Knights of the Old Republic is a DND-style RPG set in the Star Wars universe and released in 2003 (before the dark times). I just finished my first playthrough this week, and I’d like to summarize my experience and express my thoughts. FAIR WARNING: There are major spoilers ahead. While your experience may differ from mine, it is my understanding that the broad strokes of most of the story are the same throughout.
It took me a long time to ramp up into this game. When I started I only played in 15-45 minute chunks. As it takes place ~4000 years before the time period of the main movies, I didn’t know any of the characters. Moreover, the first character you get acquainted with dies almost immediately. The first “permanent” character you meet is Carth.
Poor Carth. Duty-bound. Resilient. Cautious. Ever fighting for the Republic.
Carth helps (or convinces) you to find Bastila, a missing Jedi Padawan with a unique ability to turn the tide of battle for whichever side she is on. She, not you, is the focus of the most powerful characters on both sides of the ongoing war. I found this to be a refreshing change of pace for RPGs. Even though my character ended up somewhat being “the special”, at least I wasn’t as special as Bastila.
The goal of the game is to discover Darth Malek’s source of sudden power and defeat the Sith. Your quest takes you to 6 planets, each with their own set of customs, species, and sub-problems for you to tackle. Most problems have multiple solutions, with the more morally-dubious options usually getting you to your goal faster, or providing you with better rewards.
And you do need better rewards. The game is not easy. Your party frequently runs into dangerous monsters, Sith pursuers, and bounty hunters. Korriban, home of the Sith Academy, was my first target.
“This is where the fun begins.”
Bastila elects to stay on the ship as she does not want to be recognized. While she is exceedingly useful in any given party setup, this was just fine with me. Her Jedi platitudes were starting to annoy me.
With a Mandalorian and a droid at my side, I infiltrated the Sith Academy, stole the headmaster’s things, dug up powerful artifacts, picked off weaker Sith, and teamed up on stronger ones. The entire sub-adventure enthralled me, and I had my first taste of the usefulness of Sith power and artifacts.
After all, I would need more power to defeat Darth Malek and save the Republic from their losing war, right?
Manaan required much more diplomacy. The neutral Selkath did not take violent acts lightly. I would have been imprisoned for shooting up the Sith embassy had I not discovered evidence of a Sith plot to kidnap the local youth. After finding the next clue for my primary adventure and improving my standing with the natives, I moved on to Kashyyyk.
This was the home planet of my companion Zaalbar, who took the opportunity to tell me that he had been exiled when his brother came into power. (Meanwhile, Bastila chided me for using my Force Persuasion technique to get out of paying a docking fee to the local slavers.) By this point, my interest in the game had really ramped up.
My actions on this planet seemed to absolve my earlier behavior, much to my dismay. This meant that a lot of my abilities and best items up to this point didn’t work as well or stopped working altogether. This couldn’t have come at a worse time.
My party was immediately captured by a warship under the Sith banner, and Darth Malek was on his way to likely torture us for information before disposing of anyone he could not turn.
I enjoyed the prison break sequence. Take any given situation in the movies where R2D2 gets the heroes out of a jam, and that’s basically what happened with my droid. It was really fun to have another character in my party drive the plot for a while.
During the escape, an opportunity arose for Carth to get revenge on his former commander, who had betrayed him and killed his family. I goaded him, of course. This may be Carth’s only opportunity to kill the man who took everything from him.
Tatooine was a jarring step backwards. I really wanted to finish this planet ASAP and get back to fighting Malek. I took every opportunity to rob people blind, earning plenty of Dark Points and securing the use of my best equipment and force powers. My party was not happy with me. At this point, I had grown powerful enough to breeze through this section of the game.
It was finally time to find the source of Malek’s power and face him head on! Almost. There’s an additional planet. It just so happens that this planet has most of the answers to your questions while forcing you to make difficult decisions. You can’t skirt the line between Light and Dark anymore, you have to make a choice.
The hardest part was betraying Carth.
Carth had been my closest friend throughout all of this. Initially distrusting, we bonded over our shared interest in survival while unraveling the mysteries of the plot. Carth slowly confided in me the horrors of the aftermath of the Mandalorian War. His commander betrayed the Republic, joined the Sith, and destroyed Carth’s home in an assault on his planet. His greatest fear was to be betrayed again by someone he trusts.
I can’t imagine what went through his mind when he discovered Mission’s body on the beach, cut down by a vibroblade. I can hardly believe it myself. What I had become capable of.
Knights of the Old Republic captivated me until the very end. Its narrative quality rivals that of the better Star Wars films, and its choose-your-own-story elements make KOTOR an entry worthy of being a video game, instead of a novel or movie. It’s a shame that I haven’t played more games like this. These days, a new Star Wars game looks to hook you into its universe with lootbox rewards instead of interesting and relatable characters. There’s always KOTOR II and the mmo: SWTOR. I might get to those someday. I have a very long backlog of games to be played, including the famously lengthy Nier: Automata and Persona 5.
If you read this, I have no idea who you are or how you got here, but I do recommend playing KOTOR for yourself, if you haven’t already.