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FOAMGaP 13: Star Wars Knights of the old Republic
a year ago
General
i can also be found at:
https://www.deviantart.com/bardicdragoon
and
patreon.com/ZaBardicDragoon
So this is a game that has been floating around in my games to beat list for over a decade now and having finally beaten I have some thoughts…
To start with the controls in combat are not great, honestly combat in general isn’t great. Generally i rather enjoy tactical pause combat in RPGs; pausing a real time combat system to plan out a few seconds of action watch how that plan plays out pausing again to change thing mid execution or to plan out the following few seconds once your plan is executed and repeating this has a great feel to it; and while I don’t think D&D is the best fit (the capacity to which basic attacks and RNG rule over combat in an essentialist interpretation of the Rules makes the planning neither very deep nor interesting in the moment to moment) but it can work with a good interface and encounter design. KoTOR has none of the former and little of the latter.
The interface largely seems fine early on when you’re really only have the options of normal attacks (while technically you do have other options those are consumable items in a game where money isn’t easy to come by especially early on, and alternate attacks that sacrifices defense for especially early on some marginal boost to attack effectiveness for ~6 seconds/1 turn) but as more combat options get introduced, most prominently Jedi Powers, the ability to effectively issue commands quickly drops off. While the 3rd person camera makes exploration visually nice and easy to grock it really hurts the combat, especially since you can only select commands for your currently selected party member, and while you can easily switch party members this also shifts the camera and since AI pathfinding isn’t great in this game the location of a party member can semi regularly prevent you from issuing the command you wanted to. Also, while there are rules and abilities based around positioning and movement in combat, making use of them ranges from being all but impossible to very awkward to use depending on your settings (by default movement controls in combat are turned off, but even when turned on you can only move around manually via normal walking out of tactical pause). Honestly this wouldn’t be so bad if you could customize Ai for characters (and the player selected character could work from AI) but this was before such things were common.
Honestly this is a game where the fun part is planning out and executing character builds. The equipment selection is one of the better I’ve seen in a game, every piece of equipment has a unique function and design in a gameplay sense (also visually but it doesn’t really bring anything to the game due to a very limited visual design sensibility) combining this with stats having low values and strong effects on things as well as, to a lesser extent, force powers and feats being designed in a way to give you various options; there are a litany of ways you can build characters, especially the Jedi in your party.
However, the diversity of builds is a bit of a double-edged sword, most prominently with the player character. The idea of a Star wars story climaxing with a one on one showdown between two force users is a no brainer; however alongside the design of the final boss this makes any builds that aren’t damage/DPS focused incredibly difficult to use if not impossible. I played the Player character as a, mostly light side aligned scoundrel/jedi councilor skill monkey and support combatant (using force powers to buff stats, stun enemies, and heal whilst having moderate to high levels in pretty much all skills) leaving the fighting mostly to my party members; commonly a DPS focused dual blade lightsaber wielding jedi and a raw damage focused duel melee weapon wielder. For 99% of the game this was honestly kind of brokenly overpowered, even without the damage dealing party members my stuns were powerful enough and MP reserves deep enough the enemies would never get to act while I slowly chipped away their HP with weak normal attacks buffed by a moderate backstab bonus. However even though my build was heavily focused on making my stuns as powerful as possible the final boss only had a (theoretically; multiple attempts to play the fight that way I never saw the stun work) 50% chance of being affected by them and could hit me for 25%-30% of my HP in a single basic attack; and since it’s a one on one dual my damage dealing frontline party members weren’t there to cover for my weaknesses either.
Honestly I have a hard time saying if I like this game; the opening section on Taris is very slow and simple from a gameplay standpoint (and having played through that section before in prior attempts to beat this the story is rote and predictable by now) then the game starts to get interesting and fun until near the end where my build and party composition became incredibly overpowered to where I was just going through the motions of playing the game just so I could beat it, and then the final boss basically slapped me while shouting ‘that’s not how you play the game ‘ which leaves a not great taste in my mouth right at the end.
https://www.deviantart.com/bardicdragoon
and
patreon.com/ZaBardicDragoon
So this is a game that has been floating around in my games to beat list for over a decade now and having finally beaten I have some thoughts…
To start with the controls in combat are not great, honestly combat in general isn’t great. Generally i rather enjoy tactical pause combat in RPGs; pausing a real time combat system to plan out a few seconds of action watch how that plan plays out pausing again to change thing mid execution or to plan out the following few seconds once your plan is executed and repeating this has a great feel to it; and while I don’t think D&D is the best fit (the capacity to which basic attacks and RNG rule over combat in an essentialist interpretation of the Rules makes the planning neither very deep nor interesting in the moment to moment) but it can work with a good interface and encounter design. KoTOR has none of the former and little of the latter.
The interface largely seems fine early on when you’re really only have the options of normal attacks (while technically you do have other options those are consumable items in a game where money isn’t easy to come by especially early on, and alternate attacks that sacrifices defense for especially early on some marginal boost to attack effectiveness for ~6 seconds/1 turn) but as more combat options get introduced, most prominently Jedi Powers, the ability to effectively issue commands quickly drops off. While the 3rd person camera makes exploration visually nice and easy to grock it really hurts the combat, especially since you can only select commands for your currently selected party member, and while you can easily switch party members this also shifts the camera and since AI pathfinding isn’t great in this game the location of a party member can semi regularly prevent you from issuing the command you wanted to. Also, while there are rules and abilities based around positioning and movement in combat, making use of them ranges from being all but impossible to very awkward to use depending on your settings (by default movement controls in combat are turned off, but even when turned on you can only move around manually via normal walking out of tactical pause). Honestly this wouldn’t be so bad if you could customize Ai for characters (and the player selected character could work from AI) but this was before such things were common.
Honestly this is a game where the fun part is planning out and executing character builds. The equipment selection is one of the better I’ve seen in a game, every piece of equipment has a unique function and design in a gameplay sense (also visually but it doesn’t really bring anything to the game due to a very limited visual design sensibility) combining this with stats having low values and strong effects on things as well as, to a lesser extent, force powers and feats being designed in a way to give you various options; there are a litany of ways you can build characters, especially the Jedi in your party.
However, the diversity of builds is a bit of a double-edged sword, most prominently with the player character. The idea of a Star wars story climaxing with a one on one showdown between two force users is a no brainer; however alongside the design of the final boss this makes any builds that aren’t damage/DPS focused incredibly difficult to use if not impossible. I played the Player character as a, mostly light side aligned scoundrel/jedi councilor skill monkey and support combatant (using force powers to buff stats, stun enemies, and heal whilst having moderate to high levels in pretty much all skills) leaving the fighting mostly to my party members; commonly a DPS focused dual blade lightsaber wielding jedi and a raw damage focused duel melee weapon wielder. For 99% of the game this was honestly kind of brokenly overpowered, even without the damage dealing party members my stuns were powerful enough and MP reserves deep enough the enemies would never get to act while I slowly chipped away their HP with weak normal attacks buffed by a moderate backstab bonus. However even though my build was heavily focused on making my stuns as powerful as possible the final boss only had a (theoretically; multiple attempts to play the fight that way I never saw the stun work) 50% chance of being affected by them and could hit me for 25%-30% of my HP in a single basic attack; and since it’s a one on one dual my damage dealing frontline party members weren’t there to cover for my weaknesses either.
Honestly I have a hard time saying if I like this game; the opening section on Taris is very slow and simple from a gameplay standpoint (and having played through that section before in prior attempts to beat this the story is rote and predictable by now) then the game starts to get interesting and fun until near the end where my build and party composition became incredibly overpowered to where I was just going through the motions of playing the game just so I could beat it, and then the final boss basically slapped me while shouting ‘that’s not how you play the game ‘ which leaves a not great taste in my mouth right at the end.
