This week on Retro Game Friday I’m covering a favorite game of mine on the original Xbox. It’s Knights of the Old Republic!
Plot Synopsis: The story takes place approximately 4,000 years before the rise of the Galactic Empire. Former Jedi Darth Malak, a Dark Lord of the Sith and Darth Revan’s former apprentice, has unleashed a Sith armada against the Republic. Malak’s aggression has left the Jedi scattered and vulnerable; many Jedi Knights have fallen in battle and others have sworn allegiance to Malak.
Plot: The plot is fairly standard Star Wars, but since you could make your own choices that would affect the entire game it was also different from any other Star Wars game. I enjoyed it at the time, and probably still would if I were to play it for the first time today.
Characters: This game introduced one of my favorite characters in any Western RPG, HK-47 and he was an absolute blast to have along in your journey in the game. The rest of the cast is good, but none can compare to the truly spectacular HK-47.
Gameplay: The gameplay was turn based, although it didn’t necessarily look that way when you played it, based off of a Third Edition Dungeons and Dragons D20 ruleset. As the main character you could be pretty much whatever you want, although once you were able to use a lightsaber it was sort of stupid to play with anything but that.
Art: It’s not amazing by today’s standards, but it’s not really bad either.
Music: Standard Star Wars fare.
Overall: If you’ve never played this game, give it a shot because it’s a classic.
For those who like: Star Wars, RPGs with choice based stories, D&D.
Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above.
Didn’t play the first only the second, seemed biased toward the dark side.
The second was an incomplete mess, you owe it to yourself to play the first, because it’s much better in terms of being a complete story.
I know at the end of the second one the dark side NPCs kind of take over in a cut scene, but it was left incomplete in terms of story as to what really happened. Do you know if there was ever a follow-up in any form to say what happened?
Yea, the first one was much better. It even had a WTF moment that shocked sooooo many people, including me. Probably one of the ten best that I can think of in gaming actually. I mean, it was kind of a “Luke, I’m your father” type of thing.