL first, probably because I already knew the main twist of the first one and knew nothing about the sequel.

[Allronix]

My opinion of TSL is that it makes me very angry and frustrated. Not only was it a rush job where half the game ended up on the cutting room floor and the end result looked the part, but it felt pointless.

 

Save or kill the Jedi Masters? Doesn't matter, they die anyway. Nar Shadaa is, and always will be, a crap-sack. Korriban was too short to be much fun. Dantooine was a sucker punch if you've played the first, as it systematically goes out of its way to take a gigantic whiz all over all you did in Knights 1 and then rub your nose in it.

 

It was great to see T3-M4 take a few levels in toughness, and while HK-47 was his usual misanthropic self, he seemed...off...somehow. And Canderous...it's like he learned nothing from his time cracking heads for Davik. Swaggering, boastful, unrepentant, going back to burning worlds for sport when he said in the first game that his people needed a new direction...The only way I was able to buy it was that he was delivering my DSM Exile exactly the Mandalorian stereotype he'd been expecting. ("You aren't Revan. Why am I wasting my time with you?")

 

The rest of my party sniped and squabbled for my Exile's attention and affections like courtiers around a king. The icing on the cake was finding out that you'd put some kind of Force compulsion on them, wittingly or not. I was less concerned with being able to get their stories and more interested in manipulating them. And after you unlocked their Force potential, they had nothing further to say or do with you. I really missed Mission Vao or a character like her. Mission was so sunny and sweet that it counterbalanced a lot of the dark stuff. I missed Jolee with his smart-ass remarks and wise insight. Here, no such luck.

 

So, I end up with a quest that doesn't matter, a crew I don't like very much, planets and people that hate you no matter what you do, and a gigantic mess of an ending. The only way I tolerate playing it is on the Dark Side. If you're going to be treated as a monster, and if the whole thing is pointless, you might as well reap the benefits.

[Sith Holocron]

I played TSL first, probably because I already knew the main twist of the first one and knew nothing about the sequel.

 

Same thing over here.

[Qui-Don Jorn]

Strangely enough, I'm probably the only person that likes TSL, but I have to agree with Allronix.

In lieu of all that is terribly wrong with the game I still love playing.

 

So, ok, Revan is king...i give.

[mur'phon]

What I felt? intrigued is probably the best word.

 

I guess my oppinion is almost the complete opposite of Allronix', I found the first to be a perfection of the SW formula, a cheery romp through a universe where everyone is either a saint or satan. Mission in particular frustrated me, as her being part of the crew didn't make much sence, since when does a street urchin make a good super-soldier? In short, while I enjoyed the first, I never cared much for my companions, or the mission, and my brain was forced to give up any thought about immersion. Sure, the mood was cheery, but in a "standard" feelgod movie way.

 

Which is why TSL blew me away, I came expecting another SW game, and instead got the result of someone looking at the SW universe and wanting to push the limitations it puts on a game to the limits. A villain who wants to destroy the force with good reason. A crew that in adition to being believably capable of kicking ass, was deep enough that I actually cared about how they thought. A universe that utilized it's bleak setting to make it more believable and interesting. A main quest that I actually cared about because, while the universe was technically at stake, it was the development of the PC that was the focus.

 

And just to answer some of Allronix' points.

 

but it felt pointless

 

Each to their own I guess, K1 was about the saving/destruction of the universe by the PC, K2 was about the PC him/herself. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on which is more meaningfull.

 

Save or kill the Jedi Masters? Doesn't matter, they die anyway

Sure, but how you dealt with them mattered for who the exile was, and the meeting becomes rather diferent depending on what you choose. In that way Taris was worse in K1, what you did there had absolutely no effect.

 

Dantooine was a sucker punch

 

IIRC: Dantooine was screwed in K1, I don't see how K2 ruined it by giving an interpretation of what happened next.

 

For the rest, I'm pretty sure we'll have to agree to disagree, as we seem to want and expect completeley different things from our games.

[Allronix]

The philosophy angle was its only redeeming feature. I've said in other places that Kreia, as much as I disliked her, probably had the right idea about the Force being uncaring and cruel. Atton, as much as I wanted to give him 200 credits and leave him in the Red Sector of Nar Shadaa, had a scathingly brutal grain of truth in his rant about "men and women, arguing over religion while the galaxy burns."

 

It had the side effect of an Alan Moore and Grant Morrison binge. Beautifully miserable illustration of how truly screwed up the situation was, brilliant deconstruction of everything that you thought was cool about said universe, saying a lot of things that probably needed to get said...

 

But in the end? You're left looking over your stacks of Silver Age comics and you can't un-see Rorschach and Ozymandias.

 

God knows I don't mind the occasional dark piece (Blake's 7, the aforementioned Alan Moore comics), but it's a measure of the pretentious to say only the bleak stuff has merit. KOTOR was what convinced me to give the GFFA another chance after being disgusted by Attack of the Clones. KOTOR 2 almost proved that it didn't merit the second chance after all.

[Ctrl Alt Del]

I remember being vastly unimpressed at first. I lie. At the very first I was so happy for finally having my hands on KotOR II (although the waiting was far from big) that I played it from dusk to dawn and I couldn't really tell the difference between what I had in my hands and K1. And it was awesome, as much as it felt like a K1 expansion pack, it was exactly what I wanted. Next few days came and I was mesmerized by Atton's remarks and Kreia's quotes. Everything nice and eerie (Peragus was somehow spooky the first time you play it, although it completely loses the magic on the next playthroughs. As I've said once, it would be nice in another kind of game, not in one you're supposed to play several times. That's why it feels like such a drag. As for Telos, well, Telos was just poorly done), with a creepy Sith Lord aboard a ship with invisible Sith assassins, dead bodies, malfunctioning droids and whatnot. I t even had a hand severing. I was having a blast.

 

Then Telos came. Jesus, I was stuck on the Citadel for hours, running uninteristing errands, meeting bland characters and trying to solve broken quests - though I didn't know that at the time ("Batono" still haunts me to this day). Okay, the surface was a little better and once I hit the Polar Regin things began to look better. Imprisonment, more silver HKs, ok, I felt in peril once again. Good. Oh, and I can use the Ebon Hawk now? Amazing, I was ready to explore the Galaxy Map as I did on the first game.

 

But there were no real good planets as I'd find out later.

 

I started with Dantooine and I was enjoying the dejà-vu with a little change here and there. Salvagers, Khoonda and a Civil War to spice things up. The whole feeling began to crumble as I noticed this Dantooine was smaller than the first. And what's worse, smaller and most of the areas were not even new to begin with. If I recall correctly I left Dantooine before completing the quest there. Vrook wouldn't die from old age anyway.

 

Then I hit Nar Shaddaa, possbly the biggest disappointment, only second to the completely maimed/cloned Korriban. The way Atton talked about it, it sounded like K2's Taris. Oh, what amazing memories I had of Taris. That's what Telos should have been like. I mean, Telos AND Peragus. Okay, it was darker and grittier, and people on the street begged me for money, not unlike Taris Undercity. Expected. But the vibrant life I felt whenever I was on the Upper City of Taris I never saw anywhere in Nar Shaddaa. And that frustrated me a lot. It was like the game wasn't even trying to bring the worldwide city to life. Tattoine had a lot more going on than Nar Shaddaa, or so I thought. I guess I got into that Quarren's hideout, found Zez and welcomed Mira aboard then left for good.

 

Then there was Onderon. Blockade, yeah. I heard some Onderonian soldier talking about it back in Telos so, nice, there was some immersion to the game. I'm then forced to attempt a landing on the wilderness of Dxun - probably one of the best places on the entire game, which, ironically, isn't even a planet. Meeting the mandalorians was nice, but yet another dejà-vu was better: Mandalore, from clan Ordo made my day. When I heard I was going to the "massive" city of Iziz, I felt uneasy: massive, right. That's what they said about Nar Shaddaa and look at what happened.

 

I couldn't be more right. Iziz (and thus Onderon) was not much more than four modules (out of which two where the cramped landing pad and the lacking spaceport) and the Royal Palace, which ends up being much more interesting than the rest of the planet. The fact it was so small didn't bothered me, actually. KotOR, after all, didn't have many bigger planets. What did grind my gears was the fact that it didn't have enough interesting characters to fill those areas. As always, I felt like I was exploring a ghost town, not a thriving city. I'll admit I had some fun trying to find my way out of the planet but it mostly boring. By that time I was almost decided that K1 was by far better.

 

So next on line was Korriban. And we all know how bad it sucked. After I was finally done with the Hidden Tomb (I recall thinking at the time it was bad deal to change all of the tombs on the Valley for that one) I was very frustrated at the developers, God and humanity. What had they done to my beloved game?

 

And that feeling stuck when I went through Dantooine again, Dxun and Onderon one last time (the last good bit in the game) and the Ravager. By the time I arrived at Malachor, the game was playing itself. My character was a level 30ish Jedi Guardian Watchman who didn't even needed to heal anymore. And I didn't care. End.

 

Game stayed on the shelf while I replayed KotOR I to feel better. Meanwhile, I learned how badly the game was cut and I started reading tidbits of the story. I decided that it was mostly interesting and that I had somehow missed good parts of it. Then I played it again, and again and again and I never liked it as much as the first game but I didn't hate it anymore. I played it so much that it had grown in me, the story made sense I was convinced it could be a hell of a game if it was completed. Not as good as the first but still good. So, I still need to play the restoration mod to decide. Hell, why not now?

[Totenkopf]

I originally felt it was much too short when I first played it. Also, the artwork in the game was a bit uneven. Still, it was a more complex story and you could level up higher and acquire more powers than in K1. It was less than really satisfying, but not so bad that I didn't waste time on many a subsequent playthrough.

[mstr kenobi]

In my first playthrough i felt a bit... bored.

There was nothing "cool", "exciting" going on, it felt like i was going through the motions, because the game forced me down that path and not because i wanted or cared about the story and the characters, i coudn't connect with the story at all.

 

I kept waiting for the game to kick it up a notch, thinking, the next planet will be better (Onderon/Dxun was better), more exciting, but it just never happened.

 

And the ending pffff... Good God does this thing never ends, please make it stop!!!!!!

 

Oh and the story, the whole kill the force thing, was the most unstarwarsy story in the EU, beating NJO, since i was way more of a Star Wars fan, then RPG fan, it kinda pissed me off.

 

 

After a while i learned to appreciate TSL quite a bit, pay atention to the story, but still think they should have added more cool stuff to do in the middle part of the game, and the ending in just undefendable.

[jonathan7]

I love The Sith Lords, it is in fact my favourite computer game, yes it is an incomplete work, with cut content galore, unfinished and lacking polish, but despite all this I love it. Let me take you through my play-through, firstly it must be said that I played KotOR 2 before I played KotOR and much as I love the first game I prefer the second.

 

My first impression of Peragus, was that it was playing a bit like a survival horror, which given I like Zombie games and films, didn't bother me at all. Was a somewhat strange atmosphere, my general thoughts of the level was what an earth is going on?

 

Then Sion arrived... I remember thinking, crap, how am I gonna fight this dude, he's a walking corpse and I don't even have a lightsaber. I actually really did like Peragus and the Harbinger as a level, the problem is, a lack of re-play value due to their being so few characters to interact with. Ultimately I think a top secret research centre with a mad scientist, would of allowed for a similar atmopshere, but for character interaction. Anyways having escaped Sion, Peragus and the Harbinger (which very much reminded me of Event Horizon, again not a bad thing IMO), came far more detailed conversations with Kreia...

 

For me Kreia is the best video game character I've come across, she is of course nuts, and I don't think destroying the force is even possible. But in terms of layers, what she says, what her truths and lies are, she is an interesting study, and gives interest philosophies against the player on either the light or Dark path. For me Kreia is one of the best parts of this game, though I know some hate her. I think Atton is also a very good character, of the newly introduced characters both Kriea and Atton are done superbly, unfortunately there is not as much depth to the other new NPC's.

 

I'm sort of Neutral on Telos Space Station, I think they could of been a lot more inventive with it, and it could really of done with cool command centre for Grenn and the rest of those in charge, overlooking Telos would have been very cool.

 

I did however really like Telos surface, I thought it intriguing, with a great coast-line and the military base; capped of by the Polar Plateaux all in my opinion making it well worth the visit!

 

The first planet I headed too was Dantooine, from all I had heard in game, made the most sense to look for Jedi there, I liked Dantooine, with the sub-themes, and I liked it even more after playing KotOR, the civil war was good, but is much improved in size and scope by the RCM. I have always disliked Vrook, he's an ass! Anyways having finished there and enjoyed it I headed to Onderon and Dxun.

 

I think Onderon and Dxun are my favourite places in the whole of TSL, very different, one a jungle apparently empty and the other a city. Both very different and the return to the planet I think is the best part of the game, the simultaneous mission is excellent IMO!

 

Nar Shaddaa is decent, and really gets going once the Exiles enters the JekJek Tar, combined with Goto's ship I think once you get to the "meat" so to speak that it is a good planet. Korriban, empty and desolate I liked, though I was disappointed at Vash being dead.

 

The return to Dantooine I thought was brilliant and Kreia's intervention and speech to the council is fantastic. The Jedi Masters are cowards, and I think that proven in their actions there (this is obviously on a lightside playthrough). The vanilla game then goes somewhat astray, but I think the battle for Telos is decent, and I enjoyed the Ravager, in the Restored Content the game is alot more what should be and I enjoyed Malachor alot especially with the way the droid factory and things played out there.

 

All in all I really enjoyed TSL's themes, philosophy, character development and story, but hey thats just me!

[Ctrl Alt Del]

We should make an poll to determine something that has been bugging me for a while now: that people who went for K2 first like it better than the K1. It's just a recurring characteristic, IMO.

[Isaac Clarke]

I think both are good in their own ways, and I did play K2 before K1. K2 has the darker story, while K1 is closer to the movies. K1 was much shorter, while K2 was long. Really, really, really long. K1 kept most of the old planets, while K2 introduced alot of "newer" EU ones. Though I have to say, Dxun was one of my favorite planets.

[jonathan7]

We should make an poll to determine something that has been bugging me for a while now: that people who went for K2 first like it better than the K1. It's just a recurring characteristic, IMO.

 

Yeah, I had noticed that, although knowing me as I do, even if I had played K1 first I like TSL because its much Darker and mature, I like K1, don't get me wrong, but its all nice and childy, I think TSL deals alot more with the effects of war.

[Kitty Kitty]

We should make an poll to determine something that has been bugging me for a while now: that people who went for K2 first like it better than the K1. It's just a recurring characteristic, IMO.

 

Yeah, I had noticed that, although knowing me as I do, even if I had played K1 first I like TSL because its much Darker and mature, I like K1, don't get me wrong, but its all nice and childy, I think TSL deals alot more with the effects of war.

 

That's actually very common in most games with sequels. I've been gaming since essentially the dawn of the home computer era, and I've seen this same thing happen time and time again.

 

One of the more prominent examples would be the Fallout series. I think I'll always love the first the most, but most people I knew who jumped in with Fallout 2 tend to like it better. I won't even go into my opinions on Fallout 3 (and beyond), but suffice to say the same sort of phenomenon tends to apply, if anything in an even more pronounced sense due to the vast differences in style and feel between the "early" Fallout titles and the more modern FPS-styled ones.

 

The point to this little trip down Fallout lane is that, even though when I've participated in similar discussions regarding that series, the fans of Fallout 1 generally admit that Fallout 2 was a larger, longer, and more "advanced" game in terms of features and whatnot, yet Fallout 1 seemed to have a "better" story in some way they couldn't always even put their finger on.

 

Fans of the second tend to have a similar view, where they can freely admit the merits of the first, yet they almost universally hold the second as ultimately superior, and from what I've seen of the fans who came in at Fallout 3 or New Vegas, the trend is much the same, though often with a much wider margin of opinion due again to the vast differences in feel and game style.

 

I guess when it comes right down to it, there's something to the old adage of "There's nothing like the first time."

 

-Kitty

[Qui-Don Jorn]

Yeah, I had noticed that, although knowing me as I do, even if I had played K1 first I like TSL because its much Darker and mature, I like K1, don't get me wrong, but its all nice and childy, I think TSL deals alot more with the effects of war.

 

I agree with this as well.

I played TSL first and prefer it to K1, even though I have to agree with alot of the stuff Allronix said (it does have it's faults), I still love TSL, cause K1 is just too...I don't know, ..goofy? cliche? ..etc;etc.

When I play K1 I just want to slap the s*** out of Bastila. I find it annoying when the game stops to prompt you to speak to an npc. so on and so forth..

And I think the graphics are much better in TSL.

[Ctrl Alt Del]

I think both are good in their own ways, and I did play K2 before K1. K2 has the darker story, while K1 is closer to the movies. K1 was much shorter, while K2 was long. Really, really, really long. K1 kept most of the old planets, while K2 introduced alot of "newer" EU ones. Though I have to say, Dxun was one of my favorite planets.

I always thought it was the other way around. Even with the restored content mods K1 always lasted longer for me. Maybe I got used to the gameplay and just finished it faster. And I'm slow gamer, especially when it comes to RPGs, which I savor more.

Yeah, I had noticed that, although knowing me as I do, even if I had played K1 first I like TSL because its much Darker and mature, I like K1, don't get me wrong, but its all nice and childy, I think TSL deals alot more with the effects of war.

That's unquestionable. K1 is clichéd, but it works. Plus, I was like 13 at the time I played it, when I still thought TPM was a good movie, so it didn't bother me much. Even now, really, I still think it's what the prequels should have been somehow. While the story was certainly not as original, it did drive further into the story. The only part I remember getting bored was the time I got stuck at the Rancor on Taris, while this happened more than a couple of times on K2.

 

I guess when it comes right down to it, there's something to the old adage of "There's nothing like the first time."

QFT, that must be it. ^^

[greggomonkey]

Personally I played K1 first, like 2003 sort of time almost. I enjoyed it and it was a perfect fit for what would happen later on in the galaxy. Next I played K2 a year or so after it came out. It was less than enjoyable in terms of balance but has good lessons and again meshes well with the galactic events and allows you to take control of someone who is not hugely important in the galaxy.

 

I don't think that I really liked either better but TSL was a bit sad in that it was not complete. Now Tor ruined preexisting Canon and inn doing so my life. Lol just kidding but it does suck it messed with canon.

 

~Greggomonkey

[mstr kenobi]

That's actually very common in most games with sequels. I've been gaming since essentially the dawn of the home computer era, and I've seen this same thing happen time and time again.

 

One of the more prominent examples would be the Fallout series. I think I'll always love the first the most, but most people I knew who jumped in with Fallout 2 tend to like it better. I won't even go into my opinions on Fallout 3 (and beyond), but suffice to say the same sort of phenomenon tends to apply, if anything in an even more pronounced sense due to the vast differences in style and feel between the "early" Fallout titles and the more modern FPS-styled ones.

 

The point to this little trip down Fallout lane is that, even though when I've participated in similar discussions regarding that series, the fans of Fallout 1 generally admit that Fallout 2 was a larger, longer, and more "advanced" game in terms of features and whatnot, yet Fallout 1 seemed to have a "better" story in some way they couldn't always even put their finger on.

 

Fans of the second tend to have a similar view, where they can freely admit the merits of the first, yet they almost universally hold the second as ultimately superior, and from what I've seen of the fans who came in at Fallout 3 or New Vegas, the trend is much the same, though often with a much wider margin of opinion due again to the vast differences in feel and game style.

 

I guess when it comes right down to it, there's something to the old adage of "There's nothing like the first time."

 

-Kitty

 

I agree with this, even though the gameplay/graphics improvements were marginal in TSL, it makes a bit tougher to play a game with less force powers, worst graphics, crappy jedi robes and so forth.

 

As a KOTOR player you remember how you felt the first time, and say (this is an exageration btw) TSL is boring, nothing happens in the story and the gameplay is exactly the same... lazy job.

While if you haven't played KOTOR you don't have that reference.

[Titanius Anglesmith]

I likely can't add anything new that anyone else hasn't already said here or elsewhere. While KotOR is a more complete, traditional game, the things that make TSL special are the characters and the deeper messages/implications about the state of the universe.

 

Which is why it didn't leave a good first impression with me. I liked it for the first few hours because I was so excited to get into a new story, but as I played on, it lost a bit of its thunder. Throughout most of the game, I felt like nothing was really happening. It felt like I was just going from planet to planet doing completely disconnected things for no real reason. And I don't even want to think about the final act.

 

As I played through it a few more times and read up on the cut parts of the story, it really gained its own unique appeal, and at this point, I'd say I prefer it to the original.

[Vun0]

TSL dissapointed me. The whole story of the hunger and destroying the force was way to emo for me.

 

K1 on the other side, awesome story, awesome everything eheh.

 

That's just me tho.

[Darth Dan 012]

Now that TSL's story has been mostly restored, it's my favorite of the two. In my opinion, the writing and story is more interesting.

[MDX]

The second game is mostly free of archetypical conflict between Jedi and Sith morals, which naturally disappoints an average Star Wars fan. Its plot is based on the psychology of power, conflict and, first of all, on the one of solitude. And such stories never give exhaustive and definitive answers. They are written to make people thoughtful after the ending. And to make a sense of the wind driving the fallen leafage along the road.

 

So there is no point in comparing these two games. This is like comparing Romanticism and Magical Realism in literature. They are simply meant for different kinds of people.

[Blix]

TSL dissapointed me. The whole story of the hunger and destroying the force was way to emo for me.

 

K1 on the other side, awesome story, awesome everything eheh.

 

That's just me tho.

 

Yea I felt that KOTOR 1 had a much better vibe and didn't make me want to cut my wrists or wear black eyeliner nearly as much.