Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords

"Better than the original in some ways, but not without its flaws."

I loved the original Knights of the Old Republic so when I heard about a sequel being developed I was excited. Not only because it was a sequel to a great game, but it was being developed by Obsidian entertainment which consists mostly of former Black Isle staff who developed some great games including the legendary Fallout series and arguably the greatest RPG of all time Planescape: Torment. Did this team succeed in creating a worthy successor to Bioware's 2003 game of the year? Yes... but it's not without its flaws and those flaws can ruin an otherwise excellent game.

Gameplay: 8/10
Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords uses the same engine as the original KotOR so there's very little difference between the two when it comes to gameplay. In fact, the game is so identical to KotOR that you'll probably often question whether this game was worth the hefty price tag.

KotOR II does have some features that add a little newness to the game. First of all, unlike KotOR where you started out as either a soldier, scout or scoundrel in KotOR II your character starts out as a Jedi guardian, Jedi sentinel or Jedi consular meaning you can start developing your force powers earlier than level 7, and since it's possible to get up to level 50 your character can be practically unstoppable by the end of the game... if you consider the powerful new force abilities and feats that you can spend points on.

All of that brings up one of the game's biggest flaws, it's easy... too easy. The most difficult parts are probably the ones where you take control of other characters, and even those are easy to get around whether that character is powerful or not. Being one who focuses primarily on the development of my main character, I used auto level on my party members so when they had their own segments one might assume I had trouble, but all I had to do was hide behind a table or a pillar and footlocker and shoot my otherwise powerful foes while they just stood there brandishing their weapon... waiting for me to go somewhere where their bad path finding would allow them to go.

While you can go up to level 50 in KotOR II, chances are the highest level you'll be by the end of the game is 28 and even then you'll have little problem decimating your enemies. The final portion of the game has you going solo and I was able to take down all of my enemies with four master critical strikes each and the final bosses were a matter of eight critical strikes each... one of them more so since he kept reviving. This got tedious since the final portion of the game was battle after battle much like the final portion of KotOR. If you're looking for a challenge, don't bother with this game.

Story: 8/10
The Sith Lords features an original storyline and goes where very few Star Wars storylines dare tread which makes the plot one of the greatest Star Wars stories ever told to date.

The Sith have been striking at the Jedi from the shadows for some time now and nearly all Jedi are dead or have retired to peaceful lives... or so they think. With the very few living Jedi scattered and the former Darth Revan nowhere to be seen the Sith go after their last biggest threat. A Jedi who served under Darth Revan during the Mandalorian wars and was exiled on his or her return to the council on Coruscant.

While the original KotOR focused on telling a one dimensional epic story of good versus evil KotOR II gives us something fresh with the Star Wars license, a story of morals and strong philosophies which often come from one particular elderly jedi called Kreia. Neither the Jedi nor the Sith are portrayed as they were in KotOR, the Jedi aren't the saints that they usually appear to be and the Sith are not the conquering villains they were in KotOR. There's only one thought on the minds of KotOR II's Sith Lords, and galactic domination has nothing to do with it.

The storyline is arguably superior to the originals, but it's not perfect due to time constraints. At a certain point near the end the plot seems to move fast leaving a lot of threads hanging in the air and because Lucasarts wanted the XBox version out by Christmas 2004, Obsidian couldn't add in all of the conclusions leaving you wondering what happened and the only way to find out is to use an external player and scout through the voice files in the game directory. The ending could have been much better if they had another six months even and while the ending leaves the fate of the characters more open for the inevitable KotOR III, the planned endings sounded more fulfilling and polished as well as reminiscent of Planescape: Torment.

Graphics: 7/10
I'm not one to judge a game by it's graphics so I didn't think of KotOR II any less just because it had the exact same graphics as 2003's game of the year, but that doesn't mean they couldn't have had least made some significant changes. Beyond some particle effects and the new Jedi robes which actually look like robes, you won't see any difference between KotOR and KotOR II.

Sound: 7/10
The sound is a mixed bag this time, the original KotOR was amazing all around but Lucasarts and Obsidian seemed to treat KotOR II's audio quality as an after thought. While the game has your usual Star Wars sounds like blasters and lightsabers, the voice acting is both good and bad compared to KotOR which had mostly excellent voice acting. The voice cast for KotOR II didn't seem motivated and while I don't mind bad voice acting for minor characters... some of the voice acting for your party members wasn't exactly award winning. Atton and Mira in particular.

The music... the music is nice and atmospheric, don't get me wrong but the audio quality is to put it plainly - lousy. The original KotOR had it's music at a common 128 kbps, which is good enough quality but for KotOR II it is 48 kbps and that is just unacceptable for a game of this scope. Yes you can tell the difference between 48 and 128, there is a very large difference in terms of playback quality.

Overall: 8/10
Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords is a worthy sequel to its predecessor but it has a few flaws and bugs that prevent it from being hands down better than the original. It's superior in some ways, but the sometimes large flaws drag it down and while I still have faith in Obsidian I hope that if they are tasked with the development of KotOR III that they won't make the same mistakes and give it their all without rushing it out the door for a Christmas release. Should you buy it? If you liked the original by all means give the sequel a shot, but keep its flaws and numerous similrities to the original in mind when making the purchase.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/01/05