Ahh, Kotor 2, my first morally ambiguous RPG that made me question if it was wrong to help homeless people due to unforseen consequences as a 12 year old (which, BTW Kreia, it IS good to help homeless people who are starving, wtf dude)
That was a well done little compass thing, and a lovely trip down memory lane. Thanks for the share Jesus!
Kreia: “Helping people? What are you, five?”
Kreia: “Hurting people? What are you, five?”
Kreia: “Ignoring people? What are you, five?”
10/10 mentor figure
“Ugh, get off my back, mom! I’ll figure out ethics by myself! Jeez…”
Kreia is the Wise Old Mentor by way of cranky, ornery contrarian and I love it. She’s exactly what you’d expect a librarian who left the Jedi Order because she thought she could do better to be like. And that’s not even getting into spoiler territory!
She’s great - love or hate her, she has more personality than almost any other character I can think of. Even her contradictory actions can be examined and explained based on who is there to see her and the lessons she wants them to learn.
Even if said lesson is “don’t touch or try to influence my apprentice, you imbecile!”.
This dilemma and seemingly contradicting moral enforcement really messed with me on my first playthrough lol, I was like, “wtf do you want, woman? In your eyes beating up this poor innocent man is just as bad as helping him out with a few credits… so, what is it then??” and every time I tried to follow her way (I didn’t pick the right options that’d have her and I in agreement) she’d get even more pissed off and at the latter half of the playthrough I was like yeah I’ll see you in my next playthrough. Buh-bye cryptic grey force user!
Kreia couldn’t care less about the beggar. The point of her lecture was to get you to consider the unintended consequences of your actions, since she was screwed over multiple times by her own. That’s why she says something no matter what you choose.
Kreia is a teacher before anything else. She’s also a massive hypocrite, which makes her infuriating if you don’t recognize it’s intentional.
I believe the Restored Content mod restores some scenes where you can actually earn her approval (including during the end game), which helps a lot.
It definitely took me a while to realise what her true meaning was by those lectures and while I don’t fully agree with everything that she says, some of the things do make sense and have a point (if not for being presented in a rather unsavoury way but I think that was the intention) also yes RCM does help with that… a lot! Which makes disagreeing with Kriea in some areas a lot less frustrating.
That old hermit you meet on Kassyyk is my favorite. I think that’s in #2… Set the tone for my entire life: you can walk the middle path. It’s so exhausting being purely good or evil, so be opportunistic!
Are you sure you’re not thinking of Jolee from Kotor 1 ?
Yeah that’s him. I forgot which one he was in. I played so much of these games about 20 years ago that it all blurred together
Jolee Bindo is awesome and the stories he has to share (and the life lessons too) are really really meaningful and it was nice to see someone perceiving the Jedi as flawed rather than do no evil types.
I never could get kotor 2 to run on my machines. I did play the first one. Years and years after it released. Somehow not knowing the twist.
I still did very poorly as it turns out being a sniper was a bad idea for the uhhh ending.
Cheats enabled it was and a complete respec later, tada! Fun.
KOTOR 1 was good, but KOTOR 2 was a masterpiece if you can stomach the janky combat from the first. The writing is [chef’s kiss]
The first KOTOR feels like it belongs in the original canon. It’s basically a perfect Star Wars movie with a bunch of game padding around it. It’s the most “Star Wars” Star Wars outside of the Original Trilogy.
KOTOR 2 did what Rian Johnson tried to do in deconstructing and subverting the usual Star Wars tropes, and did so a million times more competently than The Last Jedi. With the Restored Content mod it’s one of my favorite pieces of media ever.
Basically this: https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=OI2iOB8ydGo
That video has been in my aptly-named “Watch Eventually” playlist for ages. I should get around to actually watching it!
It’s insanely good, most things from him are great but I think this one may be my favourite.
I checked my playlist and it’s very nearly the oldest entry still on there. It’s definitely due for a watch by this point!
I’ve always found the first KotOR to be in the vein of a typical Star Wars story (Like the OT one), it’s something fun to engage with and fun to follow but KotOR 2 made me a huge fan of the “we’ll deconstruct every thing you knew about Star Wars to its core and you’re going to like it.” approach and boy oh boy do I like it! That story left such a huge imprint on me, I’ve been yearning for another story as good as KotOR 2’s since I first played. Each playthrough, I’m always taken aback by how good it is. They really did craft a masterpiece with this one and it shows. Wish the final game was finished and wasn’t so buggy but we have TSLRCM for that ehhehe.
Have you played Obsidians other works? They love deconstructing tropes. It’s what they’re known for, aside from top-tier writing and being screwed over by their publishers.
- Pillars of Eternity has a cleric party member who’s a bitter old man that openly hates his own god.
- Alpha Protocol is a clusterfuck of factions allying with and betraying each other, and remains the single most reactive RPG ever made (nearly every choice has consequences, sometimes thirty hours later). It’s hard to recommend though because the gameplay is terrible and it’s probably their buggiest game (it was rushed out the door by Sega, who refused to pay for post-release patches).
- Tyranny puts you into the shoes of an executive officer in the Evil Overlord’s army after they’ve already won. I haven’t played it but I’ve only heard good things.
- And of course New Vegas brought the Fallout series back to its morally gray roots by having all sides be terrible, but giving compelling practical (if not moral) reasons to side with them anyway.
I really really want to check out their other works, especially FNV. I find it comical how both FNV and K2 were created in such a short time and because of that plagued with issues but both excelled in their writing, storytelling, world-building and as you mentioned, deconstructing commonly established tropes about the franchises (the cherry on top imo).
That final gauntlet of infinitely respawning enemies in the Star Forge must have ended so many non-Jedi/Sith challenge runs. If you don’t have crowd control abilities and high enough DPS to get rid of one group before the next makes it to you, they will wear you down.
On the other hand if you DO have force powers (which the developers clearly balanced the endgame for) and a decent team, it’s a cathartic march of triumph as you blast your way through dozens of what used to be somewhat challenging enemies while Malak panics in the background.
Yeeeaaahh, as a single target sniper it was all hell. Respeccing into something force was very nice! I woke up as a soldier, damn it, I was going to be a soldier.
Except, like, no. The game said no lmfao.
Clearly the problem was that you didn’t bring enough grenades!
Grenades do solve a lot of problems!
If the amount of explosives you use doesn’t replace your current problem with a new, even larger one, you didn’t use enough explosives!
Very true for the death match with Bendak Starkiller!
I wish the options were a bit more flexible in that regard ahaha, like if the game said a little maayyybeee, perhaps it would’ve been smoother.
I’ve found that the force wave and the group stasis force powers do wonders for crowd control. I wish the armour in KotOR 1 was like KotOR 2’s and I didn’t have to significantly trade defense points to be able to use these advanced powers but by that time in the game, I’m powerful enough to withstand it all… it’d just be nice if I could actually do that…
That perk you get from Brianna in KOTOR 2 that lets you add your wisdom modifier to AC when unarmored would have worked wonders in KOTOR. It’s weird that Jedi can’t get the definitive monk class trait in the first game.
Actually, a mod like Tale of Two Wastelands that combines the two games’ content would be amazing. They fixed so many balance problems in the second game (then snapped balance in half over their knee with the crafting system - as is tradition). Porting those improvements to the first would be sublime.
Ikr?! Some basic QoL things that got introduced in KotOR 2 made so much sense and on repeat playthroughs of KotOR I kept trying to do those things only to remember they don’t exist lol
That mod sounds really interesting!
Visas being straight is a bigger betrayal than anything Kreia was capable of.
The Handmaiden being replaced in your party by Blandy McBlanderson if your Exile is female is another, though at least that one was fixed by one of the most popular mods.
Truly, the misogyny in these games knows no bounds. Women deserve to look at boobies too!
God I just want to belong to Atris, I can’t help it, I like girls who are objectively bad for me
Younger Me was so upset when there was no way to have Atris admit her
loveobsession and join you in a Dark Side playthrough. She’s the prime example of that “I can fix her (but the way she’s broken is hotter)” meme.Younger Me was so upset when there was no way to have Atris admit her love obsession and join you in a Dark Side playthrough.
That’s disgusting.
Obviously the only true path is for the exile to admit complete and total wrongdoing and join Atris.
TBH HK-47 likes a harsh master too much to be a libertarian.
Brianna “autistic as fuck” got me.
Obligatory Noah Caldwell-Gervais video essay on the two games: https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=OI2iOB8ydGo
PugJesus, why are you everywhere I look?!?
(Seriously, I absolutely love your memes though!!)
WFH + ADHD + Cripple = Terminally online
Pour one out for me 😔
(More seriously, I alt-tab away from whatever I’m doing to make a quick post every few hours. I’m just a meme vector, not a meme maker; it takes me like ten minutes and contributes a little life to my favorite Fediverse communities, so it’s no skin off my back!)
Well, thank you for your service and the great memes :))
