The BIG Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II Retrospective
🤖 Install Mech Arena for FREE here on Mobile and PC ✅ clik.cc/t1Uhp and get a special starter pack to help kickstart your game ⭐
Maybe the lost jedi were the friends we made along the way...
Twitch ► / superradlemon
Twitter ► / superradlemon
Discord ► / discord
Patreon ► / superrad
Thumbnail ► / ghostalebrije
If I got anything wrong or there are any errors, PLEASE check the pinned comment first to see if I already corrected it, thank you!
Timestamps:
Intro - 0:00
Character Creation - 11:47
Prologue - 17:15
Peragus - 22:25
Telos - 1:09:49
Telos Surface - 1:30:37
Atris Enclave - 1:37:08
Nar Shadaaa - 1:58:13
Dantooine - 2:47:09
Dxun - 3:11:56
Onderon - 3:23:10
Korriban - 3:36:11
Dxun Return - 3:50:46
Onderon Return - 3:54:31
Dantooine Return - 4:01:05
Darth Traya & HK Manufacturing - 4:14:17
Telos & Ravager - 4:17:53
Malachor V - 4:23:10
Conclusion - 4:37:17
Patreon - 4:41:18
🤖 Install Mech Arena for FREE here on Mobile and PC ✅ clik.cc/t1Uhp and get a special starter pack to help kickstart your game ⭐ Please consider liking commenting, and subscribing. Corrections below! Corrections: 1. Restored content isn't actually out on the switch yet apparently LOL 2. If you kill Atris, I believe the restored content mod places your lightsaber on her body 3. I forgot you do use a pressurized suit in KOTO1 during the leviathan segment. 4. Clarification on Visas: All Miraluka see through the force, but they have eye sockets. When Visas was captured during the loss of her planet, Nihilus seemed to "remove the flesh from her sockets" 5. Misunderstood the asteroid scene. The decision is to shoot the asteroids yourselves or let the Sith do it.
You keep mentioning "BETHESDA" instead of "BIOWARE" at the beginning rant.
Gonna see where I did this and I'll add a correction
I don't think the restored content is out on the Switch. At least it wasn't a few weeks ago.
@PFworth Do you have a timestamp? There's six mentions of Bethesda in the script and they were all referencing New Vegas development.
There's some controversy with the Restored Content for the Switch edition, it was supposed to come out in Q3 or 4 last year but due to Aspyr no longer working on the Kotor 1 remake, they've been radio silent on pretty much anything, including the Restored Content DLC
You forgot to mention the greatest dialogue option in Star Wars history: when playing as a male character and Visas shows up, the next time you talk to Kreia she will imply that you want Visas around romantically. And then you have the option to respond: "Just because I saved her doesn't mean I'm going to charge up her loading ramp." Gets me every time hahaha
Explain the meaning of this for a non-native english speaker?
@@deviatlon It's a euphemism for sex - 'loading ramp' is a stand-in for, uh, the part you put stuff in. There's also the dialogue option with the Handmaiden where you can complain she's always training naked, and if you're also not wearing anything, she'll pointedly say "it doesn't seem to bother you." Your response? "Yeah, well, this is my ship. I can walk around like this if I want."
@@Dianacat777 thanks mate! now i know more)
Not Atton's "Are you an angel?" joke?
Fill her exhaust port
Fun fact: In Atris's academy on your first trip, once you reunite with your party, take Kreia to Atris's Chamber door and use her sight ability to look through the door to see Atris's alignment is red as hell 🤣
That's a great idea!
What????
Really? I'm not that far from that point in my 98th play through lol. I'll have to check that out. Iv never heard that before
Yeah, I did that on my first playthrough out of curiosity. I thought it was a glitch, but what it really was is a great attention to detail.
I think Its more of an oversight because you fight Her in the end
I think it's funny that despite how much stronger you can make a character in the second one, it comes off as less of a power trip than the first one thanks to how it's written. KotOR1 is about that idea that you can just get real strong and kill the bad guy and it fixes everything. KotOR2 asks why the hell you would think that worked.
I think it's fair to be OP in 1 considering you're basically the big bad evil guy and are sort of supposed to be terrifying. The writing does make sense, and is actually pretty neat especially with the Revan twist, even if KotOR 2 does OP force users better as both being OP but narratively put down as ultimately not helpful.
Indeed, the first one you are already super strong, you are just remembering things, while on the second one, it is mentioned you were weaker than Revan and Malak, and along the path you take with Kreia you are rebuilding your foundation and then expanding on it, becoming one that could rival them in strength and wisdom.
And 2 also shows (accurately) that a character this charismatic and powerful would scare the shìt out of other Jedi and they eventually call you a threat to all life in the galaxy. It’s such a genius meta way to explain XP and why you gain strength in the game plus why companions follow you without question
@FoxyChariot The following without question is explained to be the force basically brainwashing them to do so as Meetra Surik(Exile's Canon name) experienced such trauma on Malachor V that it made her effectively a living wound of the force with potentially no limit to her abilities. This is explained cryptically and requires slightly reading between the lines of Kreia and the Masters' dialogues.
The party: Apathy is death T3-M4: 30 seconds of beeping
I love the moment in the Jedi Enclave near the end when Kreia ends the Jedi masters and you hear the awesome Jedi Enclave track and read "This master is dead... drained of life. His body is worse than lifeless. It’s like an absence in the Force."
"Rebuilt Jedi Enclave" is my favorite Star Wars soundtrack ever. RotJ's "Jedi Fury" is a close second, though.
With all of KOTOR 2’s shortcoming’s I will still gladly play another 5 run-throughs just to talk to Kreia. She is without question the best written character in Star Wars gaming
Best written ever, the only character who doesn’t want blind obedience
I also found it funny how you could just destroy the computer to bypass the voiceprint ID puzzle. You can also get all three sound samples in one dialogue with HK50 by implying he isn’t advanced enough to just say the code in dead guy’s voice. You get a little xp and the whole puzzle is solved
to get the most xp grab the sonic sensor, fight all the droids in the hallway and rooms & go back to the top floor (you can gain new dialogue & ds or ls points from Atton depending on how you interact) from there go back to the security room then use the computer, go thru the recordings and press the option that uses the sonic sensor, next go back down & go to the console near the airlock door go through the security recordings & use the sonic sensor again then finally go back and talk to hk ask him every single question, get the third voice print and persuade him to speak the code (might need to use force valor)
I love Peragus. It's a dark, uncomfortable, Cosmic Horror setting with a great villain in HK-50.
It blew my mind way back then when on my second playthrough I accidentally figured out you can coax the voiceprint samples out of HK-50.. this is such a gem of a game and deserves an actual remake out of it with just better graphics, fixes and smoother gameplay but everything else intact.. shame I have 0 confidence that any one studio would keep the game otherwise intact these days..
You don’t have to have a rematch to the death with Davrel on Dxun--you can offer the alternative of teaming up with him to kill a Zakkeg, which he agrees.
Oh very interesting, ty
Dang I had no idea
Regarding the development timeline: I remember reading an article ages ago, where they had stated that after showing "the management" their plans, they were granted a year of extra development time and redrew their dev timeline accordingly. Unfortunately management changed and they had forgotten to get this in writing, so the end of the development was basically "how's the game coming up? release is soon." "uhhhhhhhhhh"
I'm
@@javifuentes302you're what? YOU'RE WHAT?!?
yep
Pretty big Oopsie.
2:35:00 if you took atton in gotos yacht,he will comment about how the bridge section is like a droid command centre that sends info all over nar shadda Which you can later use against goto to make him spill his secrets
KotOR 2 is arguably my favorite video game of all time, even the vanilla version (the only one I’ve ever played because I’m a console gamer). I remember when the restoration mod was being created because I was very active on kotorfanmedia - I think I even submitted an audition for the laigrek girl! 🤣 Thanks for a retrospective on a game that deserves all the kudos in the world for trying so many things and having something to say about so many things (including the video game medium itself). Great video. ❤️
also a console gamer, the mobile version is moddable!
@@laithhart4013wait are you saying I can play the full KOTOR2:TSLRCM on mobile???
@@kettlemagic Yes! That’s what i did on my iphone
@55:00 Max XP from the ship fight can be achieved by letting the first 25 sith troopers through, and killing the remaining 5. You get 10 XP for each Sith Trooper you shoot in the turret, and 250 XP for killing them with your character. Because there are only 25 slots for troopers to spawn into, letting all 30 on board means you still only fight 25. Total XP from doing is this way is 6,300 XP. The least amount of XP you can get for this part of the game is 300 XP (30 troopers * 10 XP each).
The Sith Triumvirate = a blind granny, a walking corpse, and the love-child of No-Face and Barry the Chopper.
Darth Sion and Darth Nihilus actually represent the pure incarnation of the Sith teachings. Nihilus is a power hungry maniac, what the Sith love, and that destroyed him, made him into a slave of his own desire for power. Sion on the other hand, used his pain and hatred to become immortal, but he too is a slave to that because he relies on the force, on that pain and hatred, to exist at all. He's a slave to his own pain and hatred, literally, otherwise he'd die. The great part is that Kreia is a foil to these characters, and directly criticizes both the Jedi teachings, but in this case the Sith teachings, showing how they destroy people and therefore cannot be true. Which is central to her character.
@@XboxxxGuy I get it and I respect it but I just put all my skill points into strength and one-shot Sion and/or Nihlus every time I bumped into them 😂
I mean, they're all walking corpses really. Why do you think Bao-Dur found Kreia to be "tougher than she looks"?
It’s also worth noting on dantooine if you leave the crystal cave after finding vrook and lie to azkul about choosing his side, kreia will give you influence by saying it was a good maneuver to pretend to be on his side because “with the militia and mercenaries believing you’re on their side, you can control the outcome”
"The TSLRCM comes with the Switch Version." Yeah, it's great. If only Aspyr didn't lock themselves out of their office for 4 months and actually released it.
Was about to say, I just beat the game on switch and am planning to replay it once they restore the content on switch but at this rate idek if it's ever coming out
@@flamingbagofcrisps9157Yup, it's not happening. Got cancelled. Fucking shame
The voice recorder puzzle on the mining facility has another alternate solution: You can trick HK-50 into splicing things together for you and it only notices after it already did so.
The best part of that dialogue is that the player giving up the game is completely optional. HK obviously figures it out either way but I really like how they give you the option for a comedic beat
I play this game at least once a year. It helps with my conversational focus. I haven't been diagnosed with ADD or ADHD but I've always had problems focusing on conversations. I nod off or lose track. But this KotOR 2 has long but engaging conversations that keep my mind engaged and entertained. It helps with my overall focus. Its definitely in my top 10 games of all time for me.
As someone who HAS been diagnosed, you just gave me the idea to replay these games on meds to be able to focus on the long dialogues better.
Doug Stanhope had a great bit about not having ADHD, as is, but the conversation being just plain boring. It's less a weakness, and more term limits for tedious. I feel your comment, 'cause I get the same lapse in focus when I read novels and other stories. Kotor II had exceptional world building and story. I was hooked straight from Telos. Great game! [That Stanhope bit: kzhead.info/sun/Zrp-ZaaoqHx3p58/bejne.html]
KotOR 2 is my favorite game of all time. It gave me an intriguing, heart-aching glimpse on what Star Wars storytelling COULD have been. Thank you for doing this. If your video attracts even a SINGLE pair of eyeballs to this amazing game, then it is already worth my 5 hours of watchtime.
This is also my favorite game of all time
This game is made for people who hates Star Wars.
@@tonyknighton4019 On the contrary, it's made for people who genuinely love SW. It critiques everything with care and respect. The thing that's made for people who hate SW is the Sequel Trilogy and especially TLJ.
@@GalahadTheSeekerKOTOR 2, for people who love Star Wars and the lore, is an amazing 'through the looking glass' take on it that challenges all the surface level appearances of it, but also reinforces the themes subtly through the gameplay. The mistake people make( especially those whose only time really thinking about Star Wars, looking at you Rian Johnson, was when playing this game) is taking Kreia at her word, and buying into her line of thinking, when her entire character is built on lying and taking the extreme option. People interpret her going from a Jedi Master, to a Sith Lord, and then claiming now that she is 'neither' as she is s Grey Jedi, or balanced in the force, and is right because she is taking a middle ground(a common fallacy). But she's not, she's just taken another extreme to its logical conclusion. She's seen all the Force has to offer, that neither the Jedi or the Sith have the answers or are perfect, and decided that since there is no way to get the answers she wants, her answer is she will destroy the Force. That is her whole arc. She wasn't satisfied with the Jedi answers to her questions, and believed it was because they were afraid of the Dark Side and so the answers must be there. When she dedicated herself so perfectly to the Dark Side she became an avatar of one of its strongest facets, and still didn't get her answers, and was broken and betrayed, and went looking for the only other person she knew who had also been on both sides of the Force and come out stronger for it , Revan. Instead she found the Exile, and they were someone she saw had survived despite being severed from the Force, and was somehow more powerful for it in a way, and decided that was her new goal, that the Force itself was to blame, that it controlled everything for some unknown goal and she resented it for it. She only thinks in extremes, and believes any compromise from perfection is personal weakness, and that the Force always stymied her from finding the answers she sought. And the Exile proves to her that people can not only survive without the Force but possibly be stronger for it. There is also interesting ties ins to the New Jedi Order books and the Yuuzhan Vong( both in this game and the 1st) that prove her wrong too. The game itself though, through gameplay and story prove her wrong. Doing all the classic good guy things leaves the places the Exile visited better, both long and short term. Her argument that not helping actually hurts them is actually short sighted. She claims that on a much longer time frame things would be better if you hadn't done them, but it's literally the exact same outcome as you brought about, sooner and with less suffering. The fact that bad things will also still happen in the future doesn't change the good you did right now. Her foresight is biased and selective to how she interprets the world. She can't be trusted in that interpretation because first and foremost who she deceives is herself. That is proven by how she treated and is proven wrong about the companions on the ship if the Exile brings them to the light, how she was wrong about Revan, about the other Sith Lord's and so on.
Bao-Dur’s Shield Breaker move breaks enemy NPC energy shields, so it actually does have somewhat limited use beyond the Telos restoration area
I found out about it a few playthroughs ago, and I was shocked how useful it was early game. -That's if Bao-Dur can even land a hit cause good lord, it feels like he's blinder than a bat.-
Bao Dur was an absolute powerhouse on my playthrough, I dunno why they decided to make unarmed combat stronger than most weapons
I love the atmosphere throughout kotor 2 as well. It’s very dark and eerie like dread is always around the corner and everyone is scared. It used to scare me as a kid playing through Peragus, Korriban, Nar Shadda, and Malachor V
While I understand why the Handmaiden and Hanharr weren’t discussed as much since they aren’t relevant to the play through covered in this video, I do wish that their stories were touched upon briefly in the video. How Brianna had to shoulder the burden of being the ‘last’ among her sisters because of the nature of her birth, of who she was. How while traveling with the Exile, seeing the galaxy and how the Exile impacts it; she begins to see how Atris and her teachings are flawed, misguided. How eventually, she breaks her oath and learns the ways of the force from the exile. It’s a beautiful story. As for Hanharr, learning more about how the traditions of the Wookiee affected him, making him the monster that we see in the game. It is a dark reflection of not only Zaalbar from the first game, but if Chewbacca. A Wookie whose killed his own tribe to ensure they didn’t become slaves, who became just as evil if not more so than the people who tried to enslave his tribe. And yet, he is still fundamentally chained down by his code. This isn’t even touching upon the lesson of strength that Kreia uses Hanharr to teach, all but stating what happened to the Exile at Malachor if you learn the true lesson of strength. Amazing video though, definitely makes me want to go back and replay the game. What stat line did you go with for your sentinel?
Lol they didn't read the whole comment
My first playthrough of TSLRCM I went full Sith Lord and I was shook getting to the very end of Hanharr’s arc. That Wookiee is traumatized beyond anything I could have imagined.
1:26:48 If you explore Citadel Station as B4-D4, there are some awesome interactions and recorded lines of dialogue that are specific to someone going off the beaten path while controlling B4-D4. There aren't any real sidequests or anything, but man is it some excellent attention to detail. I believe there are also a few more RP instances, like with a protocol droid at the docks, and with the droid engineer in the apartments. I found this all on my like millionth playthrough and it felt so rewarding.
😢happy
I still remember as a kid the first time I awoke on Peragus. Hot off the heels of triumphantly defeating Malak in Kotor II, I remember expecting the typical “The good guys won the big fight, so everything’s groovy again” sorta trope but boy was I wrong It actually unsettled me as a Kid, not to mention the thought of being the last person alive on a planet of psychotic droids was unnerving in its own right Of course now as someone that’s an adult, and has played Peragus a Kajillion times, It’s like burning through a field with a flamethrower, but I respect the direction they chose with it as a staunch contrast to Taris
Kotor2 is probably my favorite #1 game of all time. It was the first really palatable example of DnD and it gained an even bigger special spot in my heart because of how gosh darn broken it is, and how much love the community threw into it
It's not actually D&D. D&D has become ubiquitous with tabletop role playing game, but they aren't the same. There are lots of other TTRPGs out there other than D&D. For example, Fallout is based on the GURPS system. Kotor is based on its own d20 system as well. D&D is a system with its own specific rule set, which doesn't apply to Kotor.
@@asturias0267 It was actually based on the WotC Star Wars rpg they made at the time, which derived most of its rules from third edition DnD.
If there’s one thing this game did better than KOTOR 1, it’s give T3 depth. From the get-go, you the player obviously know who he is, but he’s very secretive and is obviously hiding things that you want to know: what happened to Revan, what’s his purpose for teaming with you, etc. It’s even more apparent when he disables HK and feels bad over it. It makes me wish the Revan novel didn’t exist.
There's more about Revan in KOTOR II than in KOTOR I.
Same I was super excited for the Revan Novel and parts of it were good but Revan and T3 went out sad
Also the mystery at the end of kotor 2. My imagination would run wild wondering what could be in the unknown regions
I can’t count how many times I completed this one. Peragus and telos were a slog but I absolutely loved the rest. Especially the music.
I put bootlegs of KOTOR soundtracks on at work or at the grocery store lol #Xile
Wow, your nar shaddaa playthrough was absolutely wild. I don't think I've ever had SO much happen in such a short time before. Holy cow
Thank you. I needed a 4 hour reminder of how good the KOTOR series was.
I'd say the music is superior in this one and bioware seems to have realized it because I've heard the majority of the tracks from kotor2 in the swtor MMO and only two from the original. They always used the malachor V theme whenever some big evil shit was going down which is one of the best tracks
This is easily the best Star Wars story ever told. It's subversive and dark, while maintaining the edge of humor and triumph over evil that defines the original films. It reminds me of things like The Last Jedi, Andor, and some of the underlying narratives of the prequel films. The Jedi aren't the good guys, and are capable of evil, same as their counterparts on the Dark Side. Such a brilliant display of storytelling and character development with the Restored Content Mod, it is easily a top 5 RPG of all time.
Very true. New vegas is also a top 5 obsidian are built different.
The game's original trailer and the story even stresses your character is the last known Jedi in the Galaxy which is why I call this game the REAL Last Jedi tale
Please don’t compare this masterpiece of a game to that steaming turd Rian Johnson shat out
@@kaitosevski3881 just say you have no taste in film or subversive storytelling and move on.
@@chunk5465 I love subversive storytelling when it's done well. TLJ didn't do it well and ended up feeling like something an edgy 14 year old who's only seen one Star Wars movie would write I loved KOTOR 2 and I loved the New Jedi Order series, both of which are focused almost entirely on subverting and deconstructing the themes of Star Wars. Plus, the whole purpose of Empire is to subvert the expectations set up by the previous movie Outside of Star Wars, I actually like most of Rian Johnsons work, both Knives Out movies are absolutely brilliant I just don't like TLJ because it is a badly written movie. It's not "subversive" if all the characters make decisions that character would never make (There's no way in hell the person who believed that one of the most evil men in the galaxy could be redeemed would try to murder his nephew in his sleep for having a bad dream). That's just bad writing Imo, Johnson is a good film maker who just doesn't understand the Star Wars universe or the characters that inhabit it. You can't properly try to subvert a story when you don't even understand that story in the first place. That's why Empire, KOTOR 2 and the NJO books work, while TLJ falls flat on its face And that's not even mentioning how nonsensical, contrived and boring the plot is or how boring, one note and unlikeable all of the new characters are. TLJ (Along with the rest of the Disney trilogy) is one of the worst movies I've ever seen
as much as I came to loathe peragus and telos as a kid, looking back on them now they were really good. the tense horror of peragus especially.
Going to have to dedicate four hours of my time to this. Judging by how good your first KOTOR Retrospective was, this one should be a banger.
I would argue that the start of the Ebon Hawk in KOTOR II is the Endar Spire section of the first game. Then Peragus is the Taris section. And Telos is the Dantooine section. Because in the first game, you still have things to do on Dantooine before the game opens up. Like that in the second game, you have things to do on Telos before the game opens up. It just follows the theme of it being longer here. Peragus is longer than Taris by about an hour and Telos is longer than Dantooine by about an hour as well--even if you rush the main questline. Like Dantooine as well, you can return to Telos whenever you want. Whereas you cannot return to Peragus, just as you cannot return to Taris. I think they shortened the prologue and made it skippable because they assumed they'd have returning characters who knew the system. So it wasn't needed to hold the player's hand through the different mechanics. But they wanted their story to be longer and more expansive, so they made Peragus and Telos longer to juxtapose Taris and Dantooine. A short-hand way to tell players "Hey, this is a longer game! Much more here!" It just had the unfortunate side-effect of being an absolute slog to get through on repeat playthroughs. But the first time through? I think the mystery holds up and is interesting enough to keep the player's attention.
Cool observation. Makes me wonder if the Ebon Hawk prologue should have been made a bit longer, and not something to be skipped (obviously hints could be turned off, but one could have fit some extra story stuff there to lighten the time sinks of Peragus & Telos).
@@DBArtsCreators I like how they offer the Ebon Hawk prologue to be skippable. Having it shorter as well (Since, like the Endar Spire, it's just a tutorial on the gameplay mechanics) makes it a bit more manageable on repeat playthroughs.
@@shaelynmartin1996 Fair.
I played KOTOR 2 as a kid on the xbox without experiencing KOTOR 1. I was just coming off experiencing the whole of star wars through all the movies, lego star wars, and star wars battlefront. KOTOR 2, even in its unfinished state, completely blew my mind in terms of how stories could be told in this universe I was already intimately familiar with and how games could be made (it being one of my very first RPGs). Further still, I loved the air of mystery around Revan. To me, he was this unknowable entity that commanded such power and respect as to be revered the galaxy over, and it gave me an extra layer to the game into trying to figure out exactly who he was! I've since gone back and played the original (which I find pretty bland in comparison) which lowers that reverence a bit for me, but I still greatly cherish this game and go back and replay it at least once a year.
My head-canon on battle meditation is that many force-user can learn it, but the vast majority can only use it in their immediate surroundings, so essentially a couple of meters range and what's so special about Bastila is that she can affect an entire battlefield at the same time. It meshes quite well with how Bastila was able to affect dozens of ships with tens of thousands of crew over an area tens of kilometers across at the minimum, while we in the game can only affect a single room's worth of area. In regards to G0T0: If you remember Telos station, they said that their first droid went missing and B4 is the replacement. The game heavily hints at G0T0 being this original droid, though I don't remember if it was ever fully confirmed. Sometimes I entertain the thought that what Kreia did, really did ultimately lead to the death of the Force millenia later and that's why it existed "a long time ago" in this galaxy far, far away, but does not exist anymore now in our galaxy. It would also hand-wave the power-creep away that makes the original movies' force-users appear to much weaker than the Old Republic era ones. Due to the wound Kreia struck it, the Force is slowly dying and with it the force users are getting weaker and weaker too, until nobody can use the Force anymore. By teh way the conclusion to at least the Exile's and Revan's stories can be found in a book or book series. The MMO mostly just references those events and then spins some more stuff of their own after it. That being said I have not read the book(s) and only played SW:TOR, so I don't know if the novelization is any good.
From what I've heard, the book(s) absolutely butcher their story. The Exile is killed in the worst way possible. And people who *have* read it all say that they don't consider it an actual canon ending to her story. Apparently, she's killed fairly early on or something? The book just wants to focus on Revan and how #SuperCool he is, so the author killed her off to let Revan get the limelight.
@@shaelynmartin1996 book kills her and Revan fights a near godly Sith Emperor to a standstill before a sith ally stabs him in the back due to a vision and nothing else. Revan is than tortured for hundreds of years with the Exile ghost keeping him semi sane until he gets out and literally splits into a good light Revan and a bad dark 4evan in 2 different 'bodies' and everything. No word to my knowledge on where the Exile ghost went but I could be wrong on that.
@@nahte123456 That honestly sounds like the dumbest shit ever and I'm so glad I never read it lol Maybe we'll get lucky and the Remake(s) do happen. And they actually make a KOTOR3 as well to *properly* finish their stories.
@@shaelynmartin1996 Yeah, the book is straight butchery. It ignores virtually everything about the Exile in favor of turning her into a cheerleader for Revan. Like SWTOR, it pretty much wanted to pretend KotOR II never happened. (How does Meetra Surik even become a Force ghost when her shtick is that she is literally a void in the Force? Never mind the sheer audacity that her grand destiny in the Unknown Regions is just dying immediately.)
To be fair, she created a wound in the force that follows her, but it in turn made her godly in the force, so force ghost makes sense imo
“Maybe the lost Jedi are the friends we made along the way” I lost it. A year later and I can still appreciate this since I’ve been playing this game since it came out and I was just a baby boy who didn’t understand what I was doing. This games philosphy shaped me into the man I am today and thus will always hold a close place in my heart
i swear you are like the only guy making 5 hour videos where you actually say stuff warranting the length. great stuff as always.
I recommend The Salt Factory who also has a multi hour review of this game as well as others :)
Kotor 2 is a classic and I played it a lot more than Kotor 1. Once I experienced Kotor 1, there wasn't much reason to play it maybe twice because its big payoff is really in that first experience for me. Kotor 2 and all its choices and paths had me playing it a dozen times easily, I still come back to it.
I’ve played KOTOR 1 slot more times simply due to the fact that while telos is a pretty bad slog of an intro, peragus is just so much friggin worse. Like I haven’t timed it but it feels like doing 100% of everything on telos doesn’t take near as long as doing everything in peragus and then on the telos station and then finally on telos itself. Like ugh.
I remember playing KOTOR 1 and 2 over and over growing up. To this day, they are one of the few games I actively go back to play and still as fun as I remembered them. Thanks for the content man! It’s awesome to see more people talking about these games!
Maybe this will be corrected later in the video but I'm fairly certain you can actually retrieve your original lightsaber late in the game when you encounter Atris for the last time, depending on how you resolve your conflict with her. It would be nice if in the dialogue with Atton you had the option of choosing to have dual wielded lightsabers originally, even having one full length and one short, rather than only having the option of a single or double bladed lightsaber.
Corrected in description using Restored content!
Yup I believe you had to be dark side or chose a very specific dialog path to get it.
I really appreciate the girth of your videos, and cannot describe how incredible it feels to see the KOTOR series gaining so much love in recent years. For the longest time it felt like only a small group of people actually played these, and the group who clamored for more was even smaller. I’m 32, and not once have I met someone in real life who had actually played these. Now we’ve got official ports to accompany the community’s mods, and even a remaster on the way!?
All people like kotor because the reboot comming but , the first two kotor are the best to discover today in star wars universe . I like this two game since my discover on their year release .
Lmao girth
Loved KoTOR but never bothered with the sequel until watching this retrospective. Now doing my first play-through and really enjoying it. Thanks so much!
Hope you enjoy it!
I think my favourite planet has to be Duxun/Onderon. I really enjoy helping out the mandalorians with odd jobs, I think this has always jelled with my character who I’ve always seen as being good at repairing things, and even though it’s pretty basic I enjoy the murder mystery on Onderon and have fun whenever I do it. The final battle is fun too.
It is also my favorite as well - i loved the mando camp as well as the detective case on Onderon, as well as returning to these worlds later on. And of course i loved Canderous in this game even more than in the first one
For Clan Ordo!
Wonderful review. Slight correction for around the 46-minute mark: the suit did come from the Manaan section of KOTOR 1, but it was also used for the space walk on the Leviathan just before you meet Saul Karath.
Yee I added a correction for this but thank you
You can convince hk50 to just tell you the airlock password on peragus while using the sonic imprint sensor. Skipping the terminal puzzle
I’ve played through KOTOR2 somewhere close to 50 times fully at this point. I always say “I’m a KOTOR fan, not a Star Wars fan.” It made me fall in love with Chris Avellone as a writer; who I still aspire to have 5% the talent of! Its a classic in my eyes and although buggy, glitchy and unfinished it holds a place deeper in my heart than almost every other game (except New Vegas which beats it by a slither) Thank you for these four hours listening to someone I enjoy walking through a game I adore in such an in-depth fashion! :)
GOD I LOVE WATCHING HOURS LONG VIDEOS ON GAMES I'VE ALREADY PLAYED 60 TIMES AND KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT lol.
4:18:22 We all saw you named your character SuperGAL Lemon! Also I think Kreia mentions that Atris surrounds herself with people who cannot feel the force so they can’t see how far she has fallen
I truly love how so far all your retrospectives have come out during times where I’m down so I can just chill and watch them in peace. Truly love your content dude
What amazes me about KOTOR ll is that I’ve completed this game dozens of times, and I still run in to new encounters and come across new lines of dialogue every single time
I don't remember if there's anything directly contradicting this in the game, but the monarchy of Onderon may not be a monarchy as we traditionally think of one. For example, Queen Amidala is indeed a Queen, but Naboo has an elective monarchy system, at least. It may be that system of government is commonplace in the Star Wars universe.
It makes me so happy to see yet another retrospective on the things that were formative to my personality and interests growing up - and it excites me so much remembering hearing you talk about how much work you were putting into this video during MH streams. Absolute class rep for our generation, you are
I’ve been listening to this while I sleep, so I’ve been dropping in and out, figured I’d speak up about the Ritual the Sith masters are doing Their ritual is what gives the Sith forces control over the beasts of Onderon. The Handler using the Drexl loses control of the beast presumably because the masters have been killed by the Temple crew
1:58:36 Wanted to add one thing regarding the influence mechanic; you can progress conversations and bonuses with party members by decreasing their influence as well. The important thing is fully embracing increasing or decreasing a companion’s influence from the jump. If you’re trying to gain full LS or DS points for the attack and force bonuses, this is helpful to maintain those while still fully digging into your companion storylines and eventually training them to become Jedi or Dark Jedi. Negging Bao Dur and T3 on a DS run or being too nice for HK’s and Kreia’s liking on a LS one to bring their influences to 0 fully opens them up.
Ah yes my favorite genre: 3+ hour long kotor 2 videos this will make a fine addition to my collection
This video is almost 5 hours long. This is a reference to the time you'll have to spend on peragus
r/ShittyKZheadDetails
Fluid speech, intelligent dialogue, and insightful ideas. This was an amazing video and I loved every second of it.
Holy crap. I had no idea about this at 44:00. Using the voice samples of the dead security officer from the holoerecords is brilliant. If your persuasion stat is high enough, there’s a unique dialogue option that comes up where you stroke the HK-50’s ego to get him to say the door code in the officer’s voice. I thought that if you didn’t have enough persuasion stats you could just blow up the console and unlock the door that way. Apparently there’s three ways to open that door now that you have brought this new method to my attention. Persuade the droid, blow up the console, or collect voice samples from the holos. This is amazing.
I've spent years thinking about Kreia's many words of wisdom, that's how serious this game is.
To this day this is one of my favorite games of all time and I still pick it up yearly for a playthrough or two. The writing, the options of your character and party members. Do you want to be a light side counselor? Where your party members gain powerful bonuses. Will you be a sith assassin and rely on stealth. Will you use Mira as a Jedi or a blaster build. Will you delay your level ups to make bao and atton Jedi early? Or will you give them skill and class upgrades so they’re a more rounded Jedi? Ah what a great game.
Mechanically, it doesn't make much sense to make Bao-Dur a Jedi. Guardians get much less skill points than he does normally, and with the feats and a high Intelligence you can get him incredibly high in all skills. I use him to make anything I need since he can make every item
Converting this to a game like Mass Effect III would be the greatest thing, ever
What a great video. I always love to see when people post long retrospectives and analyses about this game. The writing, characters, narratives, and themes taken from this game are really unique and you did a great job exploring them. Kudos to you, will definitely be recommending this video in the future.
Gotta love these kind of extensive analysis of my favorite video games. The first one I've seen pop up was an Oblivion analysis of 4 hours length like 5 years ago and I'm seeing more and more of these. They are the best to listen to during a workout sessions especially when narrated well and gripping. I'm gonna add this one too for tomorrow's session, thanks for the upload!
Better than anything Disney has done with star wars....and it's not even finished
Man idk how I've watched so many multi-hour reviews of this game but I still get so much enjoyment out of watching/seeing different people's takes on it. It's like, comforting.
Just when I've finished watching KOTOR retrospective and thought that I'd like to see its logical continuation. Perfect timing, my good man.
Damn I just checked in to see if you made this yet, I watched the first one at work a few weeks ago, and you released it earlier today! This is my favorite game of all time narratively. Looking forward to it, already liked.
This is my favorite game of all time. Great points and I love how well you dive into every location.
OH MAN! So excited to watch this, I loved your Kotor retrospective, I am going to enjoy the hell out of this one
This timing is crazy. I just decided to replay KOTOR 1 a few days ago, finished it and then watched your review video and as I was watching it checked to see if you had a KOTOR 2 review. Great timing!!!
Awesome video! Thanks for making it! Honestly, I didn't think I would watch the whole thing, yet I did, and I adored the whole thing 🤙
I always go straight to Dantooine just to pick up the personalized crystal before leaving and doing Nar Shadaa as the first true planet. That way I can get the maximum growth out of the crystal as I progress through the rest of the game. It's not critical, but it does help as a Jedi Consular with the single lightsaber feats.
KOTOR 2 was a phenomenal game for me. I never experienced any game breaky bugs, just a few "hey, why didn't that go somewhere?" issues with plot lines. This and the original are 100% the best Star Wars games that I've played.
Your choice when escaping Peragus is to continue to eveade the shots from the Harbinger or to fire on the asteroids yourself to try and destroy the Harbinger. It's not your jumping to hyperspace that destroys the planet.
Corrected in pinned comment, thanks
When it comes to dealing with Joran on Dantooine, you have to be careful. If you buy his lightsaber parts immediately upon rescuing him, he will ask for 1200 credits, but if you wait until he is back at the camp he will only ask for 1,000.
3:24 Concerning the Thalia-Vaklu-Question: There is an option for you to say "Queen Thalia should listen to what the people want" which the game consideres you siding with vaklu. This can prompt Adana to approach you and ask you to kill the three captains. Btw: Monarchie is not necesarily the opposite of democracy. Think about Queen Amidala from Episode I, who was elected. Or real life parlamentarian Monarchies like England, Netherlands, Belgium, Norway and Sveden.
I've been waiting for this. KOTOR 2 is one of my all time favorite games. This is a quality retrospective.
I love this game. Its basically what The Last Jedi wanted to be, a truly great deconstruction of the Star Wars universe.
Ayy! Love the BG3 call out! I've been obsessed with that game since patch 9 and I can't wait until August when it fully releases.
"The lost Jedi are the friends we made along the way." - SuperRAD
i just got back into kotor II around 2 weeks ago, and then this video immediately released, perfect timing.
I literally just watched your first KOTOR retrospective last night. How convenient! Just subbed!
YES IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS!! Thank you SuperRAD, this is awesome!
It came as a realization that Kreia could be the final "enemy" somewhat early in the game, her whole style was a dead giveaway, and it was a hard thing to accept. Excellent game book content that Chris Avellone is famous for. Give him something dark to work on, and he will create a tressure! Thank you for your content! Very interesting ideas. Would love your opinion on the "Torment".
I gotta play Torment and the Pillars games soon
@@SuperRADLemon I wonder what will be your answer to the "question". Have fun! :)
@@SuperRADLemon Numenara or Planescape?
I love how the tone in this game is much heavier in comparison to KOTOR 1. Taris was a slog, but Peragus really made me feel like I was powerless. Even if I could make it out, it's not going to be a lighthearted ride.
I've been trying to play KOTOR 2 for years, but I always get the rare TSLRCM glitch in Nar Shadah that corrupts the save files. This was a nice recap of the story for me!
thank you so much for making videos like this. keeps old games alive
I've been playing this on and off the last year....i have been using the lightsaber glitch lol. Everyone in my groups that CAN have a lightsaber has 2. And they are always opposites of the other Saber. Example: one Saber would be cold and shock, the other Saber would be burn and stun.
I did a dual-blasters only playthrough.... There's a lot of really powerful blasters and the upgrades make them insane! 10/10, I highly reccomend!
So uncivilized.....😂
@@MrClubfoot90 🤣🤣🤣🤣
I’ve been playing since it came out and I NEVER realized that first conversation with Atton was setting up the rest of the game. So cool. Also, this channel is great.
Oh you sweet summer child. They were supposed to add the Sith Lords Restoration Mod content back in Q3 of 2022. That time passed and Aspyr still hasn’t acknowledged that it just… never came out…
I've been learning that today 😅
i wonder if it has something to do with the fallout of the KOTOR 1 remake?
Always a good day with a RAD upload. Keep up the good work, man! :)
Thanks, will do!
2minutes in and youve already won me over. im eagerly bingin the rest of the video. :3
Literally found your kotor 1 retrospective yesterday. This should be fun.
Fantastic video. I replayed Kotor 1 and 2 alongside you and it was a blast. Fantastic fallout 3 video as well, keep it up! I look forward to your uploads.
Glad you enjoyed it!
I'm tolerant of Peragus. It's not short, it would've been better without the section in the mining tunnels, but overall I'm fond of found footage mysteries, so I don't mind playing it. It's Telos that irks me, because being limited to another single planet with little to no plot development until you reach the polar academy after having been through the same on Peragus is definitely a pace killer. Or, to phrase it better: I'd be happy with Telos alone and Peragus alone, but one after the other are problematic.
THIS, Peragus is cool as an opening, so I can stomach it, but especially fighting through the Restoration zone and the facility. Feels like being a kid, and you REALLY wanna go play, but your Mum is just holding your hands like “No honey, let your food digest before you go in the pool”
I read some time ago an article about narrative gameplay elements design (it was about quest design and adventure gams puzzles). The thesis was that there are two main design philosophies. Imagine this scenario for a quest: you are at an airport and you need to follow someone on the plane they boarded. A quest according to phylosophy 1 would be something like, "your guy has boarded a plane at gate 5, but there's some sort of commotion going on that blocks access to gate 5. Disperse it and baord the plane". Phylosophy 2 would be, "you have no idea which plane your guy has boarded. Follow the leads and figure it out". Type 1 dangles the next story beat in front of your nose and throws an obstacle in the way (like you said, the pool is right there but mom won't let you swim), type 2 is about forwarding the story itself. Both types can work when done well, but type 1 tends to be a tad more frustrating. Obsidian in their early works was obsessed with type 1, it seems. Neverwinter Nights 2 had similar problems with the first chapter. In the case of KOTOR 2, Peragus is 100% type 1. The Ebon Hawk is there, reach it and escape the facily. But everything's blocked and you need to take the panoramic route through the whole facility and the Harbinger as well. And it does work 8for the most part) because it's framed as someone clearly sabotaging the structure, but they botch it slightly in that you figure out the saboteur a tad too early, basically as soon as you meet him because HK50 is not subtle; figuring it out and confronting him is not as cathartic as it could've/should've been. Anyway, it all kinda works. But then Telos follows a similar phylosophy 1 pattern and with less of a payoff, and the frustration mounts.
Unfortunately for kreia and the galaxy the Jedi eventually fell back into the state they were in in this game, though it took a long ass time, prequel Jedi order is almost the same as kotor 2 Jedi order
According to an interview with the devs, Bao-Durr was supposed to die assisting HK-47 at the factory. It’s a shame he’s not in the restored content mod since it would make those fights much more palatable, but alas. Same for the droid planet, great ideas but terrible pacing. I recently replayed KotoR 2 with the mod, finishing it in 3 days after spending 20 hours in a single day. Good times.
I got into your content via the Monster Hunter vids, particularly the older titles that I haven't played. Pleased to see you also covering Fallout NV and KotOR. Great videos, you have high production values and interesting commentary, thanks for the entertainment and helping people relive these games.