...Or how I destroyed Lord Malak, saved the girl, and looked darned good doing it!
Alright so I finished Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR) last Sunday. That particular file took me about 26 hours to finish (I probably could shave off a bit of that time, but I’m guessing no more than a couple of hours at best). All I’ve got to say is this: Wow! BioWare once again lived up to all my expectations.
*Spoilers Ahead! Do not read this if you intend to play the game and don’t want the final battle ruined*
My main character was the ultimate light-side Jedi, one who maxed out persuasion every chance he got allowing me quite a few of the special cinematic scenes or encounters – like saving Bastila (who admitted her love for me….awwwww) or resolving the Romeo/Juliet storyline on Dantooine by not only uniting the families but also encouraging them to buy the kids a home for the purpose of establishing “neutral ground.”
When it came to the last fight of the game, I figured out quickly that I was going to have to out-duel the end boss and avoid a straight battle of Force Powers (much like Count Dooku and Yoda). I must have tried that final battle about 5 or 6 times Saturday night, each time getting quickly frustrated. To summarize, the first time I just tried to overwhelm Lord Malak and unfortunately was just worn down via attrition (namely, Lord Malak uses the power of the Star Forge to refill his life by using captured Jedi – all being held in tubes placed around the room). The second through fifth tries I ran around the room and tried to free the Jedi and thus prevent Malak from refilling his life.
It didn’t work.
By running around, I was leaving myself wide open and Malak would just pick me apart. I became very frustrated and decided that I’d better just come back to this later.
Sunday evening, I sat down in front of my gaming system while Misti called her grandparents to tell them the good news. Having had a chance to think about this final battle, I decided to take a more patient approach. I loaded up my character with every enhancement possible, saved the game, and walked in. After a bit of dialogue, I saved the game again (just in case I died, I wanted to avoid all the dialogue again). Once again, I out-dueled him with my lightsabers (yes, I was dual-wielding), but this time, I didn’t follow him or try to free the Jedi. Instead, I got a bit of distance between us and used the time to refill my health and reset my enhancements. Each time he came back with refilled health, I was also at full health. Rinse and repeat X number of times. Finally he had no one else to tap for health and I used a couple of flurries and down he went. Some more dialogue about the quirks of fate and then a final scene similar to the end of Star Wars: A New Hope (Episode IV).
*End Spoiler*
All in all, it felt like I was playing through a Star Wars movie. The characters were great, with wonderful interaction, not only with the main character, but also chatting with each other. For a bit of humor, try placing Bastila and Mission in your party for a bit and watch their interaction.
The entire game was very heavily D&D based, starting with the choice of attributes (Strength, Dexterity, etc), skills, feats, and so on. Everything was determined by a d20 roll (a twenty-sided dice, the staple of all pen-and-paper games) and your success was based on the random number rolled plus your attribute modifier plus any ranks you may have in the skill check compared against a Difficulty Check (an established number). For example, trying to convince an enemy to trust you would have a higher DC compared to a neutral party or a friend (DC’s might be 25, 20, and 15 respectively). Let’s say your persuasion was at a skill rank of 10 (9 ranks of the skill plus an additional +1 charisma modifier). To convince your friend you would need a 5 or higher, whereas the enemy would require a roll of 15 or higher to guarantee success that he would trust you. Not too hard to follow.
The graphics on the game weren’t too dated all things considered, but honestly, anyone playing the game at this point would be playing purely for entertainment and nostalgia purposes anyway. The storyline itself was immense and had wonderful side-quests/branches that allowed you to not only make your main character more powerful, but also learn more about your companions and their personal quirks. Like all RPG’s (role-playing games, for you none gamers out there), it was important to talk to everyone, however (like most BioWare games), you quickly learned to look for named character’s only. Citizen didn’t have much to say to you, whereas Todd McEnpeesee could let you know about the increasing number of monster attacks in the area.
So the final verdict? This was a great game and well worth playing and replaying.
My next review will likely be Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Not quite a retro-game for the purposes of reviewing, but a fun one none-the-less.
