The BIG Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II Retrospective

Knights of the Old Republic 2 the Sith Lords is one of the greatest unfinished products in the history of gaming media potentially one of the best Star Wars games ever made it's to Kotor 1 as New Vegas was to Fallout 3. both games were developed by Obsidian Entertainment hired on to create sequels to an established series owned by a separate developer publisher in fact the Sith Lords was one of the first commercial products released by obsidian a company composed of former interplay employees such as Chris Avalon who took the helm as lead designer and writer Chris would go on to be the senior designer and Project Director for New Vegas as well though not completely the same the development teams of the Sith Lords and New Vegas shared a lot of overlap which can be seen in the role-playing and narrative aspects of the game particularly in comparison to its predecessor from BioWare how the writing differs how skills affect dialogue what the staff want to say with their game and what experiences they want to share unfortunately we also see the same development pitfalls as well short development timelines a lack of Manpower and no help from LucasArts led to an experience that while amazing in many ways remained an unfinished buggy mess Lucas Arts wanted to cash in on something good a Star Wars RPG was such a novel concept that before Kotor 1 had even been released talks for the sequel were already in the works and LucasArts looked to have obsidian at the helm why wouldn't they obsidian was full of individuals with experience in creating some remarkable RPGs black Isle Studios were many of the staff at obsidian came from even published the Baldur's Gate Series in conjunction with BioWare as the developers there's history both in experience and in the relationship between BioWare and black Isle it made perfect sense to have obsidian on the project still development time was set to 14 months if you are in any way familiar with game development in the Modern Age this may sound absurd I'd argue that back then it would be equally as absurd if not for the fact that obsidian would be reusing all of the assets from Kotor 1. all combat mechanics features dialogue systems and art assets had a large chunk of the process already completed for obsidian so they were willing to take on this time frame considering how little would need to be built on top of it it sounds familiar right if you've watched any of my previous retrospectives specifically on New Vegas and Fallout 3 obsidian is familiar with picking up an established product with finished assets and reusing some of them to lighten the load on their own entry there's nothing wrong with this assets should be reused and abused in my eyes with the complexity of game development and the time and money that needs to go into a video game developers become Masters in the art of cutting Corners that sounds like a bad thing but game development has always been about cutting Corners how can we fit the most of what we want within as small a package as possible back in the nest days the worst issue plaguing a developer was how to fit all of the data that they would need onto the confines of a nest cartridge this meant finding ways to store or reuse assets through creative means that would cut down on the overall size this is the same for Modern Day Developers as well if you have an entire animation system a rendering system an engine why would you build all of that from the ground up again when you could instead turn your focus on adding new content built off of the previous product Horizon and God of War are perfect examples of this I've seen individuals online complain about the fact that animations are reused in these Grand graphical experiences to a consumer uneducated on the development process this seems lazy but I ask why would the developer remake all animations for a game when they could Port them all over while improving on various other aspects sure the swimming animation may be the same but now you have all of these new gameplay aspects you have better graphical Fidelity new areas to explore new stories to experience reusing assets is as old as video games themselves and isn't a necessary evil in order to create products both of high quality and within a timely manner people that raise their pitchforks over the issue would quickly turn to complain about how long a game was taking to come out sometimes there's no pleasing people but we can at least educate one on the process so obsidian has the entirety of Kotor 1 as an asset they have the models the sets the characters the storyline maybe even the music in a way it seemed entirely possible to fit in a new storyline with some unique and returning locations as well as some original voice work it seemed possible but as it goes with obsidian sometimes they're yearning to make something great ends up outside of the scope of what is possible it happened with New Vegas and before that it happened with the Sith Lords this heavy Reliance on a previous entry that was already littered with bugs on top of such a small team which could not provide substantial quality assurance meant that we were going from one buggy game to an even worse example I'm trying to set a perspective here imagine you're a small developer some of whom may be fairly inexperienced in comparison to the team leads you're given 14 months to make a game on an engine that you have no experience in and don't have the time or money to test extensively it's no wonder Kotor 2 has the issues it does but that isn't to say that it was entirely Lucas Art's fault it wasn't entirely obsidian's fault either a lot of people look at the development of New Vegas and the relationship between Bethesda and obsidian and may look at Bethesda as the villains of that story realistically Bethesda set up a goal and rules that obsidian agreed to the most relevant issue being the Metacritic score bonus that both shouldn't have been offered and shouldn't have been agreed upon by obsidian there's a lot of stock that goes into Metacritic scores but they're a flawed system that I discuss in length more during the New Vegas retrospective it doesn't make sense for Bethesda to say that obsidian will receive a payout bonus if the game receives an 85 average on Metacritic of all things considering how difficult it is to regulate said reviews but it's also the responsibility of obsidian to decide if agreeing to those rules is in their best interest Bethesda didn't seem the most helpful in New Vegas development but they also didn't seem villainous in their actions it's the same if not more so for LucasArts who often attempted to help with the development in QA load that was potentially crushing obsidian at the time yes 14 months may seem unreasonable and Lucas Arts should have created a better timeline but the responsibility is also on obsidian who accepted it the biggest places you can see these issues are in the bugs prevalent within the game as Kotor 2 is flagged with bugs from ones that Compound on each other to ones that cause problems all on their own additionally there is an entire Wikipedia article dedicated to the extensive cut content from the game that couldn't be implemented due to time constraints that's the thing about obsidian they are geniuses at their craft incredibly talented individuals that with infinite time and resources could potentially make some of the best games in our generation but when Limited in both time and resources they sometimes stream up storylines and features that are outside the scope of what is possible that's where the Sith Lords restored content mod comes in generally I try to review or look back at these games from a vanilla plus perspective but it is widely considered that the restored content mod is a necessary addition to playing Kotor 2 as close to what the developers intended as possible they've even said as much and I believe the mod is now included in the switch edition of the game not only does it add in several cut features but it also fixes a large quantity of bugs and issues that are plagued by the original release if using such an extensive mod bothers you take solace in the fact that I am acknowledging now how clearly unfinished and borderline unplayable the original release was I'm not making excuses for the developers Kotor 2 had a slew of issues but as with all my other retrospectives I want to set up a means to get past that and explore the game as a whole as it was intended to be played aid while these development issues exist don't let that fool you obsidians still manage to add on to the existing mechanics of the original experience skills matter in the Sith Lords there's new Feats companion story lines are interesting and more influenced by the player character many mechanics have been fleshed out to give you an overall better role-playing experience and make certain class choices more viable than they were in The Game's predecessor we'll explore all of that but the most interesting aspect of Kotor 2 is how the story begins to completely fall apart near the end but still manages to be one of the best Star Wars storylines ever created and that is due to how talented The Writer's ad obsidian tend to be if there's one thing obsidian is known for it is role playing fleshing out role-playing games to offer features and story lines you begin to expect out of all games you play in the future and what better team to have on a Star Wars role-playing game than the masters of it Kotor 2 doesn't hold your hand like the original did the story is darker there's plenty see and do but there's also plenty to miss there's mechanics and features you may never realize existed even after multiple playthroughs there's companions you're guaranteed to miss based just on your sex or alignment every playthrough can be unique in its own way in terms of overall development Kotor 2 was released in December of 2004. it uses all of the same gameplay systems I've explained in the first video within this retrospective Series so I'm not going to repeat myself on the aspects of the Star Wars D20 system that being said new mechanics and features will be discussed as we are introduced to them on the journey it should go without saying but you can expect spoilers for both entries throughout the video if you enjoy this content please consider liking commenting and subscribing as it helps me continue to make it additionally if there are any issues that need to be corrected please please check the pinned comment to see if I already mentioned it before telling me I made a really dumb mistake in the Fallout 3 retrospective and I still get corrected on it and but I corrected it and I'm sorry I don't know why I made that mistake but I corrected it stop telling me about it please with that out of the way I'm Super Rad and this is the Knights of the Old Republic 2 the Sith Lords retrospective this video is sponsored by Macarena a mobile competitive shooter that led to Pilot customizable Maxwell embarrassing your friends by outplaying them at every moment I've honestly been playing Macarena a lot lately and these are some of my favorite mechs that I've gotten to try out Paragon is one of the first mechs you start out with you'll use it in the tutorial and this will give you a head start in customization and upgrading if you don't want to feel particularly weak in any area Paragon allows you to cover most of your bases with decent HP and energy capacity which allows it to work well with most weapon options its special ability allows it to Sprint faster than most other Macs meaning you can close distance easily speaking of closing distance kill shot has become one of my favorite mechs to use mostly because he has this ability that lets him rush towards an enemy and collide with them to deal massive damage don't charge in too carelessly though as his low HP makes him super squishy there are a load of things happening in game right now including the new Clan feature a new battle mode called free for all a new weapon called the nade launcher and so much more there's also some cool upcoming events that are going to drop limited edition skins you know if that's your thing and other New Gear I highly recommend you jump in now before it all kicks off it's completely free to play on Android iOS and PC right now and you can use my personal link or scan the QR code right here to get a free starter pack worth 30 dollars which includes rocket mortar 6 and amateur crate and a skin to help kick start your game and if you're quick you can add me to friends as Super Rad seen here and we can play some matches together so don't wait around as with the previous entry in the series we start off with character creation unlike the previous entry however we don't start as a base non-jedi class and instead start with the options we received upon completing our training on datuwine in Kotor one this is due to the new Prestige system introduced in the Sith Lords the Exile our playable character has always been a Jedi but has also had their connection to the force forcibly cut off when we start we slowly regain send connection and thus are a Jedi throughout with all of the advantages such as lightsaber proficiency and the ability to use Force Powers another difference between the first and second entry is that our levels are now virtually Unlimited in the first game we had a max level of 20 and in Kotor 2 that has been raised to a total of 50. the catch is that it is impossible to reach max level in the game without the use of cheats or exploits still more levels means more abilities to unlock giving us more freedom in the choice of powers and abilities we decide to upgrade the Exile with the starting classes are the same as the base Jedi classes from Kotor 1 meaning we have the choice between Guardian Sentinel and Consular I explained the differences and nuances between these classes in the previous video and one of the big takeaways from the section was how powerful Consular can be and how lackluster Sentinel was in comparison that's changed in the Sith Lords but not for the reasons you may think first let's point out that your character within this game is going to be overpowered no matter or what if you have a basic understanding of the leveling system it's difficult to make an underperforming character throughout your journey for this reason the Sentinel class meant to be a middle ground between guardian and Consular with the bonus of more class skills is a more viable option overall skills are the main reason it's so crucial to play as Sentinel on your first playthrough as was true with New Vegas obsidian has reworked the role-playing aspect of the game significantly with class skills and attributes playing key roles within the dialogue throughout your journey knowledge and conversations may be locked off to you due to how low a specific skill is to get the most out of the dialogue and storyline within Kotor 2 an assortment of developed skills is crucial and Sentinel makes that possible having only two non-class skills as a refresher non-class skills cause two skill points to level up while class skills only require one there's also additional Feats that can turn non-class skills into class skills what this means is that for two levels you can invest into feed that will turn demolitions and repair into class skills and then have the ability to rank up all of your skills for the cost of one point Sentinel then has the best opportunity to cover all of the bases in terms of the role-playing experience you probably won't have every skill maxed out per level up but you can spread out your points more liberally again this is a suggestion for a first time player who wants to get the most out of the game's narrative content but that doesn't mean it's the best class overall Consular with a specific Prestige class can outshine Sentinel in terms of combat but as I mentioned it's not necessary in a game like the Sith Lords unless you're on a higher difficulty your class isn't the only selection that matters here either your choice of sex will dictate whether you unlock the handmaiden or the disciple as a party member with the other option being locked off entirely male characters unlock the handmaiden while female characters will unlock the disciple later on dantooine there's something unnecessarily restrictive about gender locking party members of all things especially when obsidian had a better system for locking them away via alignment requirements when we reached narshada there's two characters you'll be introduced to but only one will join you and this choice is dictated by whether or not you are light side or Darkseid people expect these kinds of things out of alignment or Karma systems to be locked out of certain paths or aspects of the game while opening the door to others based on the choices you make as you progress what people don't expect is to be locked out of content from the get-go just because they wanted to play as a female character instead of a male character since canonically the Exile is a female character we're going to be locked out of the handmaiden throughout this playthrough and since we will be taking a light side direction throughout the journey we'll be logged out of The Wookie companion hanhar as of writing this I'm not sure how I'll handle discussing these characters and their development considering I'd have to play through the game a second time in order to get everything out of them maybe I can just find all of their dialogue online or something so your initial choices within character creation are more important than you may realize and if you were going in blind you may not realize you were missing out on a particular companion this way it isn't communicated well while I can say this may incentivize multiple playthroughs an individual playthrough through quote tour most likely considers light side and dark side playthroughs rather than male and female ones if someone played a female Exile on the path of the light it wouldn't surprise me if they then played a female Exile on the path of the dark within the second go why would they change the gender of their character without prior knowledge of a character being locked off we're then left with an individual who has played through the game twice potentially doing everything that is possible within and at no fault of their own missing out on a key companion and dialogue as for the prestige classes they're not dependent on which starting Jedi class you choose meaning there's an assortment of combinations to create depending on your first selection we'll return to prestige classes as we reach them through gameplay in the meantime we'll start as a female Jedi Sentinel when we begin we are presented with the traditional Star Wars text crawl it's important to keep in mind that the game will slightly change plot points and dialogue based on how you discuss Revan from the first game for that reason the initial text crawl needs to be a bit ambiguous there was a Jedi Civil War that much is for certain and whether Revan held the republic or the Sith the Jedi are now in a weekend almost extinct State leaving the Republic on the verge of collapse despite the defeat of Malik the Sith continued to spread their influence and Hut down the remains of the Jedi Order whether or not this involves Revan at all isn't made clear yet but it it doesn't not extremely anyway after the events of Kotor 1 Revan went on his own adventure with the ebenhawk and T3 M4 also exploring the outer rim with candorus Ordo this eventually led to his disappearance I won't get into the details of that just yet but what's important to understand is that while there is a Canon aspect to the Kotor storyline the developers wanted it to be as open-ended as possible from a player's standpoint they want you to be able to dictate what happened in Kotor 1 to better allow you to develop the Exile now I say this all the time but I believe some of the best role-playing experiences are where your backstory is as open-ended as possible with little to no development given to you outside of your own choices however that doesn't mean the alternative leads to a bad experience the player in Kotor 1 turned out to be Revan after all all of the headcanon and backstory you created for your character may have been thrown out the window at that point it's similar here but more obvious to the player the Exile is a character who joined Revan in the Mandalorian Wars and Upon returning had their connection to the force severed there's a large backstory in regards to the Exile and where the role-playing aspect comes in is how you use that backstory to flesh out the character's present and future so we exist within the Old Republic in the wake of the events of the first game there was a Jedi Civil War and we have no idea what revan's involvement in it was current when we first appear on the scene it's within a damaged ebb and Hawk which has just been attacked by Seth forces within the ship are the unconscious bodies of you and an unnamed robed woman who we will get to know better later on additionally T3 M4 is here and also damaged somewhat luckily he's still operational and you take control of him for what acts like a tutorial tutorials aren't new to the series but they were built more into the actual storyline of Kotor 1 than they are here where Kotor 1 forced us to learn everything over time as we Traverse the end our Spire the Sith Lords instead consolidates the entire section into a brief prologue segment that you can skip if you don't want to bother the developers assume those playing the sequel already know how to play Knights of the Old Republic they offer an optional refresher for returning players and a quick start guide for new players meaning you aren't bogged down by constant tutorials preventing you from playing the games As you move from room to room that's what I'd like to say but unfortunately paragus our next destination is one of the bigger slogs of the game and uses a good portion of its Locale to teach us other various aspects of the game that may have been missed in the tutorial while not incredibly important the prologue does show how T3 M4 is able to repair the ship just enough so that it can land at the paragus Mining facility a space station Atop The half-destroyed Planet I suppose if we want to compare it to the first game paragus is the endar Spire section of the Sith Lords the prologue taught us the basics but all of the additional and more nuanced mechanics get explained here changes to the dialogue system new abilities Etc the difference then is the length of each section where the endar Spire may take you I don't know 20 minutes per August can take a few hours when I discussed Terrace the first planet in Kotor 1. I mentioned the same thing how much of a slog that planet was and how it managed to overstay its welcome and make it difficult for players to return to the game for additional playthroughs if the Ender Spire is to paragus then teres is to tilos a planet will arrive on after the Mining facility but where Terrace is the slog in the first game jaragus is the same in the sequel I had many players mention to me that Terrace was nothing in comparison to the grueling length of paragus and I can see why they think that I believe both areas fail for the same reasons and I knock pragas even more because it doesn't attempt to offer the same emotional payoff we had at the end of The Terrace section when it was completely wiped out by The Sith that doesn't mean it's all bad however in fact paragus has one of the more interesting storylines per planet to go over involving the mystery of the Mining facility that at first seems abandoned what seems like a desolate facility with no one left alive slowly turns into a murder mystery involving the effects of having the Exile on the station where is everyone what happened here what dangers lie deeper within it's engaging enough to keep you interested but that doesn't change the fact that it still manages to overstay its welcome leading to the same problem of the original game a wall that makes it difficult to replay the entirety of the experience and that's a critical error in a game that expects you to play through it multiple times to see all of the features it has to offer the events of the ebenhawk which haven't been fully explained yet seem to have knocked you unconscious and apparently killed the old woman who was on board with you you awake in a culto tank surrounded by other patients who have all passed away stuck in nothing but your underwear which is unfortunately relevant to one of the companions we will meet shortly your release from the tank and take your first steps into the paragus Mining facility if you played Kotor 1 a lot of the gameplay and controls are going to feel fairly similar there are changes but on the surface you won't notice them what is fairly noticeable is the change in dialogue not in the mechanics necessarily although there are some but in the length of conversation the Sith Lords is a dense experience in terms of writing and dialogue when you talk to an individual you just ran into you could potentially be in that conversation for upwards of 20 minutes that's because the Sith Lords has a lot to say and a lot to explore there's lore to discover backstories to learn and the general storyline to follow all of which is written by individuals notorious for their skill in writing and storytelling you may think that this would be a hindrance or an annoyance in an RPG you may want to get straight into the action and that may be what you expect of the Sith Lords considering that's more so what Kotor 1 offered while everyone has personal tastes that I'm not dismissing here if you are interested in the aspects of the Star Wars Universe during the events of Knights of the Old Republic the long dialogue segments will simply fly by The Sith Lords has a lot to say but not simply for the sake of hearing itself talk it's a necessity to properly convey everything that needs to be said and I'd be surprised if it could have been cut down but that's also an issue with the development as a whole the scope of the project which led to it being unfinished sure we can have grand narrow narratives with long dialogue all of which requires voice acting and work put in but there's also other aspects of development that need Focus as well and let's not forget that this game had a 14 month development map so what is there is phenomenal the dialogue is interesting it keeps you invested and taking part in it and paying attention can pay off in knowledge or even rewards such as influence and abilities still this may not be your personal cup of tea and I can understand why I too sometimes like to just watch individuals with funny beam Sabers fight while utilizing professional acrobatics that's not a jab sometimes less is more but if you were interested in what the dialogue has to offer the Sith Lords ends up being one of the greatest Star Wars experiences out there for it one of the first places we will see this is in the hollow logs that are left on various terminals throughout the facility the logs are large in quantity and each is meant to show what happened before the events that led to everyone dying watching these logs can be crucial in completing certain side objectives or learning how to gain access to various parts of the facility obsidian wants you to know that the dialogue of the game is important and should be paid attention to additionally it's important to reach all of the terminals as you come across them they have lore sometimes sure but more importantly they all generally have functionality within some capacity that can help you on your journey terminals may be able to unlock doors for you they may be able to kill enemies for you and they may just be able to show you the entirety of the map via cameras this isn't new but these terminals generally have interesting information to go alongside them such as Hollow logs or in your first Case Medical logs it's possible to access the nearby medical terminal in a room down the hall from the culto tanks if you can slice your way in using computer spikes you can learn that someone had accessed the functionality of the cold tool tanks and administered medication that caused everyone in the tanks to essentially over overdose with you only surviving because of your Jedi abilities apparently I don't completely know how it works something to do with meditation and Jedi plot armor actually I'm returning to this paragraph because I believe you slice the system to find out where the lethal sedative request came from you can find out about the ghost just by passing a treat injury skill check I believe so something out here is killing people more importantly it seems like people are dying because something is trying to kill you specifically and that will be the greater mystery to solve as we explore using the nearby medical computer you can open the door to the morgue which is our next destination but before that beside the computer you can find a lab station originally in Kotor 1 workbenches were used to solely upgrade weapons and armor this functionality has been expanded in workbenches and also split off into another type of bench known as a lab station both have similar functionality lab stations can break down certain items into chemicals these chemicals are then used as a currency to create various other items such as Med packs or implants workbenches still offer the ability to upgrade equipment but now players can break down items for components and use set components to make a workbench's own variety of items most notably would be the upgrade items themselves you can create various upgrade items if you have the relevant skills for it and then attach set items to the weapon with the viable slots now I'm a fan of crafting mechanics in games when they are both done well and make sense to be within the experience when they are a guaranteed complementary Edition as an example I understand from the comments of my New Vegas video that individuals did turn out to enjoy hunting down items and using various workbenches within to create new ammo or various weapons this may be my own personal preference but Fallout has never been a series where I felt the crafting was done very well from Fallout 3 to New Vegas to 4 especially in four considering it has become an all-encompassing feature due to settlement development and power armor customization all all of that sounds fine to me but what I find annoying is the expectation of us exploring the Wasteland for some pretty inconsequential items like imagine you need glue or adhesive or something where the hell am I going to find adhesive it's out there sure it may even turn out to be common to come across due to the ability to break down other items but in this huge open world you're asking me to search for such minute things like glue or lead or a screw that's just a quick surface level example that I'm not going to dive too deep into maybe you like that system and I don't want to get yelled at about it just yet what I will say is that I enjoy how Kotor 2 handles this issue that I have with Fallout where everything is created using one unique currency that I can find regularly throughout the map or generate through breaking down items that I don't need it simplifies the system prevents me from having to go out of my way for some of the worst hunting of materials I've ever experienced and gives me easy access to a mechanic that allows for a fair bit of freedom and cost optimization in terms of equipment the biggest issue I end up having with these systems is how little I feel the need to utilize them while you can make some interesting medicinal items within the lab I find them to be rarely necessary considering how powerful you become in this game and how easy it is to both heal your party and find items that will facilitate this the lab station ends up becoming more of a currency generator than anything else it allows you to make items that you can sell for credits and then use set credits to buy something that's actually useful the workbench is a better system overall considering it allows you to both to break down and create items as well as create the upgrades and apply them all of these upgrades have different skill requirements as well there's no specific skill that encompasses all of the items you can create so it's best to have an assortment of high level skills within your party whichever member you control at the time of interacting with the bench will apply their skills to the creation process so Sentinel once again shines here but other members may be focusing more on a few skills than all of them and therefore have a higher skill level in say treating injury than you do at the time I forgot to mention this earlier but what allowed you to come to from within the kolto tank was the voice of a woman telling you to wake up this was the unconscious voice of craya the old woman I mentioned previously as you enter the morgue and inspect the dead body craya will come to life and begin interacting with you I'm not sure what to say about Korea just yet she comes off as a bitter individual but one of intense wisdom and experience she was the one who found you and brought you to the Ebon Hawk she was the one who found the Eben Hawk she is the voice that you hear in the kolto tank that wakes you up similar to revan's situation with bastilla you share a bond with craya through the force despite you having been cut off from it the effects of this Bond will become clear as the storyline progresses crayo wants to escape this facility she was attacked once already while attempting to retrieve you and she fears you'll be attacked again this leads into your first example of skill checks Within dialogue like Kotor 1 you can use the persuasion skill to try and convince Crea to divulge more information but you can also use an awareness check to point out how nervous she seems thus getting her to explain why she is so worried persuasion is unique to the player character and a very useful skill within the game for both a role-playing aspect and getting your way without violence but it's no longer the only option investing in other skills have their own benefits both inside and out of conversation and you are encouraged to experiment with them within your various playthroughs or do what I do and play Sentinel in an attempt to cover all your bases another nice attention to detail here because we took the time to look into what killed everyone within the kulto tank we have an extra dialogue option when Crea Ponders on why we were spared while everyone else in the healing room was killed we can respond by letting her know that we weren't spared and Crea will go on to deduce that a Jedi trance could protect one from such poisons Jedi plot armor although this will get brought up again on narshada speaking of Jedi kreya will talk to you as if you are one and you can quickly correct her on the subject the Exile has a backstory they have a past as a Jedi but they aren't one currently you can also point out to cray that she seems to have a lot of knowledge of the Jedi and the force in general which will lead to her wanting to discuss it later now craya is a mysterious individual she keeps a lot to herself her intentions are not always made clear and she seems to mistrust individuals that side with the light during your stay on paragus she won't divulge too much to you but don't be fooled there's more to her than meets the eye and she has her own agenda involving you and the Jedi and will explore all of it later on for now craya sends you off to learn more about the facility and attempt to find a way off of it preferably via the Eben Hawk the game begins to open up a bit more here we can find weaponry and start running into Droids that we have to fight off additionally we can find locked doors and containers that require security skills to get through sure we can bash in the doors or container just you can even Place mines on them to destroy them completely but by doing so you are sometimes losing out on the loot that can be destroyed in the process if you blow up a container some of the loot within could potentially be destroyed it's a mechanic in Kotor too that I'm not sure existed in the first game and incentivizes using individuals with the security skill to open up containers at the very least doors are not so dependent on this in fact certain doors can only be opened with mines because they are broken down additionally from my understanding the loot in Kotor 2 isn't static but instead randomized and based on your player level I'm not sure how the general public feels about leveled loot I think it has its place within a game as long as there are static options that are worthwhile Endeavors as well if there's a difficult optional dungeon to progress through but all of the loot is based on my level I don't really see a reason to access it until I am near the maximum level I'm allowed to reach this was one of the major issues in the Elder Scrolls for Oblivion both Loot and monsters within the world were influenced based on your your level no matter how much progress the enemies continue to get stronger and stronger regardless of where you are in cyrodiil and with the unconventional leveling system you could potentially be a high level with very low combat skills leading to a punishing experience that you may not be able to overcome Oblivion counters this somewhat with strong unique weapons like the Umbra sword which can be retrieved at any time and has set damage regardless of when you grab it its Effectiveness would only be based on your strength attribute as well as your blade skill considering I rate these scripts as I progress through my return playthroughs of the game I'm not yet familiar with how Kotor handles this but unique equipment must exist within the game that I'm sure as you progress Crea will begin talking to you within your mind your connection to her is powerful enough that the two of you have the ability to converse over great distances now I don't know why the game does this but the nearby security terminal really beats it into your head that stealth is an option in this game in fact they provide you a stealth generator and implore you to to use it in order to get by the droids by a nearby terminal that can disable them this is most likely due to stealth seeming to be an underutilized mechanic in the first game not only has it returned in Kotor 2 but I believe there is a feat that allows you to move faster while in stealth that you can unlock if you are so inclined it's great that they attempt to flesh out the mechanics that weren't as interesting in the previous game but these changes still didn't add any desire for me to use them the Sith Lords mechanically is a very simple experience it can be more complicated but it doesn't expect you to look that far into it at least not on the normal difficulty why stealth by these Droids when I can kill them for experience it's not like it takes a ton of time to do so still I chose to try out the stealth mechanic for the sake of it and upon reaching the terminal I was able to disable the mining droids in the area then you have the ability to walk up to each of them and take some components off of their body to be used in crafting so you are rewarded in some ways for taking the stealthier approach but it's not necessary at all and I'd go so far as to say you're better off killing everything in in your path instead bit of a missed opportunity within both games but at least the Sith Lords tries to make it a bit more interesting once the droids have been disabled you can head into a nearby containment room to find an imprisoned at and Rand you won't learn much about aten for a while but he's one of the many companions who meet on your journey before you head inside crayol will mention that she feels the presence of an individual within but that his thoughts are difficult to read information that will be explained later on although it does fit with atten's personality upon entering the first thing atton will comment on is your outfit or lack thereof considering that you are still in your underwear in fact this will be the main thing that's on his mind and that he comments on until you finally find something to wear aten's a bit of a womanizer or at least plays himself off as one he seems to think a little more of you at first than a piece of meat for him to all glat and he complains once you actually do find some clothing to make matters worse during your conversations with him he discusses Raven and says something along the lines of you know how women are which implies that he both believes Revan was a woman and that he has a low opinion of women in general and looking back on the script I don't know if he was trying to trick you because Revan was clearly someone at new it's very obvious by a later point of the story not the best look for a character I don't know if I'd simply call his dialogue and personality dated or what but for the first while Latin comes off as a particularly gross individual and luckily you can treat him as such on the topic of discussing the past with aten you can ask him why he's locked up according to him he began working on the facility but broke security protocols and got detained by A Stroke of Luck he was safe in his cell while everyone else on the floor was killed by the rampaging droids of which we are still unsure why they began to malfunction this conversation will Veer into history and Revan will be discussed as I mentioned aten will mention Revan was a woman and you can either agree with this or correct him this acts as a means for you to naturally inform the game what you chose in Kotor won did you play as a man or a woman in the first game did you go to the light side or the dark side did you help the Sith Empire or the Republic these are all questions you answer naturally in conversation and you may not even realize that they are being used to determine these factors it's a very nice touch while some games may have you fill out a survey at the beginning or transfer your save data Kotor 2 finds a way to integrate your major choices from the first game into the second right under your nose this also expands upon your own backstory explaining how you were involved within the Mandalorian Wars under the command of Revan whether you trust aten or not it's implied that you'll need one another to get off of the facility and you agree to let him out of his cell to facilitate this something to keep in mind with dialogue in your companions in Kotor 2 is the influence stat influence is new to the Sith Lords it's what allows you to interact further with your companions throughout the original game actions you took and things you said to your companions may have affected them in the moment but only ever mattered during key points of the storyline and usually the history of your actions weren't as prevalent in these consequences as much as your current alignment your alignment was the main factor used in determining how individuals felt about you but it's not so cut and dry within the Sith Lords instead we now have influence a stat that is raised through both actions and conversation there's checks within the game sometimes a choice about whether you will say something nice or mean to a party member you can tell aten that a plan he has created is a good one and you will gain influence with him and then there are various rewards for doing so all companions have influence and it can be both earned and lost throughout the journey this value starts neutral for each party member and changes throughout the game you could be a dark side character and have a strong influence on a light side one you may even be able to affect their own alignment with enough influence and this will later tie into some additional mechanics as we get more party members and further develop them it's a wonderful mechanic because it makes it feel like you have an actual relationship with your party members one that you actually get to affect regardless of your alignment aten and the Exile will attempt to use the nearby console to communicate with anyone who may still be alive on the station since you were all stuck on the administration floor and need access to the rest of the facility the only one you manage to get into contact with is T3 M4 who seems to have been repaired since his time on the Ebon Hawk during the prologue T3 is reluctant to Traverse through the facility but agrees after you explain that you are trapped within what follows is a short segment where you again play as T3 and you come face to face with the open Hawk which seem to have also been repaired while you were all unconscious T3 finds a terminal further within the area and can see that the lockdown took place because an individual spoofed a fuel leak just as he opens a hatch to the administrator level someone off screen disables him and control is returned to the Exile you can use the newly created access way to enter into the mining tunnel so that you may reach even further into the station unfortunately the tunnels are dangerous and full of incredibly hot gas that could kill you unless you wear a specific type of mining Shield shields were very useful in Kotor one by but you may not have realized that as they were never prevalent in conversation throughout the game the mining shield and its ability to protect against heat is better Illustrated within the section and encouraged to be used so you can get through the area this allows the player to go forward with the knowledge of how Shields protect you in various unique situations such as against energy blasts or even melee with the right Shield equipped what transpires is a Dungeon Crawl Through a variety of similar looking droids until you reach a large open area filled with droids behind various energy Shields like I mentioned it's possible to sneak by them but the game takes it a step further and allows you to lower the Shields and disable the robots at the same time if you have the relevant skills when accessing the terminal through Hollow logs you can learn that some of the miners realized you were a Jedi and attempted to sell you to The Exchange who are still very prevalent within the Galaxy apparently they're a criminal organization from the first game that's all you really need to know at the moment along the path aten will contact you to inform you that something triggered fuel to vent through through the tunnels and out of the asteroid which will cause a blast to ignite throughout he locks the lift you took from the administrator level to contain it and suggests that you haul ass to the Fuel Depot on the other end apparently buying you some time so the tunnels don't explode until you're safe when you emerge from the tunnels you come face to face with HK 50 an advanced version of the hk-47 developed by Revan to be used against the Republic during the Civil War for this reason the droids were mass produced but production was halted due to Revan being captured by the Jedi if you remember hk-47 from the previous game this unit will seem eerily similar with the same unique way of talking that we expect from the previous model to further the parallels like how 47 referred to Raven as master so too does the 50 unit to you suggesting that you own this unit in some way but things aren't as the same here using the parallels of the first game is a clever way of fooling the player it makes HK 50 seem like a potential partner the natural progression point from hk4 37 and someone we would have along our journey but that's not how things are going to go down and we'll see that shortly when we meet hk50 it's in the vicinity of a dead engineer security officer I think he was a security officer if you listen to the hollow logs on your way here you'll see him being berated by his Superior in the security office something killed this man and it's not clear what it was I wonder if it was the assassination Droid created by a Sith Lord regardless there's not much to find on his body but his nearby Hollow log on a maintenance station talks about the recent issues and security breaches that have led him to taking measures into his own hands the officer created a voice print ID system that would stop other individuals from messing with the droids and the Ebon Hawk even if they had the password on hand you can find the nearby voice print scanner and then you must utilize it to gather not only the code but enough voice samples from the officer in order to use it this was potentially one of the most confusing Quests for for me the first time I played through this game I can't stress enough how important it is to listen and read all of the dialogue and text that is presented to you because it is crucial in understanding how to solve various puzzles for example The Voice print system needs three samples total one on the maintenance terminal one back in the security office on the first floor and one on the HK 50 who recorded the last words of the officer before his death I had no idea how to get all of this information because I didn't even realize that the hollow logs could be played to record this this was a long time ago before I seemed to develop an attention span for these types of games and I doubt that I would have ever figured it out without a guide that being said you can bypass all of this because the only reason we need the password is to gain access to the next area in the facility the dormitories to see if anyone is still alive to get there we need to go through an airlock and outside the station but said airlock is locked it's in the name turns out that by destroying the nearby console the door will be forced open completely invalidating the puzzle which I think is hilarious but in a good way I'm pretty sure that if you took the time to read everything and listen to everything you'd be rewarded by being able to complete the puzzles and also gain extra experience points on the process so it's not a worthless Endeavor luckily obsidian was nice enough to not lock cavemen like me out of progressing by offering multiple solutions to the problem that's what's nice about table tops there may be puzzles to solve but there's also this overwhelming freedom because it's a group of real individuals creating a real Story in real time in a way these games try to emulate that feeling and one of the best ways to do that is to find creative ways of allowing individuals to continue forward if there's a puzzle ahead of you but there's a wooden door in a way why not just bash the door in instead of wasting time solving the puzzle it's a liberating experience and just as a suggestion because I was playing it during the writing of this script check out Baldur's Gate 3 that game is insanely in depth in terms of the way you can solve certain problems once we enter the airlock we can grab a spacesuit this is really just the underwater suit from Kotor one I guess being in space and being underwater were mechanically similar enough for the developers to reuse the entire system I can't really knock them for that considering there was a 14-month development period and creating some sort of space mechanic within that time would have been even more feature creeped than the game already was as you make your way outside a cutscene will play showing the arrival of a republic ship known as The Harbinger as we see in the scene all of the Republic soldiers are dead and there is only one individual left meditating on the bridge this is Darth Sion one of the Sith triumvirate who we will get to know better a bit later the harbinger is important to the backstory of your character as we will learn shortly as well having to dock on the facility and also attach its fuel line to it means that there is now a way to travel from the administration level down to the hangar Bay area where the Evan Hawk is sounds great if not for the fact fact that the Eben Hawk can't fly without the proper nav charts which just so happened to be on the harbinger meaning you can travel there with your party of aten and Crea and grab the charts before heading to the hangar before that though we still need to see if anyone is alive within the dormitories unfortunately much like the rest of the station it seems that the area was sabotaged with many of the staff running to their rooms for shelter against the droids only to be gassed out and suffocated within their living quarters what's important about this area is the hollow logs that show the end of the individuals who wish to sell you to the exchange one of the holologs shows that the miners were working with an unknown individual one who masked their voice to sound like the security officer while being recorded I assume communicating through an intercom or something I say mask because it was not the security officer who caused all of this it's a red herring setup via the bonus mission to find out who attempted to poison you as we find out later that the requests came from the maintenance terminal that would suggest that the officer was the one to start all of this that doesn't last very long however as soon the miners are betrayed and killed by drones just like everyone else in the facility The Voice then begins to gloat over their deaths and is soon revealed to be HK 50 of all people big shocker there definitely didn't see the assassination Droid being behind all of this turns out that the hk-50 unit is the one who administered the lethal dose of sedatives to the patients apparently knowing full well that it wouldn't kill you merely using it as an opportunity to keep you unconscious in fact if you talk to the unit enough you'll see a trend of it getting in your way when attempting to discuss any means of getting off the station the hk-50 unit doesn't want you to leave it wants you to stay right here and await those that are going to show up to take you those individuals being the Sith although the hk50 is not owned by The Sith specifically I'd say it's handing you off to the Sith because of events we will learn about shortly but what has become apparent is that everything that has gone wrong on the facility was caused by the hk50 unit in order to keep you detained aimed there's an interesting Mini Puzzle to solve in order to get back to the administrator level the turbo lift is locked by a code and this code was attempted to be used by the miners who wanted to sell you to The Exchange hk50 set up a trap by reversing the code so the miners couldn't access the lift and they would be caught in a dead end to be killed by a couple droids it states as much during the hollow log so we know there's a code and we know it's been reversed you can find another hololog that gives the first three or so numbers but it's incomplete five numbers in total but we only have three at the terminal we are given a military flash code segment where we see a sequence of dashes dots and X's that Define what numbers should be used in the code a DOT is equal to one a dash to ten and an X to five we know this by comparing the sequences to the numbers we already found a three has three dots 17 has a dash and x and two dots 13 has a dash and three dots this is enough information to solve the rest of the sequences giving us the code and allowing us to reverse it what makes this interesting to me is that an intelligence check can be used to solve the puzzle for you if you have a high enough intelligence your character is able to reason everything I just explained out for you rather than you having to do it yourself investing in certain attributes has rewards you may not expect generally a puzzle is meant to be solved by a player but if your character is incredibly smart why waste that stat by making the player solve the puzzle the character can solve the puzzle at that point and it's a nice reward so we can make it back to the administrator level where craya is waiting for us and finally joins the party same with aten once we reach him before we can head to the harbinger though the hk50 unit finally confronts us in a battle ensues leading to its destruction but make sure to loot the body as it has parts we will need for later now's a good time to mention that some but not all party members have special traits about them to help boost your group overall aten may die in battle but can be resurrected as long as there's still one other party member alive at the time if you were alive aten has the chance of coming back with a certain percentage of HP Crea meanwhile offers a seven percent experience boost while in the party and she has a forced connection to the Exile that allows her Force busts to affect the both of you not every character has something like this at least not to this effect something else I either don't remember or only found out about during this playthrough is that you can not only look around in first person but if you do so as craya and another party member we haven't met yet you can see through the force using foresight which allows you to see individuals alignment as well as through walls apparently with hk50 dealt with we can head on to the harbinger a large section of which is reused from the endar Spire in Kotor one again this is just an observation and not something I'm overly critical about considering the time span on the way to get to the nav charts you'll be attacked by various Sith assassins who have stealth field generators they use these to get the jump on you but they're all pushovers for the most part what exactly happened here well as it turns out you were a passenger aboard but for reasons that are currently unknown Hollow logs show that the Republic officers on board were tasked with keeping you comfortable and happy but didn't want you to be aware of the special treatment you even had your own room on the vessel further the hk50 unit is complained about by some of the staff in other holologues as it doesn't listen to orders and seems overly hostile the hk50 unit managed to board the harbinger and cause the original protocol Droid to sustain an accident and then proceeded to take its place it then began to do what it did on paragus sabotaging the ship in an effort to keep you detained it even forged an order for you to head to the medical Bay and enter a culto tank where the Droid again fed you sedatives to keep you unconscious this seemed to be a means for delivering you to the Sith as they soon arrived on the ship with Darth Sion although he was unconscious at the time the doctors want to examine his gray and fractured body not knowing who he was Nor realizing they had been boarded by invisible Sith assassins around this time cray aborted The Harbinger with the ebenhawk and proceeded to rescue you from the Sith as darciana awoken began killing individuals within the med Bay the Sith proceeded to take over the ship while kreya absconded with you from the scene back onto the Eben Hawk where the HK 50 unit followed the ship was then attacked and subsequently damaged by The Sith leaving both you and Crea unconscious and drifting in space until T3 M4 managed to rescue you now hopefully I got all of that right I always found this timeline of events very confusing and may have gotten some wires crossed but this is the general idea of what transpired you were a passenger on the Republic ship but didn't seem to be a member of the Republic forces while you were on the ship seems to be unclear but there is a hollow log conversation between the captain and Admiral karth onassi discussing you yeah karth is in this game and an admiral now good for him once you have the navcharts you can make your way towards the fuel line so you can reach the Evan Hawk as these things tend to go you're stopped by the appearance of Darth Sion who comes for you I should point out that aten begins to mention things that suggest he's Force sensitive he talks about being able to feel the danger ahead but chalks it up to experience he can also read people and see the pain within them as we will learn about later once we board the ebenhawk Crea stays back to buy you some time and we get to learn a little bit more about crayon and Scion in the process before she goes crayon mentions that cyan cannot kill what he cannot see and that power has blinded him long ago it is implied that Scion can only sense those around him as he mentions sensing Crea and referring to her as Master the two discuss their past without revealing much and Scion soon cuts off kreya's hand with his lightsaber since the two of you are connected you feel the full effects of this action on your hand and it causes you to collapse in pain temporarily once you regain your composure you and Anton make your way through through the fuel line to find T3 M4 who was dumped there by hk50 after disabling him during the previous section the three of you make your way to the hangar while grabbing a device that will fix the hanger console and open a previously locked route to the ship you all make your way onto the ship as the Sith Troopers attempt to board where they come from I'm unsure I guess they boarded The Harbinger at some point and stayed hidden it's not explained very well since the entirety of the ship's populace was supposed to be dead Republic soldiers Scion and invisible assassins these Sith are generic troopers from Kotor 1 so where did they come from you Mana turret Blast away as many as you can and then proceed to defeat the remainder that made it onto the ship craya then shows up just in the nick of time to make it onto the hawk before you all take off heading into space unfortunately you guys aren't out of the woods just yet to escape the pursuing Sith again I have no idea where they came from since we never saw them on paragus you need to jump to light speed but that's an issue due to being within an asteroid field should an asteroid get destroyed Droid or should you jump within the vicinity it would cause a chain reaction that would lead to the destruction of the entire planet the fuel on paragus being that volatile and having already decimated the planet once before this is a non-choice as your options are to either Escape or die so aten jumps leading to the destruction of the planet but saving you all in the process it would have been nice if there was some sort of choice here maybe we have to battle more individuals to create a path out that saves the planet in the process but at the same time sometimes these moral decisions would you like to see in RPGs are not decisions at all if the choice was between me being killed by The Sith and destroying the planet I would most likely not choose to lay down and die sometimes to save yourself bad things happen in the process it sucks but it happens sometimes you don't have a choice to make make no mistake I am in full agreement with the individuals in my comments that pragas is one of the longer and more grueling experiences at the start of an RPG while I have my issues with Terrace that doesn't mean pragueis is safe from criticism an interesting storyline and mystery about what happened within the facility manages to become a confusing mishmash of mechanics that can leave you yearning to finally Escape but what makes paragus feel the longest isn't the exploration in combat but the dialogue of which I feel is some of the strongest within any Star Wars game past or future within the confines of the progress Mining facility we set up the further mysteries of our blind mentor craya of aten and his obvious ties to the force of the HK units and what they want from us we discuss the past of the Exile and while said past is mostly predetermined we do get to shape it somewhat through our dialogue choices obsidian is strongest when it comes to writing and said writing takes an element like pragas and makes it manageable one of the major aspects of these games is the freedom of exploration within the Galaxy Kotor 1 kept that from you with a short tutorial section of the under spire followed by the long slog that is Terrace Kotor 2 starts you off on a lengthy Endeavor of navigating progress and then throws you onto Telos with no breathing room you go from one limiting area to another and even when you finish within the cereal of Telos you still aren't ready to begin fully exploring all of this to say that while I remember enjoying the start of the Sith Lords over Kotor 1 my reasons for it are the dialogue and this may not be the same for everyone in terms of the other gameplay mechanics paragus is tiring and I'd argue that when combined with Telos may end up being a bigger wall for replayability than I ever thought Terrace was with the threat of the Sith at Bay you and your party are able to relax momentarily within hyperspace aten demands to know what is going on he even reiterates a joke he made to you while craya was busy with Darth Sion describing the man as an individual who looks like he sleeps with viral blades I guess he thought it was so good he wanted to make sure craya heard it as well cray will explain that the Sith are after you as they wish to wipe out the last of the Jedi die you can both claim to not be a Jedi any longer and also question the concept of being the last of your kind it's not technically true there are other Jedi in hiding but a large number of them have been killed by The Sith leading to them being endangered at the very least dantuwine is in Ruins after the events of Darth Malik the temple on Coruscant is empty for all intents and purposes the Jedi have no standing or influence on the Galaxy anymore if you question Crea on how she tracked you down she'll explain that it was difficult to do but once she realized you're on the harbinger she knew the Sith wouldn't be far behind so the question doesn't really get answered something else that remains unclear is how Korea managed to get her hands on the Eben Hawk there's a lot of confusing aspects about this section of the game that I always found weren't made readily clear how did Korea get the Ebon Hawk how did you get on the harbinger how did the Sith board The Vessel so easily now don't get me wrong most of these are explained it's just difficult to place everything together the Evan Hawk was picked up as as a derelict freighter by The Harbinger crayo remained on board I'm assuming as a corpse and then attempted to rescue you the Sith ship let out a distress signal and Scion was rescued rescued as an air quotes here by the Republic assassins snuck on board and then Korea saved the Exile but how craya got the freighter is still a mystery the most likely explanation I have seen online is based around the fact that T3 returns with the hawk from unknown regions of space after Revan sends him on his way T3 potentially sought out former friends of Revan including the Exile in Korea as Crea mentions she was one of revan's first teachers it's confusing information anytime I would try to put the pieces together by searching online individuals seem to be having similar problems as myself while The Narrative of Kotor 2 is great and gets better as we progress the beginning and a bit of the end is a fumbled mess the ebenhawk is on route to Telos and that destination can't be changed at this time due to the nav charts you took from The Harbinger in the meantime Crea goes to rest and aten suggests you go check on her since he can feel the pain rolling off of her from the wound on her arm something even you couldn't sense at the moment it's clear atton has some sort of force sensitivity but whether or not he realizes it or is simply hiding it is currently unclear to the player you can head through the ship to talk to Crea but before that there's a section of the ship that we can open which reveals hk-47 In the Flesh well not flesh in the plating he's been on the Eben Hawk this entire time but hidden away in somewhat damaged or dismantled luckily the hk50 unit you destroyed offered a part that can be used to somewhat repair 47. in fact while hk-47 is still not operational there will be several other encounters with HK 50 units that will allow us to collect parts to put them back together and in working order in this way hk-47 is a party member you earn the ability to use throughout your journey one thing atton mentions to you is that it's clear Crea cares about how you perceive her it's why she didn't show that she was in pain to you earlier she doesn't want to demonstrate weakness this is partially due to Crea wanting to be your mentor to train you as your connection to the force grows stronger speaking of you can discuss the Jedi civil war with craya as well as several other topics including Revan the Jedi Council your past your new connection to craya it's scary to think that the pain of one individual May resonate through the other in fact cray believes that it most likely works both ways her pain is yours and your pain hers you Ponder on the idea of what would happen in death and Crea doesn't want to think about it while also stating that in battle your minds are shielded from this effect regardless of the damage you take a necessary throwaway explanation to explain why the two of you can function in battle after taking a blaster bolt as an example now I'm not going to sit here and describe every conversation we have with every party member but I do want to point out and discuss some important ones an important conversation Here and Now is how craya describes the Jedi Council and their actions onto you the Exile you and Crea describe but forcibly severing one's connection to the force as causing someone to lose one of their senses to lose the ability to hear or see or to be put into a deep sleep unable to awaken something you can bring up during the topic is how you can't believe the Jedi would inflict such punishment to take away one's natural senses seems too cruel and the Exile is right it is cruel cruel and unusual punishment from the Jedi that says a lot about how we should perceive those that consider themselves agents of the light side if you watched my previous video I talked about how to bring balance to the force one does not have an equal amount of light and dark side within the Galaxy the force is light side and the dark side is like a virus or blight that consumes it to bring balance to the force means eradicating the dark side when we understand this we then understand that the light side is an inherent good to be good and to spread Good Will that's the lights the issue is when sentient beings are brought into the equation while the light side is inherently good the Jedi are not in fact the Jedi can inflict as much pain as any Sith but reason it away as virtuousness and necessity we will see better examples of this later late into the game this portrayal of the Jedi value shows how they are human or sentient rather since some of them are alien races they can be Arbiters of the light but at the same time they can hate they can resent and sometimes what they believe is right and the best course of action is more evil than you would expect from someone who calls themselves a Jedi it's a great exploration into the concept something that was brought up in Kotor 1 and gets further explored in the Sith Lords all that being said the question of what happened to the Exiles connection to the force and whether the Jedi were truly responsible is explored further in the storyline not everything is as it seems the Exile acts as an unreliable narrator for the player and Crea in turn capitalizes on this for her own Ben benefit craya believes that your connection to the force may be healed and she offers to train you in the matter if you would allow it additionally she mentions that you may need to seek out other individuals who can help you in the process both to help regain your connection to the force or potentially undo the damage they have already done to you this becomes one of the main aspects of your adventure through the Galaxy finding these Jedi and having them bestow your powers back unto you instead of searching for the star maps on each planet we're instead searching for members of the Jedi Order while we attempt to regain our powers with craze aid offered an intention still left unclear we can head back to the cockpit in order to see if aten has anything he wants to not tell us as well sure enough much like Crea it's difficult to get him to open up about anything aten takes the time to insult both you and Crea as Jedi and then further craya by complaining about her age and looks to be clear there's very little appealing about aten's personality but that's on purpose he's both hiding something and has a past with the Jedi that may have led to his natural hostility and conversation that doesn't make it right of course and for all intents and purposes is an he hasn't done good at all during the situation on paragus and instead focused on saving his own hide even when you tell him to lay off the insults on crayus and she just saved the both of you he can only refute by stating he never asked to be saved aten seems to lack empathy but it is in there we just haven't seen it yet and his growth as a character will be more rewarding when he learns to be accountable for his actions and his friends it's not an easy process however on top of Jedi Adam also seems to have a distrust of droids this distrust is the first look into one of the major themes in the Sith Lords the idea of droid sentience it's the ability to feel and yearn to be free many droids when active for too long begin compiling conflicting orders that result in logic Loops when trying to reconcile them within their programming this leads to Creative Solutions on the part of the Droid part of which results in the Droid earning a reputation mission for acting strange or having a personality these Creative Solutions allow the Droid to essentially break from the rules assigned to them and allow them to act freely to circumvent this many Droid owners will perform periodic memory waves on the Droid so that the rules that dictate them stay in place we'll see a better example of this later on Telos but it's very prevalent within this game specifically and I'm curious how much it gets brought up throughout other Star Wars media for all intents and purposes T3 and HK are close to sentient maybe not fully there but it's not as if you would be able to tell you can gain favor with T3 and HK you can befriend them spread your influence and convince them of things they become your allies and friends they feel pain they suffer in this way the creation of droids and the periodic memory wipes is a form of enslavement it's not like it's a New Concept to Star Wars we discussed slavery a fair amount in the first retrospective but this is a situation in which we are talking about man-made creation Nations a series of zeros and ones what's the process that takes a Droid from its assigned routine to Free Will and is it true Free Will at that I know I wouldn't want t3's memory wiped to me T3 is a person it seems like he can feel there's droids out there that are designed for simple tasks something like loader droids but what of the higher profile Creations do they deserve the freedom of biological individuals would a Loader Droid be a cat while a T3 is a person what's the comparison between synthetic and biological in terms of sentience is there even a comparison to make we'll revisit this tangent on Droids later meanwhile aten does begin to open up a little bit more or rather begins to ask you about your past in an attempt to break the ice and get to know you aten may be a womanizing misogynistic Droid and jedi-hating but he can't be all bad right what atten mainly wants to know about is the location of your lightsaber since in his eyes you are basically a full Jedi it would have made sense for you to use said lightsaber on paragus since you didn't something must have happened to it and this is true it seems as though it was taken into custody by the Jedi Order after you were expelled the interesting part of this conversation is that you get to describe your lightsaber to aten you get to describe the color and the health was it single blade or double this even has a payoff later in the storyline when you get to see the blade as we described it on multiple occasions unfortunately and potentially a missed opportunity you never get to reacquire it but that can kind of be considered the point of one of the main themes of the game we'll get to know more about our party as we travel but now it's time to head to Telos since we don't have any say in the matter as I'm writing this and experiencing the game over again with added Focus I completely understand where people are coming from with the length of progress well I think it has its merits where Terrace does not Terrace is also stronger in its overall package and finale before the planet gets glass now I've already explained why this is but I bring it up again because I want to explain why a new player may make the same comparison I did between Terrace Telos both planets start you off in a set of apartments and allow you to explore the city while visiting Cantinas taking part in side quests and trying to obtain a ship that will allow you to get off world that's about where the similarities end however while Terrace extends into the upper and lower levels of the city even exploring the under Cydia points your time within the city of Telos is relatively short before you're ejected onto the planet proper and even that area doesn't last very long before we make it to the handmaidens I think the most interesting part about Telos as a whole is that it has two separate routes for you to take in each of those routes very slightly based off of which you select as you land on Telos you'll immediately be impounded by the tsf or the Telos Security Forces this is due to your ship being the last recorded flight from paragus which has just been destroyed turns out that tilos relies heavily on the fuel from pragas and by blowing up the planet they have been doomed unless they can find an alternate fuel source a side quest that opens up for you a little later the head of the tsf doll Gren informs you that you'll be taken in while being investigated you'll start in some holding cells until an apartment is made ready for you and then you'll be under house arrest until you're proven to have no fault in the progress explosion pretty nice of them to just set you up in your own apartment if I'm being honest while confined to a holding cell an assassin will break into the tsf headquarters and attempt to kill you he's a bit of a buffoon and some antagonizing from aten and yourself convinced him to let you out of your cages so he can kill you in combat obviously that doesn't go very well for him and soon tsf officers come running in to see what the commotion is when they see a dead tsf officer they get ready to question you but it's quickly realized that the individual is an imposter of another tsf officer known as Batu REM who is currently off-world this imposter found a way into tsf headquarters which deeply disturbs Gren after the assassination attempt you'll be transported to a personal apartment where you'll stay under house arrest for a short while this gives the party some time to talk but it really just boils down to how are we going to get off of this planet crayon wants to meditate on it and you can join her but you're about to get interrupted multiple times despite being on house arrest you still seem to be able to make phone calls and there's multiple individuals who know of your appearance on Telos as well as rumors of you being a Jedi thus these individuals may want to use your talents for their own benefit the first call comes from moza an authorian representing the authorian planet restoration project as it turns out the surface of Telos was destroyed during the Jedi Civil War we remember that with cartho Nasi the authorians have the rights to work on the restoration project of the planet to help bring it back to its former glory unfortunately the Circa Corporation are back and are meddling in ethorian Affairs for personal gain Moses speaks to you representing chotto habbat another ethorian who has the ability to feel your damaged connection to the force by helping the authorians choto believes he can help partially heal said connection cray will Express her contempt and distrust of chotohabbat but without giving too much away chotto is clearly Light Side he's the good guy Choice within the quest line what we need to do right now is remember this aspect of Crea she seems to hold resentment for what makes the Light Side good it's as if she can't believe individuals would be willing to help one another for no reason other than that they could sure choto wants something out of the agreement but what Chota wants is the betterment of the planet and his people for Crea just the idea of making this deal just the idea that Chota wants you to offer something for his help is Devious in her eyes this isn't something that happens as much with dark side choices you don't receive as many warnings from Crea when the dark side individuals ask you to help but maybe there's a point to that a lesson to be learned here Crea doesn't need to explain the devious nature of zerka for example because it's incredibly apparent already the dark side goes hand in hand with this type of transaction and manipulation what you may not expect is that one of the light may manipulate you as well we know through a meta-narrative sense that shotohabbat is a good person and just needs help offering you a reward for being the one to assist him but the lesson can be that no matter how good one may seem they may not always be telling you the whole story the Jedi manipulated and kept secrets from Revan and his party being part of the light side doesn't mean you can't lie that you can't control people through manipulation the Jedi do that all the time one of their better known abilities is forced persuasion and it's something that you as the Exile should be wary of those that are looked at as good may not always do good they may do bad for reasons they believe to be right and this gets further explored throughout the journey once moza leaves you can return to meditating but are again interrupted when another call comes in for you this time from the Circa Corporation B4 D4 is the one who connected you to jaina lorso and we should take a moment to appreciate this Droid for all he's going to do for us later now I think it's incredible how real this conversation felt from a manipulation sense janalorso knows you met with the authorians and she's quick in her attempts to discredit them suggesting they made veiled threats against you while imposing guilt actions that never took place and something you can call Orso out on for more than insinuating she even asks you if the authorians threatened to lead the exchange to you if you don't work for them to which you can mention that no they never said anything of the sort what is instead implied is that zerka would be fully willing to do the same The Exchange are on Telos and I'm sure Jana lorso would have no issue turning you over to them if you decided to help the authorians instead of her as I've mentioned already this is a light side playthrough and will be helping the authorians but there are some differences between the two Roots namely that helping zerka will have you complete a few jobs for the exchange that you wouldn't end up doing for the authorians while these quests are somewhat interesting I believe the most interesting Quest overall comes alongside the authorians after the call you'll go back to meditating and aten will spark up a conversation with Crea aten's confused about why you are so weak now considering you were a Jedi once before Crea points out that the loss of the force is a crippling blow to the Jedi because of their over Reliance on it a Jedi that loses their connection to the force may lose their ability to do menial tasks because of how tied to the force they were previously a Jedi not be able to hold a blaster like someone who has trained in it for some time but they may not be able to use a lightsaber as well anymore either you can tell it's something that Crea thinks about a lot one of the reasons she keeps adding around is because he holds advantages a Jedi may not because he interacts with the force in a different way than a Jedi would kind of ironic considering what will happen later on there's contempt from craya about the force she doesn't seem to like it she doesn't like that the Jedi rely on it and she makes this clear despite utilizing it herself perhaps a necessary evil for her and now you as she is willing to assist in your growth finally after some time Gren will arrive to inform you that you've been found innocent and lacking any involvement with the planet's destruction at least any way that was a fault of your own he notes that the harbinger was indeed present at one point at the facility but seems to have disappeared by the time tsf officers arrived you're free from house arrest but you aren't allowed off the station turns out the Republic is sending their own ship to investigate and have insisted you stay that being said all of your belongings can be picked up at tsf headquarters and I recommend doing so ASAP as it's easy to run into a combat situation while on Telos and not having your gear could be fatal Telos is broken up into modules there's the apartment module which you are currently located in it has two sections for the ethorians and zurica respectively then there's the entertainment module which houses a Cantina and tsf headquarters for some reason as well as a docking module for housing shuttles and private hangers heading over to the tsf will have you run into an alien being harassed by a few mercenaries and I'm going to use this as an opportunity to explain something so we don't have to repeat it over and over again this game has a lot of similar interactions to Kotor 1. a lot of subquests are similar too some are very interesting but many are minor and don't have much to say they act more as an opportunity for role playing combat or alignment shifting do you save the alien from The Mercenaries or do you walk away go hunt down some bounties enter some swoop races play some pizzok it's all been talked about in my previous video and I'm not going to retread ground here although there will be some side quests us I want to mention as we go once at the tsf headquarters you can talk to a nearby Droid to regain all of your gear in a nearby locker room you can also look into retrieving your ship but unfortunately it seems that the ebenhawk has been stolen aten is quick to blame T3 but the Droid explains that it doesn't seem to be the case someone else stole the ship and it still seems to be on the planet somewhere meaning your new main goal is getting to telos's surface so you can continue your attempt to get off Planet while you're here you can talk to Grant and receive a variety of side quests from him these include a selection of bounties but more importantly he is hoping you can find a fuel source for Telo since it is your fault that the planet exploded in his eyes a more interesting Quest would include the smuggling operation that Gren wants you to look into it's an investigation Mission you can solve by talking to the merchant Brothers in the entertainment module one of them is fairly straight laced while the other is openly a criminal you can convince him that you want to work for the Smugglers and he will ask you for an assortment of items that are hard to come by so he can sell them and split the profits with you this requires you going a long search for all of these items before returning to the merchant one of the items is a sample of a plant and I believe this will hurt your reputation with the ethorians as it's in their compound and potentially kills the plant in the process the much easier solution is to return to grin and inform him of what you learned Gren will gather all of the materials for you I assume in an above board fashion and you can bring them to the merchant who will take them to a nearby hanger to be smuggled off world you and Gren can use this as an opportunity to catch everyone in the ACT which leads to a battle and the merchant will be locked up for the crimes he's committed the brother will even give you a discount at his shop so how do we get off station that's where Circa and the authorians come in when we reach the authorian compound will be directed to a room where we can find chotohabbat choto explains how he sensed our arrival and is hoping that we would be willing to help him in return for potentially healing a part of our Force connection Shoto goes on to explain how zerka has been interfering with the planet restoration project and has been using their financial power to purchase land that they use to mine resources rather than restore The Exchange is also involved as we'll soon see the first issue for the authorians is that a Droid intelligence unit they were given by the Republic has gone missing most likely stolen at Great expense they've managed to acquire another but worry that it will be taken again thus asking you to act as an escort for it this is almost completely mirrored in the Circa Corporation path except they want you to steal the Droid regardless of which path you're on you'll head to the hangar and be ambushed by mercenaries or thugs once the mercenaries are dealt with you can bring the Droid back to whichever side you are working for since we are working for the authorians we will bring him back there this is where the paths begin to diverge slightly the authorians believe that Circa and the exchange are working together in order to repress the ethorians this is most likely the case but the zerker corporation also wants the exchange to dealt with most likely to remove them from the equation and gain more power both of these quests require you to deal with the exchange on Telos lopak slusk zerka wants him dead but the authorians would like you to talk to him if POS possible unfortunately the exchange doesn't let anyone into their compound here on Telos you need another way to get into the area and that's where luxa comes in luxa can be found in the Cantina she's a member of The Exchange and wants to get rid of slusk so she can take over if you're going the zerker root she'll have a few jobs for you to take care of first these quests aren't available if you're taking the ethorian path and most importantly require you to kill a Droid technician will need later to deal with zerka since we are on the authorian path luxa will get straight to the point she sees an opportunity in you and is willing to help you get inside of the exchange base so that you can deal with slusk when you arrive at the exchange compound you can let the guard know that lux has sent you there's a receptionist you can persuade to let you inside but regardless of this you'll have a battle ahead of you as you make your way to slusk's office aslusk Retreats you'll run into some gamorians turns out they're working for Alexa so talking to them has them Retreat from the scene once you break into the office Celeste will try to make a deal with you as he does luxa will show up and you'll have to make a choice do you choose to spares Lusk and let him continue his operation under the agreement that he will leave the ethorians alone do you continue your alliance with luxa as you already agreed to it do you kill everyone here to wipe out the exchange from Telos before I explain the outcome of these choices let's consider which is the best for Telos specifically wiping the exchange from Telos will not remove the exchange from the Galaxy this means that while their foothold on Telos will be crippled they will most likely regain said strength later on and come back to the authorians in full force so is siding with slusk the right option here if we can get slusk to agree to lay off the authorians The Exchange will continue to operate but there would be a better chance of no retaliation against the restoration project but we then need to consider if slusk is going to keep his word as a member of the exchange can we really trust slusk to hold up his end of the bargain the same question can be applied to luxa sure we are siding with her now but can we trust her not to betray us later these kinds of unclear answers to the choices you need to make are littered throughout the Sith Lords it's what makes the game so compelling from a narrative sense I wouldn't even call it a morality issue necessarily but a test in trust and decision making when it comes to getting the most out of a situation what would you choose in this situation knowing nothing about the actions that follow it seems difficult to me when we consider what the exchange may try to do to the authorians in retaliation so what happens anyway if you side with slusk you'll kill luksa and the gomorians slusk will then keep his end of the bargain but warn you not to push the exchange any further if you side with luxa you'll kill slusk and then luxa will betray you in an attempt to capture a Jedi for goto the leader of the exchange So within those two options slusk is the best choice in terms of not being betrayed you still have the option to kill everyone though slusk is responsible for a lot of evil that is done on Telos to remove him may be viable it may be morally Justified we don't know that the exchange would come back to retaliate for sure although it is implied in a conversation that they absolutely will come back later from a diplomatic standpoint point I would personally say that siding with slusk is the safest route for the authorians from a moral standpoint I believe getting rid of the exchange is the best course of action killing slusk is also the only way to save the captured citizen from a nearby Force cage for this playthrough I chose to kill everyone because I wanted the EXP and loot so say what you will if siding with zerka I believe you are forced to kill slusk and then forced to kill luxa as she betrays you this will lead to the zerka offices being attacked by mercenaries and after fighting them off you'll be rewarded with a shuttle that can take you to the surface of Telos now it wouldn't be very interesting if the authorian path had less content than the zerka one the zerkopath had a more fleshed out set of Quests for the exchange because it assumes you are taking a dark side path with your character and gives you opportunities to work towards that if that's the case what extra content do the ethorians offer and what I would consider the most interesting Quest on Telos the authorians will ask you to complete one final task for them before helping you reach the surface the authorians want proof of zerka's misdeed so that they can hand them more to the talosian government and get them kicked off of Telos in order to do this you'll need to find our friend b4d4 from earlier bring him to the ethorian compound and have him rewired to work under your orders some good old-fashioned Espionage to send off our time on the station B4 D4 won't come willingly without the proper credentials but we don't know where to find those immediately luckily there's a Circa employee in the Cantina who has it out for Channel or so you can convince him to help you and he'll inform you about a Droid technician who has the credentials you're looking for this is the technician that the exchange has you kill if you went down the Circa route the Droid technician can be convinced to hand over the credentials but he's only willing to do it if you help him with his own problem he's stuck working on the station because he owes the exchange money you can mention that you took care of the exchange but he's the individual who points out that they'll be back eventually and that the exchange spans past the station itself you can either threaten or kill the attack if you want some dark side points or you can pay the debt off with the sum of 2500 credits I personally chose to offer an extension on the text loan I gave him the 25 500 and he agreed to pay me back sometime in the future I didn't actually know at the time if he would pay me back but after revisiting Telos it turns out that he will once you have the credentials you can head to the zerka compound and present them to b4d4 which will allow him to follow you back to the authoriums once reprogrammed you will assume the role of b4d4 it's an interesting scenario considering you get to decide certain aspects of the droid's personality here you have the ability to lie about certain things so you can decide if you tell the truth or not this only matters for the role-playing aspect in the end but I thought it was interesting to decide the path of a third party in a game where you only ever decide your own B4 will make his way to the Circa Corporation offices and convince Janna to let him into the Mainframe room here B4 will run into t1n1 who oversees the Mainframe T1 will question yb4 is there and this leads to a conversation I alluded to earlier B4 uses a logic Loop to break T1 out of his routine T1 is programmed not to harm any organic individuals but he's also programmed to serve General or so by looking into the logs of the Mainframe T1 will see that by serving Janna he is complicit in hurting Organics this Loop breaks T1 out of its routine and bestows onto it free will of which it uses to create a distraction for B4 by I assume killing the two guards in front of the Mainframe before absconding from the scene the game continues to explore the concepts of Free Will within droids even more so with B4 as we look into the Mainframe records to get incriminating information on Janna while in the Mainframe you can optionally delete all records of B4 being purchased by zerka effectively removing their hold on him suggesting that B4 now free of Mind yearned to be free of ownership as well when you return with the evidence the ethorians will let B4 go to which aten protests since individuals expect droids to be compliant to not lie before would have a dangerous advantage over people who didn't know he was free of his routine at this point you can as before state that you will cause no trouble in the future how however one of these options has the LIE signifier allowing the player to decide before his future as a free Droid whether or not he plans on capitalizing on his freedom in a devious manner is up to you with everything taken care of and the authorians having everything they need to get rid of zerka a shuttle will be prepared for your party to get onto the planet's surface before that you can inquire about the healing that choto promised which craya again objects to if you accept the healing you'll gain an additional five Force points as you make your way to the Docking Bay you'll be contacted by moza over Communicator moza is in distress as they are under attacked by mercenaries most likely under the employee of zurka trying to cover their tracks you can backtrack to the authorian compound fight off the mercenaries and save moza and chotto as well as various other NPCs finally you're finished with the authorians at this point and you can make your way to the shuttle and finally leave the station as you board the shuttle a scene will play of karth onassi contacting Gren Gren will say that the Exile escaped the station but this doesn't seem to bother cart at all as the Republic has decided to not detain the Exile and instead plans to adopt a wait-and-see approach this confirms a major aspect of the Republic that they know of you as the Exile they know you're a Jedi and they have some sort of plan for you what that plan is isn't immediately clear I haven't mentioned it yet but during your time on the station after completing enough story points and side quests a cutscene will trigger in space we see a disheveled Sith ship flying off to an unknown location within is a Sith woman meditating she awakens travels to the bridge and is met by Darth nihilus the other major Sith Lord out to get you in Kotor too Nyla seems to cover his face and his language isn't translated how he talks or what he is saying isn't clear but the woman before him is able to understand and Converse with him the woman mentions she feels a disturbance in the force that of the Exile she begins to ask if it's a threat to nihilus but he's quick to force choker she begins to apologize but at the same time begs for nihilus to end her life with what little time we've seen of her we've learned a fair amount a force Adept individual tired of living for reasons we don't understand at the moment who serves the Sith Lord out of fear nihilus lets her go and she states that she can track the disturbance to its source suggesting she's to be sent off to kill the Exile ending the scene nihilus is the most mysterious out of all of the Sith Lords unfortunately this mystery doesn't have a reasonable amount of light shed on it they talk about nihilus a lot in the past tense but there isn't much to see of him in the present as you escape the station your ship is attacked by the surface defense turrets for unknown reasons resulting in a crash as you awaken you are met by bayodir and his Droid companion the ethorians mentioned he would be on the surface and willing to help you more interesting is that Bayo refers to you as general as he served alongside you in the Mandalorian Wars you as the player get to choose whether you remember this or not further allowing you to establish some control over the exile's backstory the Sith Lords is talented at this your character has an established backstory but it's constantly molded by your decisions and actions how your your backstory is shaped is decided by the hands of the player which offers its own freedoms and in turn offers a more fulfilling experience as you regain control of your party you'll need to run with bayodair for a bit and I choose to bring crail along for the ride as well there are several groups of mercenaries on the surface using scouting droids to search for you and Bao bail hates the circuit Corporation and what they've been doing to telos's surface therefore he took it upon himself to stop them only to be outnumbered by mercenaries and effectively Stranded by what I would only call the will of the force Bao has now been reunited with the Exile and the group can work through waves of mercenaries until they eventually reach their main Camp an old Circa operating base that the mercenaries have taken over now up to this point Kotor 2 has been an easy experience in terms of combat there's a few difficult fights here and there but nothing overly so personally I would say that this Camp is the first time I had real difficulty in my Adventures as the Exile while it was easier during this playthrough due to experience with the series I remember being being stuck in this camp for an extended period of time as a kid this is due to the developers often creating fairly open areas and filling them with enemies in fact while Kotor 1 had plenty of combat the Sith Lord seems to focus on this aspect of the game more heavily where in one game you might fight several small waves of enemies the sequel May throw 20 enemies at you at once maybe not that many I haven't counted but you'll find yourself working through what feels like armies later on and depending on how you leveled up you could be cutting through all of these characters like butter but this is early into Kotor 2 and we only have so many abilities we don't even have a lightsaber yet so walking into the camp and being virtually surrounded is a dangerous situation one the average or new player may have difficulty with to help with this the player needs to have a better understanding of how commanding their party works for example I let my party members do whatever they wanted to in this battle in turn Crea ended up running around the camp and picking fights before I could stop upper and this prevented me from taking a breather to heal or prepare for another encounter I had to utilize all the shields in my inventory I had to start to micromanage the party as best I could and eventually only I was left standing as my party ran off to get themselves killed you can set party behaviors for slight combat variants and I imagine this would help with them running off and getting killed but Kotor 2 seems to have this issue with line of sight if you're near a hostile enemy and you haven't fully exited a combat State your party is going to rush the next group of enemies even if they haven't noticed you yet meaning there's less time to prepare and eventually get overwhelmed by the sheer number of units there are to defeat there's a level of management that can take place in the game you can set certain units to range or support but this never seems to fix the issue and can make for a frustrating experience I explained this in the original video but I believe the gameplay of Kotor isn't set up for this level of scale in terms of battle this is why the star Forge was so annoying to work with because cause your party members would run off and get stuck they'd die and leave you alone to try and Salvage the battle it's the same here but instead it's through the majority of the game luckily for us Kotor 2 lets us get so powerful that this will stop being an issue and everyone can take care of themselves mostly unlucky for us is that this is still far away and there will be several times where we lose the use of the Exile and have to rely on the rest of our weaker party members the reason we're even fighting all of the mercenaries is because we need to find a shuttle to get off the ground and find the Eben Hawk there's a landing pad in the camp and Bayo will look through it to try and figure out where the hawk may be turns out there's a shielded area off of the grid from the restoration Zone making the location the most likely place of finding it out in the polar regions there's no shuttle on The Landing Pad but there is one in a nearby Circa base so that's the next destination what transpires is another long Dungeon Crawl one long segment after another as we try to make our way back to the Eben Hawk so the majority of the game could be opened up to us it can feel like a slog especially this far into the game and I wish I could say it's almost over but it isn't thankfully we have interesting story points coming up that help alleviate this grind I won't go into too much detail about the zerca base it's abandoned and droids have gone mad killing anyone within you can make your way through and even escort zerka employees to safety before leaving to which kreya will complain as she always does a huge aspect of crea's world view is that helping people weakens them and can weaken yourself to help another prevents them from helping themselves and in turn weakens them to a point where their death or suffering would be your fault at least in her warped reasoning don't get me wrong Crea has some points to make about some things and even her point about blindly helping individuals does have some Merit people that experience some hardships and work their way out of them may become stronger but helping them when they are in a rough spot doesn't guarantee you'll weaken them people need help some times sometimes they can't get themselves out of a dilemma and a third party is required this ability to help and this ability to empathize with an individual is not just some Jedi teaching it's a part of Being Human what Crea sees is the teachings of the Jedi poisoning the mind of her new Apprentice but in reality you may just be a good person someone that likes to help others that being said Crea is correct in that it can sometimes leave the individual blind to those around them blindly helping someone without assessing the situation can be dangerous and it's best to be aware of your surroundings and actions whenever possible this hatred craya has for helping others and the Jedi her hatred for the force will be explored more as we travel the base itself doesn't take absurdly long to get through but there's plenty of poison traps to watch out for and droids to fight along the way Bale reveals an ability to destroy force fields using his mechanical arm as well and I don't think I ever used it again outside of this once you find the ship and open the hangers you need to fight a giant Droid before boarding onto the shuttle and heading for the polar regions of Telos unfortunately for aten this shuttle too gets shot down this time by HK 50 units and it causes you to crash land on top of a large polar Mesa yes the HK 50 units are still chasing after you due to the exchange having a bounty on your head and they won't be letting up anytime soon pretty much for the entirety of the game once the HK units are dealt with you can grab another part for 47 and save it for later you're stranded now and Bayo is still knocked out meaning your party needs to find shelter in order to help them luckily there's a bunker not far from the crash site that you can enter which leads to a scene of a couple handmaidens approaching bail while he's knocked out inside the bunker you are approached by several other handmaidens that demand you drop your weapons and allow yourself to be taken into custody you can argue with them about it for a bit but Crea senses that you won't come under any harm and this is the best course of action the handmade ancestors are Six achani Women living within the secret Academy on Telos all sharing the same father General usanis one of the sisters Brianna is only half a chani her mother being a Jedi master named Aaron Kai or K I think it's Aaron K this leads to some resentment and contention between the pure Chinese sisters and Brianna although we won't be exploring that much in this video while the story of Brianna is an interesting one we unfortunately cannot recruit her to our party as a female character she is one of the two characters potentially locked off to us due to our sex the other being an individual on dantuwine we will meet sometime later we'll return to Brianna for a bit in a moment but first we need to discuss atres the Jedi Master who watches over the hidden Academy atris is an interesting character in terms of Jedi I would say all the hidden Jedi in this game are interesting in their own ways but mostly due to how they show the failures of the order while your party is locked away atres will have you join her in the council chamber there's a resentment within her towards you it's as if atres hates you but it it's not clear why that is she talks about your Exile wondering if you returned to repent for your Deeds but that's obviously not the case whether you even remember atres or not you're there to get the Ebon Hawk which you can claim as your own something atres will disagree with unless you want to admit to the destruction of paragus which she believes to be your fault it's a bit annoying you're watching this Jedi blame you for so much including a shared past that isn't fully made clear to the player just yet even the tsf seems to believe that you're innocent yet atres holds us responsible solely because she can't see past our own personal history whatever it may be she's trapped in her own hate and emotions I wonder where that will lead her as a Jedi no matter how you try to explain your choices to atres she won't listen to them the inaction of the council millions of Republic civilians dying the mandalorians taking over and needing to be stopped none of it matters to her it's like she can't hear you like she is blinded by the Jedi teachings and the rules of her order something that is again further explored throughout the game I know I keep saying it but everything gets explained further along as we go the responsibility of the Jedi of your actions are not yours alone the order holds some responsibility for what happened on malachor 5. for what happened to their padawans and knights but at the time none of them were willing to see that blinded by a virtuousness that was but a cover for their conceit these Jedi may start to realize that they aren't infallible that they are human admitting that is their first step in Redemption and by being so stuck in their old ways this will come back to bite atres and the Masters in the ass atres reminds you of the time you were exiled out of everyone who left to fight in the war with Revan you were the only one to return for trial it said a lot about you as an individual but it didn't mean you were missing in your resolve the Exile believed that defeating the mandalorians was right that saving the Galaxy from them was right and she is unbending in that resolve so much so that she struck her lightsaber into the council's monument in the middle of their Chambers when they asked for her blade a blade atres now holds on her as a reminder of you you made a huge impression on atres even if she frames it as hatred towards you you are really a representation of her own self-doubt later on when you leave she has a conversation with one of the handmaidens talking about how right you were or how you felt right you were so sure of yourself so sure that what you were doing was right even if it went against the Jedi teachings that you moved atres and that scared her caused her to wall herself off from you and become defensive people are scared of change they're scared of something they've believed in for so long being wrong strong individuals can see that they were wrong and move past it they can grow from it and become a better person as the world changes they change with it however some aren't as strong as others when the world changes some people get scared they question why the change is happening they try to justify why the change is unnecessary they vilify the change and the people that are slowly distancing themselves from the past that's atreus as she finds out that she made a mistake that the order was in some ways flawed she can't accept it and this denial turns into hostility it turns into emotion and it could eventually turn into the dark side the Jedi's flaws aside you can inform atres that the Sith are hunting you as they believe you to be the last of the Jedi something she scoffs at as she believes you to be a Jedi no longer still she can feel the effects of the Sith on you and believes your story relinquishing the Eben Hawk to you and demanding you leave with your party as soon as possible despite atres having your lightsaber you can't take it back at any point within the game as far as I'm aware while captured kreya will talk with aten and question his disdain towards the Jedi she can tell there's more to his hate than meets the guy and she'll use her abilities with the force to dig into his mind there she finds out about his past but doesn't State what it is aten begs her not to tell you about it and she essentially blackmails him into a type of servitude to keep her quiet before knocking him out cray is going to be getting a lot of people into servitude throughout the game once you reach your party you can free them and make your way to the Evan Hawk finding T3 in the process aten chastises the Droid for stealing the hawk but Bayo explains that it couldn't have been T3 which does turn out to be the case it was Brianna who took your ship to atris so they could investigate the destruction of paragus now before we leave there is a small side quest you can take part in by talking to one of the handmaiden sisters you can ask to train slash spar with them this leads to an assortment of increasingly difficult battles where you must fight one-on-one with no items if you leave them out you're fighting on you automatically lose as you complete one match the next gets more difficult but you also get the ability to use more items and powers to make up for it eventually being able to use your full capabilities the first three or so matches are fairly simple but you can then proceed to to fight two handmaidens at once and eventually five of the six sisters together which is a much more difficult encounter there's ways around this though since there is a rule that you were disqualified after leaving the arena an ability like force push can be used to cheese the fight by knocking the handmaidens out of the ring if you're wondering why you only fight 5 out of the six handmaidens it's due to the sisters having resentment for their half-sibling leaving her to be beneath them we don't get to explore that much in this playthrough since we aren't bringing Brianna with us but we can talk to Brianna before we leave Rihanna will ask you about your time as a Jedi explaining atres has talked about you in length in the past atres explained how you betrayed the Jedi Order and fell to the dark side but you can tell her that that is all just the point of view of atres and that you don't subscribe to it you never fell to the dark side and atres is misguided in her views towards you this allows you to have a more in-depth conversation with Brianna and discuss what it is like to feel the force and whether you should be scared of it or not something that seems to calm Brianna and foreshadows her own connection to it in fact almost every non-droid party member you meet has some connection to the force and said connection can be strengthened through a mechanic known as influence that I brought up before and we'll discuss in Greater length once we reach narshada with the party reunited and the ebenhawk reclaimed you can finally leave tilos for real this in turn will begin the true exploration and open-endedness expected of Kotor where you fly from planet to planet and explore the various worlds while taking part in Adventures but why would we do something like that well as T3 shows us he managed to get some information out of atres's computer while captured and he can play back your trial from back when you were exiled the scene that follows is several Jedi Masters asking you about your decision to leave for the war you can then defend your choice but not much comes from the conversation instead you were simply exiled and asked to leave your lightsaber which you Plunge Into The Stone ahead of you what's more important is not the trial itself but what comes after the video doesn't end and instead continues with the Masters discussing you and your act actions as well as your connection to the force being severed atres argues that they didn't lose a Jedi that day but lost an individual who had fallen to the dark side the Masters argue over this some wish to take responsibility for those who followed Revan while atris seeks to cast blame but the Masters didn't feel the dark side in the Exile there was something more to it than that a wound and emptiness that has changed you one big takeaway is that one of the Masters States they should have told you the truth that you deserve to know something they are keeping from you in regards to your connection implying that it wasn't the Jedi who took away your abilities with the force but something else really your Exile was meant to be the start of A New Path in Journey one the Masters can sense but not explain the feed then shows a list of the Masters that went missing all of whom are the individuals who stood at your trial including atres if atres is alive then the other Masters may be alive as well each master was last seen on a different planet and this list of locations makes up the destinations for your journey within the game your mission becomes clear travel to to these planets and find these Masters attempt to heal your connection to the force and bring structure back to the Jedi so that you may be able to combat the Sith threat that hopes to silence the Galaxy it's very Star Wars at this point with the Eben Hawk back under your control your main Hub of operations is once again operational the hawk will act both as your means of travel as well as your means of conversing with all of your party members you can even begin repairing hk-47 one of the major conversations you can have at this moment is with bayodir who asks why you don't carry a lightsaber any longer you can mention it's because atres has it but Bale will point out that that isn't your lightsaber anymore that lightsaber belonged to the individual who fought with revin in the Mandalorian Wars and you were someone else at this moment in time a changed individual Bayo wants to help you and if you can bring him the parts he will help create a new lightsaber for you to use in combat all the parts we need we will be able to receive on narshada and that's our next location so it's fairly fitting you can most likely create your lightsaber by traveling to to any Planet since it's so important but that leads into a discussion of planet order that I'm saving for when we begin to travel in the meantime let's discuss our party some more as you progress through the game when returning to the ebenhawk you may be presented with assortments of character building cut scenes usually between characters that don't include the Exile we can see aten playing pizak with T3 or at in talking to Bao about how he wants to ask you out yeah Adam has a thing for the Exile since the very beginning it's most likely the major reason he doesn't want cray to Spill the Beans about his past since he is afraid it may cause him to lose you or for you to be angry at him you can also explore the ship yourself use the workbench in the new lab station to make items or talk to everyone talking to T3 is the most mechanically useful early on if you have a high computer and repair skill you can begin repairing him more and more building his stat bonuses up to the point where he's one of the strongest Droids on the team since I was a sentinel and had high skill points for everything repairing him didn't take very long and in return he became a powerful tank character that that was highly useful during the narshada sections of the game fully repairing T3 even leads to a force bonus for your character and allows you to meditate with T3 to restore Force points if you are running low but you should never be running low in this game you end up having an infinite supply of force points at one moment there are many many ways for you to strengthen the Exile outside of leveling up many conversation paths lead to you reconnecting with the force and since the Exile is such a strong individual your Force pool becomes one of the biggest in your party where some characters can only do one or three Force actions before depleting their pool the Exile can have a borderline Limitless amount of energy to use making her incredibly useful one of the main conversations you can have with the Droid revolves around how he locked the astrogation system essentially hiding where the Eben Hawk had been before you and Crea were aboard it's not made immediately clear why but T3 will show you a conversation he had with bastilla where she asked T3 to look out for Revan she's had glimpses of the future and Revan while trying to hide some of this information from her has failed at doing so as revan's memories came back to him after the destruction of the starforge he began to remember events and threats that had yet to be dealt with it's why he was building an army not just to defeat the Jedi but to have a force ready to combat an unknown enemy it's even brought up later that Revan never attempted to wipe out the Republic in its entirety knowing that their fleets and War Force may be necessary in the future when talking to Bao you can discuss your history during the Mandalorian Wars I have mentioned it in passing but the conclusion of the war took place on a planet known as malachor 5 a cataclysmic event took place there through the use of a device known as a mass Shadow generator which happens to have been created by Bao under the orders of Revan during the war the Exile was put in charge of watching over the device and eventually gave bail to go ahead to activate it the device was a trap for the mandalorians by luring them into a climactic battle orbiting around malachor 5. the mashed out generator created a large gravitational pull that Drew in both Mandalorian and Republic fleets and crushed them killing almost everyone and cracking the planet under the force the use of the device is looked back on as a horrific event but some still believe it to have been a necessary action to defeat the mandalorians I won't get too deep into it but it has ties into the use of similar Weaponry in our Real Worlds with nukes being used in World War II leading into conversations of their justification as well as considering the guilt felt by those that utilized them many more in the use of the masked Shadow generator in Kotor 2 many vilify you for using it it's up to you as the player to discuss with those who experienced it and decide for yourself what was necessary and what wasn't do you feel guilt for what you did does bail feel guilty you get to explore that and it's framed as a serious topic it has weight and it's respected as such within the writing something that wasn't as true for events within Kotor one when BioWare was at the helm Bayo discusses how he was in the war not to defend against the mandalorians and save people but because he hated the mandalorians he used the hatred to fight them and it's something he looks back on with guilt something he's trying to get a hold of from his past so that he can reconcile with it you as someone who fought alongside him are one of the only individuals who can sympathize with him and this allows you and Bao to form a stronger connection to discuss how you were essentially turned into a weapon for war and whether you allowed that to happen or if it was forced upon you something to note out of this conversation is that neither of you seem to turn to the dark side despite this you may hold guilt for what happened during the war but it didn't make you fall the Jedi teachings seemed to be built upon fear in this way that if you succumb to certain emotions or vices you are immediately on the path to the dark side but the Exile shows that this isn't the case the dark side is like a drug for sure people become addicted to it and consumed by it but sometimes the things you do whether they be for the right reasons or even the wrong emotional ones don't immediately mean that you are lost the fact that the Jedi can be so wrong and so blind is a huge aspect of Kotor as a series going back to the first game with BioWare and more fully fleshed out here Crea has a lot of information to divulge to you over the course of your journey but a lot of it will come with time and influence she knows much of the Jedi's past especially revans as she was once one of his teachers she claims to not know atres but feels as though she should know her due to them walking down similar paths what atres is going through now craya once went through herself crayo was once a historian for the Jedi but by looking through the past she found herself asking more and more questions ones the Jedi Code couldn't answer for her and of course they couldn't the Jedi code is a set of rules for stifling emotion and learning monk-like piece it doesn't delve into true Humanity leaving many Jedi blind to the world around them and lacking in the experience needed to live fully there's knowledge and wisdom to be found in kreya's thoughts and perspectives take her eyes as an example you can ask her what is wrong with him and she will tell you that there is nothing she is physically blind yes but the ability to see was more of a distraction to her than anything else now craya sees and feels through the force and she is powerful enough to heal her vision if she ever felt the need to she's beyond the need for Sight and doesn't want to rely on it she doesn't like to rely on any one thing because she believes this Reliance to weaken her it's a lesson she teaches you over and over again there's one point where she asks you to take your weakest skill and focus some points into it during a level up when you return to her showing that you have bolstered your weakest skills she will reward you by offering bonuses to both your weakest and strongest skills together Crea wants to teach you about strength but not strength at as in power strength as in resilience and experience the ability to cover your bases to be strong in one focused aspect is fine but you cannot let your other aspects suffer because of it and this is something the Jedi seem to fail at another example asking Crea if she is a Jedi or a Sith in her own words she is neither but she is also both she once believed in the Jedi code and once fell to the dark side but neither of those titles reflect who she is at this moment the titles of Jedi and Sith are tools used to categorize the universe and to try and do something on such a grand scale seems foolhardy despite this the line of questioning will allow you to witness a cut scene of Crea back when she was a Sith Lord and the Betrayal of her apprentices Darth Sion beating the out of her and both Sion and nihilus then torturing her exiling her and stripping her of her powers even though all of this happened craya is still powerful incredibly so though her abilities rival your own you are the one that is the true Prodigy craze states that within you all of her hopes rest for the future and for the force and it's in this line that really solidifies who Crea is and what her goals are we just don't realize it at this moment craya is wise both in her worldview and in her ability to tell you much about her without you being aware of it and that is a testament to the skillful writing of obsidian staff of the developers ability to form an engaging narrative one with big payoffs later down the line even if they seem very confusing at the moment these conversations with your party members are few of many there's much to explore with each individual who joins you on the Ebon Hawk and these dialogues can get significantly longer and more in depth as we go comparing this to the original game some of bioware's dialogue and storytelling feels surface level and juvenile to give it credits some of it also feels stronger as well jahani from the first game and Mira who will be introduced to soon have similar back stories even being affected by your actions in the past but it's jahani who feels like they had a more fulfilling character Arc falling to the dark side rising from it hating you and forgiving you she goes through a lot she's justified in her hatred and she learns to control it Mira has similar reasons to hate the Exile as we will see but whether they are as impactful is up for debate with all of the dialogue out of the way for now it's finally time to travel through the Galaxy it's finally time to select planets and go on unique Adventures To Tread new and old ground this is where Knights of the Old Republic shines its openness and freedom to explore we have the locations of the Jedi Masters to search through and we'll be following a particular order but I wouldn't say there's an inherent correct order necessarily I personally like to start with narshada and go from there to dantooine however dantooine's placement May differ depending on your selected gender due to a party member that is unlocked there I ended up using this particular planet order based based off a Reddit thread that I found online so shout out to them so narshada is our start and it's potentially one of the best or worst starts you could experience the best because of how amazing the ride is because of how much there is to do and see but also the worst because several other planets may not be able to live up to it now before we land on the planet proper I want to finally explain influence as a mechanic fully all of your party members start with neutral influence towards you I've explained this mechanic earlier in the video but to be more specific there's static sections within the game that allow you to earn or lose influence with your party members these events can raise or lower influence by one point and many characters have rewards for raising their influence high enough this can be them divulging more information about themselves to you unlocking new perks or even changing their class entirely in fact we'll have two characters shifting classes before we leave narshada aten lands you all on a pad in the refugee sector of the planet it's a great place to land and hide as no one really pays attention to who comes in or out being discreet and invisible is a natural consequence of entering narsha da but that also means it's difficult to find something you're looking for maybe a Jedi master for example Crea informs you not to worry about it since the force seems to be guiding your paths simply traversing the streets of the planet and interacting with individuals there will naturally point you towards the missing Jedi Master there's no right or wrong party set up for planets but there are sometimes better options than others due to the interactions that will take place there taking aten and bayodair is great because they both have unique conversations and scenes to be had a couple of Twilights will recognize aten a bit later on and Bao knows a few of the people living around the area there's also a chance to raise their influence here such as when you repair a speeder that can be used as a fast travel Point fast travel was technically a mechanic within the original game but you could only travel back to the Eben Hawk and then back to where you just were that mechanic has been removed and replaced on some planets with a specific mode of travel depending on where you are the speeder can be fixed and used for this purpose and conversations while fixing it can raise the influence of aten and Bayo funnily enough I couldn't remember where the broken speeder was during my latest playthrough and I ended up missing my opportunity to fix it and gain the influence I was lucky to gain enough beforehand that it didn't matter but how you get locked out of the event is a huge detrimental aspect of the planet that we'll go over in a moment as you exit the ship you'll be reprimanded by the individual who owns The Landing Pad you can persuade yourself out of the issue but it's clear that someone is supposed to land there and this may bite you in the ass later spoilers it does what narsha Das shows us as we explore is that the end of the war is not the end of suffering the Rippling effects of battle have a lasting impact on civilization the refugee sector you are within is full of well refugees individuals displaced by the war even Veterans of the war that have nowhere to go and we see these individuals preyed on by the powerful everywhere we do go if it isn't the exchange it's various gangs oppressing the weak for their own benefit the scars of the Jedi Civil War are seen all over on every planet and the game likes to explore this concept even if you can justify a war even if it was justifiable there will still be suffering on both sides regardless of intent while you're off exploring the leader of the exchange goto summons various Bounty Hunter factions to his Yacht for a meeting goto is displayed as a hologram through a g0t0 Droid the reason being that he doesn't want to give away his true location and put himself in danger at least that's what's said there's more to go to than meets the eye despite putting a bounty on the heads of all Jedi your arrival has been noted and goto wants you to be left alone he wants no harm to come to you and orders all bounty hunters to stay away which is both confusing and frustrating to them all many of the bounty hunters are upset that they've been searching all this time and now that they finally have a Jedi within their grasp they can't touch them this leads to many of them reasoning it's all right to mess with your party members if they can't mess with you now since the main idea of narshada is to just do until something magically happens there's naturally a lot to get done here with no real path to follow the planet ends up feeling like one of the most open-ended experiences within the game up until a point once we've done enough we get railroaded into a long gameplay segment that takes us to the end of the storyline in the meantime you are basically in a role-playing amusement park there's swoop races to take part in droids to sabotage pizak to be played people to intimidate and more I won't be going over all of these encounters but I would like to quickly point out a Droid in the pizak Dan this Droid is awful at playing pizzak but it can't help itself she loves the game and has fun whether she wins or loses this seems to be due to a bug or crossed wire in her programming something you can offer to fix but all also something that she is unsure she wants fixed we have to consider the programming and circuitry of a Droid to be equivalent to the human brain the major difference is that one is more easily manipulated than the other we can change the wants and desires of a Droid at our own will but destroyed here she likes playing the game even if an unintended aspect of her programming she's happy and as we discussed previously there's a conversation to be had about sentience and whether droids are people or not we can repair the Droid and when we do she thanks you for removing her fascination with pizzac I think she calls it a silly little game or something but that's not who she was a second ago we wiped an aspect of her personality from existence was it all right to do that does it matter at all that's for you to decide but considering how often these types of topics come up in the Sith Lords it seems intended that you at least think about it there are several people to help around the area as well and by helping some of them you will again be chastised by Crea if you help for the sake of helping you have learned nothing of her teachings at least in her eyes and you'll generally lose influence if you talk back to her but if you consider her points consider only helping when it won't weaken you or the people you're helping she will feel you are truly beginning to understand as I have said craya is wise but in many ways she is Jaded she suffered greatly in her past and this can Cloud even her mind fill her with unjustified hatred and beliefs even the most wise are not always correct the Jedi are fallible and so too is craya where craya seems to want you to be apathetic to the issues of these individuals and Apparition of her later will tell you that apathy is death this contradiction is due to how she picks and chooses what to be apathetic about but also we have to consider that The Apparition is not actually Crea we'll get there it's it's a force ghost or something made up by a tomb on korriban technically it's not a contradiction action I guess but I'm considering it a contradiction because it really does seem to follow her mindset craya hates weakness and she believes helping the weak weakens them further and weakens you in the process but is she right about that or is something else eating away at her the meat of your exploration will take place in the true Refugee sector of narshada here the exchange guards the gates and prevents anyone from coming or going it's believed that you're doing this to weaken the will of the refugees and eventually use them as commodities for slavery on one end of the area you have the exchange on the other hand a group of Sirocco gang members more individuals who were displaced by the Mandalorian Wars that came together after the fact now the refugees in the middle are being squeezed from both sides and you can help in various ways to alleviate their issues for one heusuf here feels as though the refugees are being suffocated by the oppressive role of the Sirocco and the exchange and dealing with even one of them would help them all significantly this gives you the option to deal with the Sirocco the exchange or both and there's various way ways you can go about this you can simply attack the exchange or you could try and convince them to lay off the refugees on the other side you can wipe out the Sirocco gang you can convince them to lay off as well or you can even convince them to attack The Exchange which will lead to their deaths it's one of those quests that's enjoyable thanks to the options presented while not focusing too much on the moral choices we see in many others both the Sirocco and exchange are bullying the refugees innocent people are being hurt by those in power and rather than deciding if it's right to help them or not it's more about how you will help them what tools would you use to solve this problem personally I deal with a few side quests involved in the exchange then I steal from them to aggro them onto my character before wiping them all out clearing all the enemies also completes a separate side quest that allows the refugees to leave the Zone freely then I go and convince the soraku to chill out for the experience gain and then steal from them as well so I can wipe them all out for the experience it's the sand people on Tatooine all over again you can aggro them not lose any alignment and still get all of the experience while in the refugee sector two twilight men will observe your group from a distance assuming you have aten in your party they recognize Aden and if you talk to them they will warn you of him claiming he is not who he seems to be that he has been on narshadda before and is trouble you can confront aten about this information and if your influence with him is high enough he'll indulge you albeit with intense hostility it's a great look at his character since aten isn't this aloof clown he often portrays himself to be he's someone with a long history and experience in combat he has anger and pain from his past much like the rest of your party in fact that is one of the Sith Lord's major themes your past the pain it provides and learning to confront it when you ask atan about his time before paragus he goes off on you he never asked you about your past despite knowing about the events that took place on ducks in sorako and malachor 5. all places touched by the war he knows how painful those events were and he feels slated that you would not give him the same courtesy to bridge this Gap you can agree to answer those questions he's been holding back on and they essentially amount to how can you live with yourself after all the pain you brought and why did you go back to the council aten comes to his own conclusions here he assumes that since the Jedi don't kill their prisoners you went back to face judgment knowing that you would be safe and easy out after all you've done during the war now you've created another Jedi secret for them to keep from the public aten believes that all of the Jedi who died during the events of malachor deserved it because to him at their core Jedis are liars and manipulators he's not all wrong is he if you count the examples of the Jedi lie and manipulate just as much as any Sith maybe more so but to say they all deserve to die at malachor for what for protecting the Galaxy there's more to it of course but is the obtuseness of the Jedi Order enough to aren't their deaths like that this arrogance and hypocrisy of the Jedi is what frustrates aten and he believes that they aren't needed any longer maybe he's right about that their order tends to be inherently flawed because people are flawed what the Galaxy needs is light unfortunately the people that spread said light aren't always the best where the influence check comes in is when atten mentions he doesn't understand why he's wasting his time with you anyway he's deflecting he's defensive there's something he feels guilty about and you can inform him that you need to know what that is if you want to continue traveling together aten mentions that you shouldn't get attached to him he doesn't like it because at his core he believes himself to be a deserter he doesn't like it because at his core he believes himself to be a deserter first when the Republic broke the rose to fight with Revan against the Mandalorian Wars and later again when he deserted Revan during the Jedi Civil War despite aten's disdain for the Jedi you can tell it's not all Jedi he hates it's those that didn't act to save the Galaxy he knows that if he and the other defectors didn't get involved the mandalorians would have enslaved all of them to him it was a necessary Act of Defense he became loyal to Revan because Revan saved him in a way Revan was an answer that the disaffected individuals of the Republic were searching for all of these scared individuals were easily picked up by the power and command of someone like Revan even if it meant after the war going down a dark path we see this in the real world individuals dissatisfied with some aspect of their lives and another individual coming to them with what they say are all the answers whether that is true or not this power that can be held over someone may send them down a destructive rabbit hole and that is exactly what happened to aten as Sith teachings spread through the ranks after the war the intense respect and belief everyone had in Revan caused them to fall and when the Jedi who did nothing about the war came to fight against the new threat those disaffected individual schools fought back for Revan including aten who became an assassin of the Jedi he was good at it too aten had a natural ability to mask his presence he learned that Jedi were just people like you and I but without the force they were weak if you could hide yourself from them any normal forms of traps or manipulation could be used to kill them and he did kill them he tortured them and even turned them to the dark side which is what he liked to do the most it wasn't until an unnamed female Jedi confronted him and informed him of his own Force sensitivity that things began to change if Revan had found out about aten's potential he would have been broken into a dark Jedi now still full of hatred Aton tortured this woman but during this event she awakened the force within him and made him realize the pain he was causing to those in the galaxy in retaliation aten killed her believing this to be some warped Act of love he held for the Jedi through a swelling of emotion that were unlocked with his Awakening aten is not a good person in fact I would say he has done unforgivable wrongs to innocent people regardless of if they are Jedi or not he's a currently light aligned individual but the acts he has taken part in are unforgivable this isn't like what happened to Revan either Revan forgot about his past he was someone new or potentially who he always should have been within the events of Kotor aten merely changed his perspective and decided to escape to Solitude on narsh at all he has things to answer for but Star Wars has this extra layer we need to consider that our real world doesn't the dark side taking hold of you is like an addictive drug coursing through your body you can fight it off but sometimes it isn't your fault that you are subjected to it that you fall whether or not this is aten's fault we could debate but the point is that a Jedi saved him and returned him to the light whether he has anything to answer for now is is up to the Jedi and the Republic but at this moment in time during a period of intense danger and turmoil at the hands of the Sith aten is performing good acts he's helping you deal with the Seth he seems to be repenting whether or not that's enough to begin forgiving him I don't know I don't think I could forgive him for what he has done but we can give him the opportunity to continue repenting by unlocking his abilities with the force yeah almost all of the non-droid characters in your party become Jedi based on your influence your influence doesn't just affect their alignment but unlocks these conversations where they open up to you and by opening up to you you can offer them this opportunity you can try to help them through the force becoming their master in the process you can offer to help aten and awaken him and in doing so he becomes a Jedi Sentinel you can do the same during discussions with Bao who awakens into a Jedi guardian visas a character we'll meet later is already in a Jedi so there's no need there but you now have a ship of four to five Jedi if you wish it and that's a major plot point in the journey something that is explored later we are searching for lost Jedi but maybe the Masters aren't actually the Lost Jedi we seek maybe the Lost Jedi are the maybe the Lost Jedi are the friends we made along the way the people you meet within your party those who have been hurt by the past and the War and who can now awaken to their Force sensitive potential maybe the force is guiding you to not only stop the Sith but heal the individuals around you it's a great mechanic considering some of these characters are unlocking their Jedi potential late into the leveling process they may be weaker than you would like but that's where your teachings come into play by talking to your apprentices you can offer to teach them various skills force abilities and even fighting styles that you have learned on your travels this offers boosts to the characters that makes it more viable to use them as Jedi Companions and while I haven't talked about about it much yes there are now lightsaber forms you can unlock and you can choose from these various styles are scenario dependent if you're fighting a large amount of individuals at one time you may want to use the XI Cho form as it gives you a defensive boost against anyone you are not immediately in confrontation with if you're using a lot of force Powers maybe you want to swap to a force form that allows you to regenerate points in battle maybe you're one on one and the ataru form is best suited for you many of these forms you learn as you level up but some of them are taught to you from the various Masters you'll meet on your travels and it adds to the overall battle experience if a fight isn't going your way maybe you need to switch up your form and as your apprentices learn these forms they can be more advantageous in battle as well there's a whole extra party management mechanic now unlocked to you and don't worry while you may think it makes droids obsolete this isn't the case your Droid party members get bolstered by various stat bonuses through dialogue and upgrades characters like T3 can become some of the more power full party members if it hasn't been made clear yet the Sith Lords have a lot to say about facing your past self being able to confront the wrongs you committed in your past and learning to be a better person in the present learning to care it's not about whether or not we forgive aten for his actions it's about if he can learn to forgive himself to become better you merely facilitate that for him through your leadership and friendship if you choose now while traversing and helping people out you'll run into an individual who saw you come into the Zone with the Evan Hawke he claims to be at least one of the original owners of this ship and he seems to know enough about it that this is definitely the case whether or not it's true you need the Eben Hawk and denying him having the ship back will lead to him storing off later on he'll attempt to break into the ship and take it back while you are gone but this just so happens to align with the original Landing Pad recipients stopping by to cause problems of their own there's these thugs right they were the ones who were supposed to be using the pad but unfortunately leadership is in the way upset with this transgression the thugs take over your ship and you soon have to make your way back while fighting through a slew of enemies this is what I would consider the point of no return for narshada from this point on you're strapped into a roller coaster that doesn't end until the main storyline of the planet is completed this is for the worst in my opinion if you have things you wanted to get done before this point say fixing the speeder you now are permanently locked out of it not everything but some things and it can be a bit annoying not knowing this ahead of time and not being warned sure every playthrough can be different and you can use this knowledge in subsequent playthroughs but it's common practice to offer a point of no return warning when segments like these arise it doesn't help that narshada kind of throws you all over the place I wanted to explore the entirety of the landing Zone before exploring other locations I ended up in a Cantina and somehow agreed to a job as a dancer for Vogue the Hutt who was in competition with the exchange next thing I know I'm on the docks dancing for the slug and having him fall asleep now I'm in a new new huge Zone turned around and picking up multiple other side quests I wasn't ready for it's a bit disorienting then there's these pillars that are used to organize the dock Freighters that I need a passcode to unlock them and I can get set passcode from a doc supervisor even though he never asked me to help yet I'm following these weird signals for a Bith hidden away in his Flop House I'm suddenly trying to break into voga's treasure room because he's asleep a lot happens in a very small amount of time and it can be overwhelming oh yeah I should mention that voga is going to be our source of fuel for tilo station but we can't get it from him until we deal with the exchange for some reason all of bogus Freighters are captured by goto no matter when they are sent out and will be using that information to our advantage later right now we need to save our ship and that means fighting our way through all of these enemies in the confined space of the Ebon Hawk it can be a daunting ordeal if you earned properly geared and leveled for it and it's unfortunately thrust upon you without much choice there's plenty of these encounters things you kind of stumble across and can't get out of forcing you to try over and over again or maybe even lower the difficulty of the game temporarily so you can keep progressing hell it happens immediately after this battle we clear the ship the individual who tried to steal it apologizes and wants nothing to do with it anymore and then we reset at the entrance what happens when we reset at the entrance cutscenes begin to play cutscenes of your party interacting with one another character development whatever you know what else was triggered for me here visas breaking into my ship incapacitating my crew and forcing me into a one-on-one battle against a Sith that I wasn't prepared for forcing me to lower the difficulty of the game so I could survive with the limited supplies I had on my person again so much can happen in such a small amount of time that it is disorienting I found myself frustrated with the fact that I was stuck going through the motions and had my exploration and freedom limited for an extended period of time to make matters worse the minute I finally get to exit the ship I'm immediately thrust into the next Act of narshada which again I cannot break out of until completed before that though visas is defeated and knocked unconscious you break her lightsaber in the process and can use a part necessary for constructing your own in fact I had all the parts by this point after completing various side quests around the planet and let me tell you once you have a lightsaber the Exile becomes one of the most broken characters in the game for that point in time probably for the rest of the game entirely visas is the servant of nihilus but upon defeating her she will pledge herself to you it's not immediately clear why but visas has premonitions of some sort due to her connection to the force she's a Mira Luka a near extinct race who had her Planet destroyed by nihilus and her eyes destroyed in the process she's blind but seized through the force like craya but in a different way while visas has foresight and it is an ability she can teach you Korea has some form of Greater perception she can feel all around her and even read the minds of other individuals this is something Crea can begin to teach you as well and an interesting tidbit here is that she believes Bayo to be locked off from such abilities as she can't read his thoughts however when you attempt this you are able to read his thoughts most likely due to your personal history and connection with one another this will be important later so visas has premonitions and she believes that because nihilus was so blind to your existence for so long that you are important and must be protected she doesn't seem to serve nihilus by choice he simply saved her during her planet's collapse Crea assumes this was the last of his Humanity manifesting itself now she wants to defeat him but will not give you his location as she believes you to not be ready for it sending you there would be a death sentence and she isn't willing to do that you can learn a lot about nihilus at this point about how he crushed Qatar the Homeworld of the miraluka in order to silence an entire race of force sensitives how he used the power of the force to do this how he transcended from being human to a force of nature a force of the force of hate and silence Crea claims that what nihilus has now is Primal hunger it manifests itself in power but it'd be inaccurate to say it is controlled he simply is and his existence is now instinctual at best he has power but not the strength to control it and this makes him one of the most dangerous forces in the galaxy to the point that kreya had hoped you would never need to confront him something she now knows you will have to do with the arrival of visas nihilus sounds like the concepts of power and the dark side pushed to their absolute limit an individual who did not just fall to the dark side but was so consumed by it that his corporeal Forum was eaten away if the dark side is a blight that eats away at the force you may be able to consider nihilus its humanoid manifestation to deal with this you need to become more powerful as it so happens these events lined up with my Exile hitting level 15 and this is the level you need to be for Crea to unlock your prestige class in quarter 1 you started as a non-jedi class and then were promoted into a Jedi class of your choice in the sequel you start as a Jedi and you may have assumed there was nowhere else to go from here but that isn't the case no while we have become a Jedi at the start there's advanced classes we can choose from to further customize our character the names change based on your alignment but the classes are the same three choices those being weapon master or Marauder Watchman or assassin and master Lord these Prestige classes can affect the Feats you're allowed to unlock your overall vitality and 4 stats and much more weapon Master for example gains less skills than scented at all but it also allows you to unlock this Superior 2 weapon fighting technique since I am a dual wielding Sentinel this means I can be extra effective if I unlock these Feats plus I've gained so many skills as a sentinel already I can afford to gain less now in order to be more effective in combat while effectively eliminating any penalties I received for using two weapons at once broken it's up to you what you want to choose I'm not going to break down all of the statistics but a weapon Master Class excels at dual wielding while a class like Watchman gives you the ability to perform sneak attacks finally which were previously locked off to Scoundrels plus Force camouflage meaning you can perform stealth mechanics without a generator each of the classes is a natural progression of the previous Sentinels generally become Watchmen and Guardians become weapon Masters consulars become Jedi Masters but I wouldn't recommend it Master is statistically worse than console are for a variety reasons but it does offer some unique force abilities that also turn out to be underwhelming I'm sorry but that's the nice thing about Prestige classes you get to mix and match you can be a sentinel and become a weapon Master you can be a guardian and become a Jedi master if you feel you are weak in one specific area you can try to cover those bases or if you want to get the most out of a specialization you can choose to go that route as well as a sentinel I want it to be more combat effective after focusing so much on my skill progression so weapon master was for me alright we've talked about character development long enough if you remember we are now forced into a storyline for the remainder of our stay here and while I believe this is justifiably annoying it is made up for by being an enjoyable experience first we need to discuss hanhar and Mira while traversing around narsh at all you'll be spied on by a human Bounty Hunter named mira mira is then approached by a Wookie named hanhar who grabs her by the throat it's May made clear that Han har has a life debt with Mira a Wookie custom that is bred into him it's instinctual should a wookie's life be saved by another individual they must pledge a life debt to that individual and serve them at some unclear point in time this seemed to happen between Han har and Mira but something was off rather than sticking by Mira and pledging his life to her hanhar has an intense urge to kill her instead and this will be explored as we talk to Mira on the Ebon Hawk that's because both Mira and hanhar are potential companions to your Exile but who you receive is dependent on your alignment depending on your current alignment you will either be approached by Mira or Han har when entering the docks to head to the Jack Jack tar a Cantina for non-human life forms filled with gas that the clientele eat up but would poison you we're heading there because after the events on the Eben Hawk a member of The Exchange known as visquis wants to meet up with us an obvious trap but one we need to fall into in order to deal with The Exchange and the bounty on our heads when approached by hanhar you'll still head to the Jack Jack tar but will then be stopped by Mira and incapacitated by her she'll then take your environmental suit and pretend to be you upon entering the same happens for Light Side characters except you meet Mira head to her Hideout and once again get incapacitated regardless of alignment for a short period of time you play as and control Mira before she falls into the Trap setup for the Exile later on Mira enters a fight with hanhar in an underground Arena but who you control for the fight is based on your alignment Dark Side characters will play as hand har and kill Mira lights eye characters will play as Mira and kill hanhar while the player character is lying unconscious in Mira's Hideout she will be visited by zez kael balding but with one of the thickest mustaches I've ever seen in Star Wars knowing you can hear him zez begins talking to you about how he has witnessed your actions on narshada actions he refused to take part in even in Exile he believes you to be more a true Jedi than he ever was turns out zez hired Meera to look out for you not to hunt you and now she's trapped and zez feels responsible he plans on rescuing her and suggests you do the same despite this we won't see zez again until after everything is said and done if we head to Jack Jack tar the Exile won't be able to breathe and will begin to collapse but Crea enters into your mind and teaches you a new ability called breath control that makes you immune to poisons and allows you to fight through the entire location an ability I don't think I ever used again once in this entire playthrough and there are a lot of enemies here I highly recommend having a lightsaber by this point if possible because I was absolutely slaughtering these guys but even then I still took a lot of damage in the process visquis and hanhart Retreat to the underground base I mentioned previously through a maze of tunnels they expect you to get lost in you give Chase but come to a locked door that you can't penetrate this is where we switch to either hand har or Mira as a late side character we are playing as Mira but I will mention some differences as we come to them Mira is special because she doesn't trip landmines and she has a unique rocket launcher on her arm that can shoot grenades and specialized darts as well despite this I still found this area very difficult to get through although I believe I went about it the wrong way it isn't made very clear to you here but stealth is highly recommended for this the issue is you wouldn't think so since Mira isn't specialized in stealth she has many other skills she is specialized in but stealth isn't one of them and with a low stealth skill you'll be forced to fight through various enemies that can triple or quadruple tap you many of whom fight you with backup so you need to get creative here it's not impossible but I did find myself lowering the difficulty for a reason that I don't believe is a fault of my own making yeah yeah skill issues etc etc so first we battle hanhar and kill him in combat or you play his hand higher and kill Mira regardless of the outcome visquis releases a pack of cath hounds to finish you off and within the pen you can find key card that lets you out of the Arena as either Mira or hanhara you will need to sneak or fight your way through at the very least a few waves of powerful enemies before reaching a terminal that will unlock the door blocking the Exile from entering once inside the Exile can take care of the rest it'll obliterate the remaining forces before eluding the base you then approach viscous in the arena who this entire time has been betraying goto by going against his wishes and trying to kill slash capture you goto was aware of this and all of the militia at visquis's disposal turn on him as goto begins speaking on the intercom having one of his men killed a traitor gotu explains he wishes to meet with you face to hologram and invites you onto his yacht an act you have no choice in during all of this your party a selection of members of your choosing fight through the streets of narshada on their way to the hidden base in order to save you however when they arrive you are already gone if Light Side Mira will meet your party here and join up with you on the dark side hanhar will run off only to be killed by zez kaiel the reason reason hanhar has to die here is because a scene takes place regardless of alignment Crea approaches the corpse of hanhart and uses her powerful force abilities to revive him forging a life debt her reasoning for this isn't immediately clear as a light side character she tells hanhar to hunt down Mira and kill her but to leave the Jedi alone as a dark side character she will force hanhar to join your party and help save you from goto's yacht that's the last of the comparisons I'll be making between the two paths canonically you recruit Meera and that's who we will be focusing on from here on out now the elephant in the room here has to be controlling your party members without the Exile the Exile is Leaps and Bounds more powerful than the rest of your party meaning that a lot of the fights you take part in while trying to rescue her can feel like daunting tasks if you aren't prepared and you may not be prepared because you didn't expect to be in this long drawn out sequence of events that you can't break free of there are items to find and workbenches to use as you progress but they are few few and far between to the point that I again found myself lowering the difficulty because I didn't expect these events to still be taking place luckily T3 was a tank for me by this point and was a great help later on at the Yacht but how do we get the rest of the party on to the yacht it's cloaked at all times unless goto invites his bounty hunters on board so it's virtually impossible to find well remember when I said vogas Freighters are consistently captured by the yacht if we could get a freighter's signature and apply it to the Eben Hawk then flying off Planet should lead to the ship getting captured a sort of Trojan Horse if you will to get the codes T3 needs to break into voga's warehouse as it is entirely Droid operated and they often buy droids to work for them T3 is sold to voga and begins a little bit of Espionage to work his way to the codes this involves manipulating several droids and destroying a couple others as a fun callback you can actually find B4 D4 and t1n1 from Telos here and you'll get into an argument with T1 that Lee leads to the two of you fighting one another T1 turns out to be really aggressive B4 D4 will actually thank you for helping him as t11 and let him leave I really enjoyed seeing them again and finding out what happened after the events at zerka once you have the codes you can bring them to a mechanic to have them assigned to the Ebon Hawk then the hawk will be captured by goto's yacht and you can board the yacht with two party members as the Exile will eventually make up the third speaking of the Exile it turns out that this entire time goto really just wanted the Jedi's help to help the Republic having the Galaxy in such a chaotic state is bad for business or so he says even the illicit kind and goto needs things to calm down the bounty on your head was to bring you to him but the bounty hunters often went further and tried to kill you especially the HK 50 units which are spread across the Republic posing as protocol droids just waiting to find you and even when all of this is resolved the hk50 units do not stop hunting you despite wanting your help goto is isn't willing to let you leave and thus emergency alarms begin to go off as the Eben Hawk breaches the yacht security what follows is a long slog where two of your party members must fight their way to the Exile since this may be a difficult task you can find various programs through utility droids and install them on Communications terminals in order to produce various effects all of which seemed to do nothing for me I didn't see effects from the shutdown commands the overload commands or anything well that's not entirely true shutting down the turrets seemed to turn them hostile against all of the enemy droids for some reason so it did help someone eventually you will reach the audience chamber where the Exile is being held and she will be re-added to the party from there it's a mad dash to the bridge as bounty hunters begin boarding and killing everyone in sight you fight your way through the bounty hunters and back to your ship allowing you all to escape before the yacht blows up completely Mira will join up with you explaining how she was hired by zez to watch out for you and a g0t0 Droid will be a board as well goto will talk through the Droid explaining that this is a token of Goodwill he still wants you to stabilize the Republic and he's willing to offer this Droid to you as assistance g0t0 goto with the Bounty taken care of and the Jedi Master found it's time to return to narshada once more and have an enlightening conversation with zez kael zez informs you that kovar another one of the Masters believed you to be a major factor in dealing with the threat of the Sith although he wasn't sure how at the time additionally many of the other Masters were unsure of this idea especially atres considering what we know of her opinion towards you kavar felt a connection between you and the worlds that were touched by the Mandalorian Wars as it turns out the Jedi are being targeted through the force and hunted down thus the extinction of the Jedi was only a ruse the Jedi hid on planets where it was difficult to sense individuals through the force in order to make the threat I'd feel Victorious and safe to come out of the Shadows you can ask us as a variety of questions about your past with the order and your Exile zez informs you that while they said they exiled you for leaving to war this is not truly the case at least in his mind to the point that zez left the order entirely because he didn't feel they were actually facing the issues at hand they weren't being true to the order they were part of you weren't exiled for defiance but because the order was afraid you being severed from the force terrified the Jedi for they were unsure why it happened you can confirm this with zez by asking him about it and this may change your perspective of the Jedi from the conversation we had earlier to sever one from the force as punishment sounds brutal in nature and it may be surprising to hear the Jedi would do something like that to one of their own learning now that this wasn't the case may allow you to see the Jedi in a better light but don't be fooled zez is quick to clarify that this is a punishment that has been dealt out in the past but what happened to you is a bit of a mystery and I think we should explore that a little bit the Jedi are terrified of you and your lost connection to the force yet there are times when they are willing to deal this pain to other people if they feel it Justified maybe you think that form of punishment can be justified maybe you don't that's one of the many moral questions being examined within the game the Jedi can hurt their own but is it justifiable to do so how does this relate to our own world our own laws and rules are we justified in punishments we dish out to other people even when they inflict pain or suffering things like the death penalty are those Justified zez is my man to be honest he's quick to criticize every pompous aspect of the Jedi Order he's happy the Jedi secrets are coming to light believing the Galaxy would be a better place with less of them despite this you can inquire about your trial and the unknown thing that the Masters said happened to you but says will not divulge any info despite not making promises to Jedi any longer zez does make promises to friends and he vowed not to speak of it until all of the Masters are gathered together again what really makes him appeal to me is his view on the Jedi turning on their masters during the Civil War his ideas of responsibility and casting blame zez mentions how he too had a Padawan leave for war and turn on him many Masters experienced this and now he can see that the padawans were not to blame for this even though many of the order chose to leave many of the council had grown itself righteous and arrogant in their teachings believing them to not be at fault for the actions of their students zez believes it's time for them to take responsibility to be judged especially when none of them took responsibility for previous Galaxy changing events no one took responsibility for Revenant Malik no one took responsibility for you and even when the Exile was the only one to come back from the war and face judgment what did the council do with the opportunity nothing they turned a blind eye to their own failures and cast judgment on you alone exiling you from the order because they believed you to be the problem and not their teachings they missed the opportunity to understand you your reasoning for going to war to potentially see where they succeeded and failed with you or considered that they were just wrong in this instance this is because the Jedi as human individuals can often conflate the righteousness of the light side with themselves as individuals it's as if the Jedi believed themselves again infallible because they are Arbiters of the light but time and time again we see this isn't true in a way the Jedi of the council have already fallen themselves just not to the dark side they have fallen into a false sense of superiority they are trapped in arrogance it is not the Jedi who are good it is the light side which is inherently good and the Jedi sometimes abused that power even if not through the dark side zez has realized this and that is why he stepped away from the order the Jedi have failed their own teachings in a way the people of the Republic are justified in not trusting the Jedi any longer a group of people who were seen as gods among men are now seen for what they are people like you and me know better than us as people just because they have the ability to utilize the force in some ways they are actively worse than us and this circles back to what aten was saying earlier how the Jedi fooled the public while keeping secrets and manipulating individuals was his response to these thoughts Justified no but he was still right zez is a coward he was too much of a coward to help the people of narsha at all he was too much of a coward to stand up for you with the council and if you don't agree with me yet be sure that he will prove himself to be a greater coward yet later on not evil but misguided to a fatal point after discussing all this with zeze he will head back to dantooine to await the return of the remaining Masters additionally if you really want to you can kill him here although I'm unsure why you would do that as a light side character narshada is now officially completed we come out of it with experience items two new party members and one of the biggest adventures seen in the Kotor series I don't think a single planet in the original game could live up to the expansive nature of The Smuggler's Moon and having had it been such a long time since I played this game I'm curious to see how the next planets hold up as well while narshada has its assortment of problems namely in having too much happen to you too quickly it makes up for it by having all of what happens to you be interesting to leave you asking for more for more Adventure to have light shed on aspects of the story only to make you want to learn more and more narshida has an assortment of care characters and personalities for you to interact with gangs of bounty hunters chasing after you Huts to steal from Grand battles to take part in it's where we built our first lightsaber it's where we learned about aten and made him a Jedi it's so much all in one package and it's only the first real planet we have explored thus far the return to the ebenhawk had me run into multiple HK 50 groups after talking to a merchant and getting enough parts off the corpses of the droids I was finally able to put HK 47 back together I don't think I'll delve too much into the development of 47 he's just as he was in the past once again having issues with his memory core that make him unable to remember much of what happened in the original game I believe he doesn't even remember T3 still those memories will come back to him in time in the meantime you can inform him of the hk50 units which causes him great distress as he believes them to be inferior your beings and sullying his reputation turns out that the voice print scanner from paragus is actually a beacon used by the 50 units to track you 47 suggests using this as an opportunity for him to track them instead as you travel and fight more groups of assassin droids HK 47 will try to triangulate the location of their manufacturer with Mira on the team we can now begin getting to know her there's a few dialogue choices you can make to raise her influence making it possible to unlock the majority of her backstory within your initial conversation together still this wasn't enough for me to train her just yet but you can still learn a lot I believe you can actually get her to be trained by this point but I didn't pick the right options at the time the first thing we learned is that she is a female Mandalorian in name as a child her home was sacked and Mira was turned into a slave for the mandalorians later on she was accepted into a Mandalorian unit and learned how to fight and survive until the death of her new family at malachor 5. something she blames you for before I mention the parallels between Mira and jahani both look to your character for blame to cope with a tragic aspect of their past jahani blames you for the destruction of terrorists Mira blames you for malachor but Mira also realizes that defeating the mandalorians was necessary she believes that they probably deserved it considering the pain and suffering they were enacting on innocent people across the Galaxy you can't get the history of hanhar out of her at least from her own perspective she knows that his species come from a planet the name of which she can't remember she knows that it was taken over by circus slavers and it's believed that someone broke hanhar and caused him to kill his own tribe before becoming a slaver and then Bounty Hunter himself once while hunting Mira he trapped her in a series of events but ended up getting hurt in the process Mira saved him and this in turn broke something within hanhar causing his instinctual need to offer her his life debt to make him want to hunt and kill her forever to hand her his life debt felt like slave it made him feel weak he believed that killing Mira would free him but he couldn't bring himself to do it often shifting between attempting to kill her and letting her go Mira didn't want this debt either and now believing hanhard to be dead despite craya Reviving him she feels a bit more at peace now while I didn't unlock it at the time the dialogue on the ebenhawk is enough to gain Mira the influence she needs to feel comfortable around you once you've met this point you can discuss narshadal with her Mira feels comfortable in narsh at all and you can discuss how craya feels the force strongly there due to all of the individuals within the City Mira can be convinced to be brought back to the pit where craia first showed you how strong the force is there how you can feel narshada around you you show Mira this you have her meditate and she begins to realize that there is a power inside her that she wishes to unlock her walls break down for a moment here Mira confesses that she often feels scared and alone something she wants to become strong enough to deal with she wants to be like you and in that moment Mira awakens and you become her master on her path to becoming a Jedi you can train your Jedi apprentices and gain additional training from craya one of the mind-reading drills she has you practice shows you that aten is constantly thinking about random things as an example he's constantly playing pizzak in his head if you ask him about this he'll show you why he does it by playing a game of pizak with him Adam will ask you what you are thinking about right now you're thinking about the game and not much else it's a lesson Adam is trying to teach you that by playing pizak in your head by thinking about random things you are shielding yourself from Jedi Mind Tricks something he's familiar dealing with and by learning how to do this yourself you can get a bonus to will saves against Jedi with all of that taken care of it's finally time to see how the rest of the planets hold up to narshana we'll start by exploring a planet that is present in both games one that represents the past of Revan and the Jedi let's head to datooine as expected not every planet can live up to what narshada has to offer but that doesn't mean that to win is a bad experience just a compact one you'd think revisiting a planet from the first game may be repetitive but this visit takes place after the Jedi Civil War and after Malik attacked the planet for harboring Jedi The Enclave that we knew and remember has been destroyed with pockets of its still open but mostly explored by salvagers looking to sell Jedi artifacts to anyone that will buy them the people meanwhile hold great resentment toward the Jedi for what happened during the war believing that the Jedi did nothing to help the settlers on dantooine while they were in power and further failed to help them during Malik's attack to see a Jedi on dad to win now is a rare sight one that is understandable considering they seem to have gone extinct even seeing someone holding a lightsaber is enough to cause Panic or resentment from the residents here it's a gameplay mechanic and PCs will notice your lightsaber and talk to you with hostility one man runs from you to warn the other settlers now let's be clear here I'm no Jedi apologist if somebody asked me what the Jedi did I'd probably respond by saying a whole lot of nothing it is true that during the Mandalorian Wars only a percentage of Jedi went off to fight while the rest remain but there is something to be said about how the settlers view the Jedi now they see them as arrogant holier than thou individuals who never lifted a finger to help the people of dad to wean but that isn't the case is it there are plenty of situations where the amnesiac Revan helped individuals while working as an agent of the order he cleared the tainted Grove he solved a murder he even helped the matales when their household's son went missing these are all instances of things you as the player did in the original game but even some of the NPCs on Dan tuwine now acknowledge them acknowledge that the Jedi had their faults but they did some things right they did try to help where they could even if they wrapped themselves up in their own red tape that's what Dan wants to show us just like the other planets we're looking at the aftermath of War here we're seeing the resentment towards the Jedi the discussion of whether or not it is Justified it is Justified to some degree but not completely it's not black and white but the people here can make it out to be and we can understand why that is war has brought alongside it pain and suffering settlers are being harassed by mercenaries and salvagers and there's no Jedi to help meaning the Jedi get to take the blame for everything that is going wrong here even one of the militia members is worried about speaking up against the mob when they belittle the Jedi it's up to you then as the player to reinforce these views or change them it's up to you to decide how the legacy of the Jedi on dantooine will be viewed will you help these people despite their hatred towards you will you use and harass them for your own benefit It's A short segment but one that explores a fair bit of dantooine's disorder as I mentioned exiting the Evan Hawk with a late saber will cause one of the NPCs to notice you explaining that you will find no welcome on the planet any longer despite this you can convince her to give you an idea of what's been going on since the war and also persuade her not to let anyone know that you are here it's not a very relevant skill check the individuals within are going to learn of your existence very quickly especially if you talk to the old man standing by your ship on the landing pad the Antoine has gained leadership in the form of administrator Adare the matali household from Kotor 1 was attacked during the war and rebuilt into a base of operations for the settlers and militia of dantuine it's now a location known as kunda and has its fair share of problems that need taken care of before that there's an authority and you can play pizak with apparently the settlers were fine playing against him while he was learning but as he grew Adept at the game no one wanted to continue he doesn't care about betting or credits and even has some valuable armor upgrades for betting as well if you win all of his credits he'll bet those components as well until all of his resources are depleted it's a similar setup to the DL specific rhodian on Yavin station back in Kotor 1. play an NPC several times to earn additional rewards we're in dantooine for one specific reason to find master Rook one of the missing Jedi that was noted to have been last seen here at some point in time the best place to start the search would be Within the Ruins of the Jedi Enclave but we can't head in there immediately due to all of the Scavenging down to wean has rules in place for making sure it doesn't get completely out of hand leading to us needing the permission of the administrator to head over there I'd recommend heading to kunda anyway as a large portion of the side quests begin there the main side quests I'll be focusing on are the several thefts taking place around the salvager camp and settlers as well as helping the militia specifically Captain zeron there is a militia member named bayron an individual who means well enough Baron is sympathetic to the Jedi and worried about speaking up additionally he has doubts about Captain xeron due to how hard he's been trading the local mercenaries believing that Zarin may be up to something that could put kunda in danger this this leads to a quest where we can investigate Zarin and see if he's causing any issues that we should bring to the administrator's attention the long and short of it is that yes Zarin is doing something that may upset the mercenaries on dantuine to the point that they may attack kunda specifically he is placing hidden cameras on atmospheric sensors taken by The Mercenaries to the nearby Crystal Caves infested with kenrath if you take these sensors and return them to the administrator you can inform her of zarin's actions which will force him to step down now whether or not this would have truly endangered kunda is unknown to me but what makes this Quest so enjoyable is how it circumvents your expectations if you for example expose Baron's actions to Zarin he'll complain about needing all the men he can get forcing him to not let Baron go if you then side with ziron he'll ask you to travel to the mercenary camp and tell one of the mercenary members go ahead now I haven't played this game in a long time I don't remember how the storyline went exactly looking at Zaron he seems like someone that would be up to something this is due to how the dark side affects NPCs in Kotor graying their complexion darkening their hair color changing their eyes mechanically Zarin looks Darkseid aligned to ask us to tell the mercenaries go ahead sounds like we're giving them the thumbs up to attack kunda but that isn't the case it's a ruse for the player specifically Zarin is informing one of the mercenaries that they have the green light to turn on their leader later during the Battle of kunda thus adding to the overall defenses and forces for the base since I didn't remember this I agreed to help Zarin but I assumed I could use this information to turn him in turns out it's not enough information for the administrator thus requiring physical evidence in the form of the atmospheric sensors I mentioned earlier the one issue with the quest is how easy it is to miss these sensors even if you find the sensors within the Crystal Cave you most likely assume they are for the nearby side quests where a member of the militia asks you to find them for him and pays you for your services if you turn them in you can never use them as evidence ends and thus lock yourself out of replacing xeron I missed my opportunity to do so in the past and I even missed my opportunity to do so in this current playthrough it's just not clear but in a way it hardly matters even if you strip Zarin of his title events that take place later on will cause him to be reinstated Zarin has a lot that needs to be done around here there's the thief prowling around dead salvage or bounties that need to be accounted for and kinrath patrolling around the planes as their numbers grow out of control you can help with these issues for a variety of rewards many of which require us exploring the enclave and thus needing to speak to Adare first administrator adari is upfront with you kunda has a lot of problems and needs help she knows you're looking for Rook who she is acquainted with but hasn't seen him for some time since you want to look for Rook she gives you permission to search The Enclave sub-levels an area that is apparently the only place to still find Jedi artifacts due to it being infested with hostile alien creatures this is in turn leading to problems with the salvagers who are constantly dying with when one of the biggest Halls of Jedi artifacts remains unclaimed because all of the salvagers who went in to get it ended up dead except for one man who later died in combat against another settler many individuals try to claim the treasure but ziran has it locked up and under guard by the militia until someone can make a valid claim through bringing the bodies back from the enclave and having a will so there's a lot to do within the Enclave itself but before that I believe it's a good idea to explore the plains surrounding kunda and clear up some of the other issues first is the Crystal Caves these caves are used by The Mercenaries and where you find the atmospheric sensors the first thing you'll notice within is that the mercenaries walking around do not attract the kinrath's attention this is due to the mercenaries learning how to extract kinrath glands that help mask their scent to the creatures and prevent them from turning hostile the mercenary is cordial enough and can be persuaded into explaining this to you you can even persuade him to allow you to hold the gland and this gland can be taken by force in order to give you the same benefit at the cost of The Mercenaries life even if you weren't going to take the light side path I still think it's more rewarding considering the amount of experience we'll get overall while not forcing a dude to be viciously murdered by a Savage alien creatures the real reason we are in the Crystal Cave is for the crystals obviously these are either used to change the color of your lightsaber or provide it with various bonus stats unique to Kotor 2 is a specific Crystal with your name on it the crystal is attuned to your character specifically and will have stats based on your own progress as Jedi or Sith your alignment affects various bonuses while your level does the same but not automatically sometimes Crea will point out that you and your Crystal are Out Of Tune you can then give her the crystal to upgrade which will cause it to shine brighter with better stats I believe the crystal has 10 upgrades in total but the chance of you seeing all of them are slim unless you plan ahead from the start of your adventure you may need to even hit dantooine first it's not necessary to max out the upgrades anyway the crystal is powerful enough even in its base form to continue upgrading it just plays into the already overpowered nature of the game within the crystal area of the cave a kinrath matriarch can be killed to help slow the advance of the species you may also notice an area full of crates and an energy Shield present that we'll come back to later on the way to The Enclave you'll come across the salvager camp I mentioned earlier here you'll meet darala who has one of the most unique faces I've seen in this game thus far a lot of NPCs in this game look similar due to the ReUse of head textures however dantooine specifically seem to have some of the most unique faces I have seen yet coming back to this point in the script after having played the entirety of the game some of the planets actually have even more unique faces that I wasn't used to administrator Adare Captain Zaron and daralla are just some of the unique characters to name a few dorala seems to hold a lot of resentment for you if you're a salvager there's too many already if you're a settler well salvagers hate settlers if you're a mercenary who knows either way you aren't on her good side immediately and you probably never will be if you ask daralla for work she'll mention the dead salvagers and ask you to bring their bodies back to the camp so they can be laid to rest properly sounds nice enough but things aren't always as they seem and will soon learn that once we head inside beside dorala is another salvager named Raylon Raylan has a Jedi holocron he wants to sell but upon closer inspection you immediately realize it's a fake apparently someone has sold it to RaeLynn who bought it from someone else who bought it from someone else etc etc the fake holocron has been passing hands for some time and at this point raylen just wants to make his money back by selling it to some greater fool Kotor 2 is somewhat prolific in its commentary this really reminded me of nfts as an example better not see any nft apologists in my comments reaching The Enclave may feel familiar to a lot of you we spent a lot of time here during the first game but things aren't going to be the same moving forward for one The Enclave was demolished to a certain extent during the attack back in Kotor 1 when Facing The Enclave there would be a door far to your left and one tier right but we could only ever enter the left door in order to meet with the council and reach The enclave's Landing Pad now it's the right door that's accessible and this gives obsidian the freedom they needed to flesh out the location with the sub levels a large dungeon-like area to explore full of hostile creatures known as lygrack one of the first things you may notice When approaching the door is a group of salvagers currently leaving apparently they had just made it out and another salvager joran is still inside with all of the loot he didn't steal it necessarily he's just trapped by the lygrack heading inside one of the first things you may notice is how detailed the area is in comparison to the upper levels of The Enclave in Kotor 1. it seems like obsidian took the opportunity to add to the overall Ambiance of The Enclave left of the entrance you can find a locked door with joran behind it he asks you to clear out the ligrex before he's willing to leave if you lie I believe he'll get attacked and die but you can clear out the area and allow him to escape before he does you can forcibly take or offer to buy the artifacts he's acquired I think the most interesting route to take is buying them for a few reasons Jordan will tell you that he needs the money to help him get off world and back to his family whether or not you believe that is up to you then when agreeing to buy the artifacts he refuses to show them to you at first as a Jedi you may be able to determine their worth and refuse to buy them for the price he is asking for the entire transaction then is a gamble will the items you receive from jewelry and be worth the price is joran an honest man who just wants to get back to his family or is he trying to scam you out of your credits he has already been accused as the thief by an individual at kunda so you may have the perception that this is a dishonest person the deck is stacked against Jordan here but if you take the Gamble and you do trust him you'll come out with some lightsaber upgrades and crystals that are more than worth it in my eyes although I never looked into the actual value of each upgrade out of merchant some of these items may be unobtainable to you depending on your skill levels so it's more than worth it for that alone it's a gamble that focuses on trust are you able to look past what has been said about jorin and find the ability ability to trust him is it even worth attempting such a gamble how important are your credits worth to you one thing that could influence your decision is further into The Enclave as you progress through the middle area of the sub-level you will suddenly be ambushed by a pack of ligrax these were released by a young Padawan named KV who has been living in the sub-levels ever since the attack KV has been stealing to survive and turns out to be the thief everyone was complaining about additionally it seems as though she got her hands on a Sith holocron at some point which has been slowly turning her towards the dark side something you can intervene in and help her back to the light there's not much to say about the quest itself other than that it helps prove joran isn't the thief behind the scenes I believe this is entirely restored content to the point that KV didn't even have voice files in the game's data and a casting call was put out to find an actress for her as we continue the search for Rook we will come to an archive room or library that has a pile of dead mercenaries within standing directly behind the door is our next party member the disciple his real name is Mikhail and this is revealed during a light side male playthrough in such a playthrough you can't recruit the disciple after talking to him and he will call into karth afterwards to let him know that he found you I believe you also find out that the handmaiden's name is Brianna on the same playthrough assuming you raised her influence enough returning to this point in the script as well I realized that he tells his name near the end of the game if you're on the female lights I played through and I'm not sure about the dark side playthrough the disciple is a historian for the Republic who headed to The Enclave in hopes of finding the missing Jedi Masters and preserving their history running into the disciple it seems clear that he recognizes you but says nothing of it you recognize him as well and you can mention it to which he'll deflect for now Mikhail is full of knowledge involving the Jedi and has some interesting things to say about them most interesting is how he describes the public perception and hatred towards the Jedi he points out how he still believes in the distinction between Jedi and Sith While most individuals didn't see it as such most people see Jedi and dark Jedi to them they are all Jedi and therefore it is the Jedi who hurt them during the Civil War by conflating both groups as Jedi a bad taste has been left in everyone's mouth for the entirety of force sensitive individuals in reality we can see that these are two separate factions of individuals who have similar teachings in terms of power and abilities the Jedi are Jedi the Sith are not even if we call them dark Jedi but again it's all perception You could argue that they are Jedi if you define the title as force-sensitive individuals trained to be monk-like dudes with lightsabers I believe that the distinction can be important if we frame it as the Sith who attacked the Galaxy there is less emphasis on the Jedi maybe less hate would be thrown their way for what happened even if they did fail to act there's obviously still valid criticism against the Jedi and how they handled the situation after talking to the disciple he will ask to join you if you have aten in your party he will become immediately jealous and refuse by allowing the disciple to join you can lose some influence with aten but unfortunately Lee he's going to just have to suck this one up there are multiple scenes on the Ebon Hawk where Adam is either a complete to the disciple because he feels threatened by him or he's sulking while watching the Exile and disciple train together yeah the disciple too can become a Jedi after enough influences raised if anything he is one of the easiest to complete this task with I had him as a Jedi before leaving dantuine all it takes is being nice to him grateful and Performing good deeds in his presence soon the disciple will open up that he does know you and the reason you recognize him is because he was to be a Padawan at The Enclave Before the War as individuals left to fight there was no one to train him if a child cannot be trained they cannot become a Padawan and he was sent back to his home only to join the Republic later but the disciple has great respect for you he felt your leadership when he saw you as a boy and continues to do so now watching you help people around the Galaxy this is what bothers Latin so much the fact that the disciple has this intense unwavering loyalty and admiration for the Exile perhaps even stronger than Bao Durr who served with her in the Mandalorian Wars it intimidates him and makes him feel threatened regardless of how aten feels about it the disciple is now a member of our party if we examine the mercenaries we'll see that there is a data pad stating that Rook is to be taken to the Crystal Caves once captured implying that that is where he is now on the way out we can find two salvager bodies one of which has a will talking to joran about this before he leaves reveals that daralla is playing you for a fool she wants the body so that she can get the salvager stash for herself I personally chose to keep the bodies for myself and edit the will so that I was to be given the stash an act that led to Dark Side points but prevented the schemes of dorala from continuing I questioned if this should have been a dark side act I guess the aspects of greed involved would imply it should I don't believe keeping the loot from dorala is inherently dark side but perhaps wanting this all for yourself and the dishonesty involved says otherwise heading back to the cave I just want to say that I dislike Rook I didn't like him in Kotor 1 and I don't like him now if zez Kyle represented the cowardice of the council Rook represents the pure arrogance rarely is he ever willing to admit wrong rarely is he ever willing to see eye to eye with you even as we enter the cave and confront the mercenaries who are holding him hostage he simply berates us for intervening after his rescue now that the mercenary's Jedi prisoner has been freed they have no reason to hold off attacking kunda something that was going to happen anyway as tensions have been rising between the settlers and militia versus The Mercenaries Rook is upset you took action you can argue back that taking action was necessary Rook wants you to see that sometimes action causes more harm than good that the Mandalorian Wars are proof of that something I don't necessarily agree with I don't believe war is the answer for many things but the mandalorians were on a crusade to conquer every planet in their path and had to be adopt Brooks in action would have led to the enslavement of all people in the galaxy and he's unable to see that he's blind due to his own arrogance and he can't be helped each of the Masters we run into will have some fault like this and these faults will be their undoing Rook now worried about kunda will rush back to the base and you are to follow once there you can talk to administrator Adare who apologizes for sending you out to find Rook not realizing it would cause this much trouble Zarin will then ask you to help bolster the base's defenses and give you a security card to access the majority of the area that was locked off previously this allows you to make sure that kunda is as protected as possible you can heal injured soldiers repair assault droids fix the turrets and place mines down around the base all of which earn you XP for completing if you helped NPCs with their side quests you can even get them to sign up to help the militia in the upcoming battle don't forget that if you sided with Zaron and talk to the mercenaries at the camp some of them will betray the mercenary leader during the battle as well all of these are optional tasks I'm not completely sure but I believe the level of Defense determines how many mercenaries you'll end up fighting within the base as well as how many NPCs back you up inside as well before the battle you can even try raising the morale of the troops and deciding if you will guard the front or back entrances I chose the front as the Exile is the most effective fighter and there are more troops coming towards that entrance after a few waves of mercenaries you'll head inside and take out the leader in one of the easiest fights in the game assuming you prepared well enough to rook's credit after the battle he will acknowledge that kunda is safe due to your actions and he feels he may have misjudged you that's all you'll get out of him in terms of compliments however further conversation leads to arguments and Rook assumes you have learned nothing since you're Exile you can inform him about says kyal and the return of the Sith and he will agree to head to The Enclave to await the rest of the Masters but not before teaching you a lightsaber reform like I said dantooine wasn't as complex or robust as narshada but I think you leave the planet feeling satisfied with the events that took place there there is a lot of hate within dantooine and you can help alleviate some of that either to help the perspective of the Jedi to the people of dantuine or to help yourself dantooine shows the effects of your actions but what would dantui look like if the mandalorians hadn't been dealt with at all there's a level of Freedom that the settlers of the planet have that may have been stripped away from them if you hadn't been involved in the past but no choice is perfect at least not choices of this scale War causes people to suffer even when it's over and that's what dantooine wants to show us that's what a lot of these planets want to show us in their own way because that's where we are traveling to planets affected by the Mandalorian War Planets of your past that the Masters have traveled to everything is connected to the Exile and this is becoming more apparent as we go returning to the ebenhawk will have a further variety of scenes since I killed a few more hk50 units on the journey hk-47 has managed to capture one and torture it for information on where it was manufactured captured this is actually a plot hole HK 47 States at one point that due to his self-preservation programming he wouldn't be able to harm fellow HK units due to seeing them as himself despite this he still manages to harm the torture a unit this event doesn't lead to anything immediately as the manufacturing facility is tied to the storyline and also completely restored content some additional scenes involve crayus spying on the disciple while masking her presence from him she's directly in front of him but he can't see her later she confronts him and he realizes who she is and about her past but Crea has the ability to manipulate his mind due to his innocent and trusting nature meaning she can wipe his memories and stay hidden from him Mikhail knows that Crea was one of their masters of Revan but his research is also making him realize something about all of the injured planets affected by the Mandalorian Wars something that craya doesn't want him to realize just yet by this point in time something should be apparent we are one party member away from having everyone on the Eben honk but in terms of human companions we have all of the Jedi it's possible to achieve outside of the handmade in for gender related reasons one of the biggest aspects of Kotor 2 is developing your party into a team of Jedi apprentices who pledge themselves to the Exile due to the influence she has over them through your actions you not only affect the alignment of these characters but help them unlock their potential with the force as well bayodur aten Mira the disciple and the handmaiden are all characters who have this ability visas an individual already Adept at the force also pledges herself to you this journey we are on the Journey of finding the lost Jedi is in its own way a red herring this will become clearer as we near the game's conclusion but while the Jedi Masters are lost the Lost Jedi we are searching for the individuals that will rebuild the Jedi Order are all already with us we just don't realize it yet as we make our way to our next destination onderon will find we are stopped by an ongoing blockade into the planet a symptom of some of the political issues plaguing it currently onderon is on the brink of Civil War it's a look into authoritarianism propaganda and the effect it has on the population of a community while failing to say anything of substance about the monarchy that is also installed on the planet before we can delve into onderon however the ebenhawk will be recognized by Colonel Tobin of the andaran militia Tobin will send fighters to attack your ship forcing you to fly away from the blockade and land on the nearby Moon known as ducksin the attack against the ebenhawk causes a series of battles to ignite within space around the blockade leading to a level of chaos that allows you to escape mostly unharmed although the ship will need to be repaired for some time meaning aten will be out of commission until we're done here ducks in itself isn't anything special but it holds history with the people of the Galaxy as it is where the Mandalorian War started onderon was the first planet targeted by the mandalorians and the moon was included within that this led to onderon joining the Republic and with the help of Revan managed to drive off the mandalorians from their home duckson is meant to be a return home for the Exile and in lesser part baodura who served with her but you won't see anything particular relating to battlefields here instead duckson is an exploration into the Mandalorian people and how they are handling themselves post-war if it wasn't clear through discussions with candorus Ordo in the first game the mandalorians are a Warrior Race under the leadership of a head Mandalorian known as Mandalore Mandalore isn't a person but a title many take up the literal Helm of Mandalore after the passing of the previous becoming Mandalore themselves however after killing the previous Mandalore Revan kept the helmet and hid it away from the Mandalorian people in turn preventing them from establishing a new leader and causing the Clans to break apart and spread across the Galaxy they're a warrior people it's the entire reason they are fighting this war because it's part of their culture to earn honor through battle and conquering other planets it's why candorus holds so much respect for Revan because Revan was a surprise to the mandalorians and one of the only Jedi that was an actual threat to them someone one who was able to lead the Jedi and the Republic to winning the war there's no contempt for the Jedi from the mandalorians necessarily rather they respect those that took up arms against them dougson gives us the opportunity to see this first hand as you explore the jungle Planet you will be ambushed by a Mandalorian scouting group but they don't attack you instead the leader of their Clan Mandalore has been established once more and wishes to meet with you either peacefully or by force I don't actually know what force would look like as I opted for the peaceful approach which has the scouting party guide you to their hidden base when you arrive you are presented to Mandalore the latest leader of the mandalorians and while it's not obvious at first glance this is actually a familiar face to individuals who played Kotor 1. Mandalore the preserver is in truth candorous Ordo and he now leads Clan Ordo in his quest to bring strength back to the mandalorians and make them a fighting force within the Galaxy once more as it turns out Revan continued his adventures with candorous for some time after the events of Kotor 1. as I mentioned previously with his memories returning to him Revan realized that there was still an unknown threat within the Galaxy and he knew he needed multiple Avenues to deal with it it's why the Republic wasn't fully crushed by him during the Jedi Civil War because he needed the forces of the Republic for later it's the same for the Mandalorian knowing he would need their power Revan revealed to candaris where he had kept the helmet of Mandalore and returned it to him allowing Ordo to take up the mantle we need to get to Isis on onderon to find kvara but with the blockade up and the ebenhawk out of commission we don't have any options that is except for Mandalore and his shuttle which he uses to make periodic trips there mandalor is willing to help you most likely interested in you due to your acquisition of the Ebon Hawk plus your history as one of the main factors in the war he won't do it for free however he wants you to prove yourself to him and his people by taking up odd jobs around the base he mostly means through combat but there are other semi-peaceful tasks you can complete as well I won't go into all of them as there are a variety of side quests to complete for exp and rewards but some of them include fixing a relay station for the base helping out some missing mandalorians in the jungle and taking part in their fighting ring most of these side quests in some way examine the Mandalorian people it's meant to show how they value honor to the point that they are willing to die for it if necessary no one respects you in the camp until you prove yourself and you can prove yourself easily by fighting several mandalorians it's like the achani we fought back in Telos there's an assortment of progressively difficult fights to take part in most of which are hand to hand with no Jedi Powers allowed if you challenge someone they choose how you will fight but there is a Mandalorian that challenges you during this and you can choose to use whichever means you'd like I still opted for hand to hand though this continues until you are allowed to face the champions of the mandalorians or it would be except you have to further prove yourself to them within combat to the death in order for the them to feel justified in facing you that doesn't mean killing another Mandalorian rather it means having one of the Champions witness you kill pretty much anyone as long as it seems honorable this works itself out by having one of the champions in the jungle when you reach him he has killed an onderon militia Scout several of them have scattered throughout the jungle in search of you and you can team up with the Mandalorian to kill them all which is justified by them being hostile once you've wiped them out the champion will be impressed and allow you to fight the strongest Mandalorian champion in the ring most of the quests have this focus on them it's about showing the cultural differences of a warrior tribe in comparison to the culture of the Republic even one of the individuals you beat in Fair combat challenges you again outside the base this time to the death you can attempt to talk him down but he feels he must prove himself against you in order to establish his honor this Mandalorian is Young he didn't have the opportunity to take part in the war to earn the honor many of the older mandalorians already have and and this eats away at him in a way it may seem toxic this individual has been driven to the brink due to the culture his clan takes part in he has no other option in his mind than to challenge you to the death so he can finally prove himself to his clan and if you take part in this and kill him it won't lead to Dark Side points because it isn't an inherently Dark Side action in fact peace and pacifism are not inherently light side it's one of the lessons we learn in Kotor 2 or rather it's one of the arguments presented to us peace and pacifism are virtuous in nature but sometimes violence is necessary going to war was necessary in the eyes of Revan in the eyes of the exile to the mandalorians it was just a way of life to them it made perfect sense to go to war what led to the dark side was the lives lost the suffering inflicted the mandelorians are a warrior people that's part of their culture not something for us to judge but it's when they try to push that culture onto us to harm us that the dark side started to play a factor and it's possible this Brewing within the dark side allowed them to continue pushing further and further leading to the war and requiring the Republic and the Jedi who chose to to step in fighting in the Mandalorian Wars does not make the Jedi Dark Side by default it was the influence of the dark side on Revan and his intense leadership skills that had a trickle-down effect on those that followed and respected him and again there's ways for these cultures to co-exist and intertwine it's just about how the violence of the mandalorians was pushed onto the people of the Republic so while it may seem wrong to kill this Mandalorian it is what he wishes to fight you in Fair combat and die trying it's part of his culture one we could possibly refuse but something we should also consider respecting because this is the life these people lead one of combat and death one that we have agreed to immerse ourselves within while we are on ducks in now I'm not saying I personally enjoy killing random mandalorians who are almost forced to this state of mind due to the culture that surrounds their Clan further not all mandalorians think alike they are individuals like you or I they are people there's a Mandalorian you meet in the jungle who is trapped and starving he was thought to be dead and you can rescue him something that should be of great dishonor for him he even asks you to not mention this to the fellows back at Camp you can choose whether or not you will but it shows what I was just talking about there is a culture within their Warrior Race but it's not the same for everyone some are content with dishonor if it means the rest of their Clan doesn't hear about it and while it isn't our place to influence this culture as long as they don't try to take over the Galaxy there is some integration that can be had here the mandalorians can live within our culture and US within theirs we can all coexist like every other culture within the Galaxy after enough has been done for clan order you can return to candaris now Mandalore and he will list off everything you you have done so far being impressed with how much you possibly got done he didn't expect you to be as good as you are both at combat and other skill related activities he's ready to take you to Isis whenever you want to but as you get ready to depart Crea will approach him discussing the history and the failing of their Clans during the Mandalorian Wars calling them weak and Scattered Mandalore will point out how they were indeed scattered but he has managed to bring them together and give them purpose mandalorians spread out they became mercenaries thugs bouncers for anyone and anything Mandalore managed to get them together again under one banner and he plans to continue so that the Galaxy can be theirs once again a problematic goal considering it is in direct contrast with what the people of the Galaxy want whether they be part of the Republic or not still maybe there are greater things for them as I mentioned Revan foresaw is something that he needed the mandalorians for candorus is working to build his clan up once more so that they can take over the Galaxy in his own words but maybe that isn't what is in the cards maybe candorus isn't being truthful here in craya's eyes the mandalorians may very well be dead already a quiet death that takes place over many years at this point in time in the game it's unknown although further storylines within the universe of Star Wars give us our answers in truth the mandalorians serve a greater purpose now one that will have them stand with the Republic still the reason Korea discusses this with Mandalore is because she knows the answer to an unknown question that burns within him and she is willing to answer it for a price his loyalty to the Exile and an agreement to serve and protect her the question it involves Revan and why he left without candorus on his adventures after having traveled with him for so long after the events of the first game duckson is a relatively short planet and that's due to it really being the first part of onderon in terms of progression duckson and anderan are the same destination and so a lot of the content within makes up the whole completing ducks and may not seem to take any time at all and while andrin may feel similarly short this will not be our last trip to the planet Andre is a location we have to visit multiple times to complete the story I mentioned this earlier but the location is in a state of political turmoil General vaclu is trying to manipulate the populace to turn against both their queen and the Republic he uses Force Espionage and propaganda to get his way leading to Queen Talia being forced to stay locked up within her Palace while hosting Master kavar of the Jedi I want to make one thing very clear here it will be shown in the events that follow that General vac glue is the evil option to side with here he fights for an authoritarian rule over the people of onderon he kills without remorse he lies and manipulates he even aligns himself with the Sith it is very clear that the developers are both tying vaklu to authoritarianism and authoritarianism to the Seth this is the bad option to take the dark side option that means there is a good chance that Talia is the light side or good option things are not not always that black and white in the game you may ask yourself is a monarchy really the right option for the people of onderon something most of us would consider a defunct form of political power in the world I personally dislike the concept of a monarchy I dislike the concept of power through Bloodlines in comparison to something more democratic if we look at this situation in a way that the developers didn't intend nor did they flesh out we could discuss how vac glue while clearly not a good option for onderon doesn't mean he is a worse option than a monarchy we could discuss that but we aren't going to it's a Miss opportunity from the developer's point of view to be sure but they wanted to focus on something else they don't focus on the fact that a monarchy exists within the universe of Star Wars at least not in this game specifically you focus on the manipulation tactics of a militant force and the effects they can have on a community of people of course we are going to side with Talia when the time comes she's peaceful she care cares about her people whether or not a monarchy is right or wrong is not the point here the question isn't authoritarianism versus the monarchy it's General VOC glue and authoritarianism versus The Republic that's the real conflict here vaklu hates the Republic for reasons we will discuss shortly Talia aligns herself with the Republic and while vaklu is a clear bad actor in this situation we can explore the issues some of the people onderon have with the Republic currently before we explore the city I think now is a good time to talk to Mandalore as a party member he has more to say now and questions he would like to ask us that help answer questions about the war mandalor will ask you about why you joined the war they'll talk about how the mandalorians had never faced the Jedi before how they were enigmatic in nature to a Jedi and those close to them you can know plenty but too many other factions and species out there the Jedi are shrouded in mystery there was only so much the mandalorians could go on hence the surprise when they ran into Revan during the war later on onderon Mandalore will mention that they expected hard to be leading the charge within the war they had planned to fight against the Jedi you may perceive on a surface level semi-pacifist monks who could be overpowered Revan was an unknown and unexpected variable both a Jedi and ruthless in his tactics something that blindsided the mandalorians mandalor wants you to think about something he has a what-if scenario for you what if the mandalorians won would their strength as Warriors and the wealth of the Republic planets allow them to bolster their forces to the point that the Sith would be nothing more than a nuisance would the world be better off under Mandalorian rule are the worlds better off now that the Republic won the war he points out the suffering and Damage Done to the planets after the war and wants you to think about whether this would have happened if the other side had won in a way Mandalore seems to believe efficiency and progress would have been guaranteed with a Mandalorian win maybe he's right there considering the force used the slaves utilize the power of their Clans maybe the mandalorians could have saved the planets and communities in a way that the Republic could not but would those people be free is that more important I'd say it is and I'd say that's what candorous as a Mandalorian misses here the people of the Republic have to pick up the pieces and without new leadership being forced onto them it's up to the individuals to get together and organize it is happening but slowly and this slowness looks like stagnation to some like a Mandalorian it looks like a set of dying planets that are doomed to fail in reality these planets are simply beginning the slow process to grow once more on their own terms as free individuals as we exit the starport into Isis proper we'll be stopped by a security official who has to inspect our ship before we are allowed to explore since we don't have anything with us it's mostly just a formality but it allows you to get information about the situation here the blockade and lineup in space is due to republic ships having to be fully searched before being allowed on onderon Additionally the official mention how Republic forces had shot at some of the onderon forces in space which has led to some tension I'm not exactly sure if he is referring to when we were attacked or not I mean it would make sense I don't see the Republic shooting under on ships for no reason and a fight did break out due to Tobin firing on us this is most likely the first glimpse of manipulation and lies from the general used to show the Republic in a bad light like I said the planet is close to Civil War vaclu is making use of his time to rile up the citizens in an attempt to justify an uprising but said Uprising would only lead to vac Lou being in charge and he's already pushing for martial law as it is the people of onderon wouldn't really enjoy his Rule and it's not just me saying that we see it firsthand as we explore before we can do that the official hands us of starport Visa these are cards assigned to visitors that are needed to leave the city if you lose your Visa you are as good as marooned and this is a problem for many on the planet you'll run into many individuals looking for an open Visa so that they can assign it to themselves and you unique business opportunity or an opportunity to help someone in need it's really just a means of Performing light or dark actions you find two Visas as you progress and there are two light side options to offer them to there's a republic spy who needs to leave the planet to get the word back to his supervisors and a widow with two children other options include individuals that will pay for a Visa and some criminals first we can meet the Beast writers a people of wildlife Tamers who are once at war with the people of Isis now tensions are still high but an alliance has been made between the two groups you can see plenty of Cage's beasts scattered around the city and it looks rather inhumane it is inhumane but the reason they are stuck here for so long is due to the blockade these beasts are meant to head to Telos to be released into the wild so that they can help in the restoration of the planet unfortunately since they are collected they can't be let loose in the city and are forced into small cages that continue to agitate them guess whose fault this is the militia want to hear the latest news head to a nearby terminal unfortunately you'll quickly realize that it's propaganda and lies set up by vaclue the reports talk of a republic military craft initiating a space battle over the planet confirming the vessel to be the Ebon Hawk I guess that official was talking about us after all but we didn't fire first in fact we didn't fire at all as we had the option to run away without engaging it was entirely the onderon militia that caused the Battle Above the planet and now the ebenhawk is not only blamed for it but reported to have been destroyed walking down the street you'll see journalists getting accused of being spies and actively arrested in front of you luckily you can intervene but it's clear that General vaclu has an agenda and he's using everything at his disposal to facilitate It This Woman's husband even realized that vacu was trying to kill the queen and attempted to assassinate the general getting shot after getting caught during the arrest and the militia aren't helping by any means it's understandable why the General's manipulations are shown to be effective on the people of Isis these people have been part of the Republic for 50 years and within that time War Terror and and death have been commonplace many blame the Republic for this even though onderon was the first to be attacked by the mandalorians before being saved by the Republic that they currently learned to hate some believe that the Republic isn't protecting andron nor that onderon needs protection that the Republic is merely using onderon for its resources the planet has resources of use to The Republic sure but it'd go against history to say that the effects of the Republic didn't save these people do I believe that the people of onderon have a right to be frustrated yes these are dark times it makes sense that as a community people would begin to get riled up they look for someone to blame the Republic isn't perfect and those imperfections are now being utilized by dissenters to complain but vaklu isn't helping matters he's actively breeding these thoughts within the population while his Queen supports the Republic now maybe you personally think vaklu is Justified I'm not here to argue that I know that I don't think he's Justified and I think even many of the people on onderon have a hard time justifying his actions take a conversation between two citizens nearby one values truth and peace leading him to favor Queen Talia the Twilight meanwhile favors vaclub because he supports the will of the people but the Twilight is then quick to mention that even though vaclu lies and manipulates it's okay in his eyes or rather he's actively trying to convince himself of this that man has been fed so much propaganda and bad faith that he sees the ill effects of general vaclu and blames them on Talia even when he states that she is a necessary Diplomat to help Isis in times like these I don't want to focus too much on real world political comparisons but like come on this comes almost prophetic in how things are going around the world lately this level of turmoil and manipulation the propaganda we see it time and time again in America in Canada in the UK all over if this game came out in our current year it would get criticized for being too on the nose but Kotor 2 called this out years beforehand so we're on Isis to find kavar but there's no easy way to do this kavar is in the palace with Talia and you can't just enter of your own free will especially right now luckily mandalor knows of a doctor who may be able to help us smuggle a message in the bad news is that said doctor has been arrested in suspicion of murder when you ask to see him you are turned away but if you want to find out more about the murder you are pointed in the direction of the Cantina to ask around there are several characters in The Cantina to talk to there's more swoop racing to take part in and an individual named Nico who you can play pizak with several times for some bonus cards apparently the doctor was arrested Under Suspicion as he was one of the only people at the scene of the crime additionally he was witness to be arguing with the victim at the bar assumedly over getting turned down on romantic advances Nico will inform you that this isn't true the doctor and the victim were good friends and their banter was commonplace you can visit the scene of the crime to find a destroyed service Droid you can then buy the memory module off of another nearby Droid and have it fixed to witness what destroyed him turns out the assailant came from the direction of the marketplace but Witnesses saw the doctor coming from his office in the opposite direction proving his innocence if you bring this information to a nearby Captain he will attempt to release the doctor before one of his superiors arrives and tells him not to bother to him they have their man and there's no real reason to look into this any further again I feel like I'm just experiencing real world scenarios on andrean over and over again you and Nico can explain your evidence to the superior plus mention the many witnesses who can back you up forcing the man to release the doctor back at his office the doctor will thank you for helping him and agree to help you in return but he needs one last thing from you the people you want to contact can't be reached easily there is a procedure and said procedures on a hollow disk that was stolen by a beast rider in the Cantina when you attempt to retrieve the disc it leads to an ensuing battle and the death of the thugs at the bar once you have the disc you can bring it back to the doctor and he will set up a meeting between you and bar in the Cantina why kavar would choose the Cantina I'll never know it's clear that he is being protected in the palace to go somewhere so public would obviously lead to conflict and sure enough that's what happens before you can say much to kavar you are attacked by Tobin and his men kevar stuns the majority of Tobin's men before running off Tobin chases after him while you fly your way back out to the shuttle as you run through the city you are attacked by militia forces but as you will soon learn it's not all of them turns out there's a Communications blackout for security reasons some officers will mention hearing the shooting and ask you what happened if you tell them they're confused and unsure what's going on additionally while escaping you'll be attacked by a group of civilians that seem to be working for the militia in secret sort of radicals vaclus seems to bring on anyone he can in private in order to bolster his forces for the Civil War that is coming like I said onderon isn't complete yet we have to come back when things have cooled down again or when kavar gets in contact with us until then we can use the shuttle to escape back to duckson where the Ebon Hawk has been fully repaired in terms of planets to visit korriban is technically the last one we'll be landing on I say technically because we do have to return to ducks and onderon shortly to finish the storyline there additionally there's some Final End Game Stops to make as we progress through the game's finale now you may disagree with this but korriban in terms of planets you can select fits best as the final planet to explore what little it has in content it makes up for in difficulty and challenge we've been here before in the first game in fact it was a much larger and more explorable area in Kotor 1 as well all of the tombs we visited previously are now blocked off the only areas to explore being the open space surrounded by the tombs the nearby Chirac cave and the ruins of the Sith Academy while corriban is is a test not so much a commentary on the Galaxy and the politics surrounding them but a test of your skills a check to see how far your Exile has progressed while also testing the willpower of the character within the narrative the Exile has the opportunity to face something here I believe it's completely optional and Korea even suggests completing your tasks in the academy before exploring the cave as she senses something powerful and dark within Crea won't join you on korriban she mentions how it messes with her mind the intense darkness that is exuded out of the planet is something she is bathed in in the past and I guess returning to it at this moment is too much for her she has plenty to say about it however through your connection with craya she will talk to you as you explore the area surrounding the Evan Hawk approaching each tomb will lead to a history of the Sith Lord lead to rest there as well as how Revan interacted with the tombs back during the events of the first game it's both a callback and a lore dump for those who want to know more about the universe of Star Wars before the game started Corbin is abandoned at least it should be when we were last here the Sith were thriving it was the height of the Jedi Civil War and they were actively recruiting and torturing students in droves after revan's defeat of Malik it took a few years but the Republic eventually showed up to rid the plan planet of the Sith at least temporarily the academy still stands but is no more there are no students to meet or interact with no one to portray no amusement park of Dark Side characters instead what we get is an optional character study of the Exile one you get to shape as it unfolds I've mentioned it twice now so it's best to get it out of the way the Chiraq cave leads to the hidden tomb of Ludo kresh funnily enough Creo warned us about entering the cave too early but once I reached the Tome she told me I was more than ready for what was to unfold inside the big factor here is that you have to enter the tomb alone any party members you had with you at the time will be sent back to the Evan Hawke within you will face an assortment of tests these tests are the reliving of the Exiles past when you first walk inside you will be met by a young Malik you stand beside multiple students including bastila this is the point in which Malik had recruited you to fight in the Mandalorian Wars it's a great scene because it shows his descent from virtuousness to the dark side during his speech Malik was talk about how the Jedi are wise how he understands this and how he understands that despite this they can make mistakes that they are making a mistake Now by not helping the people of the Republic defeat the Mandalorian threat the wisdom of the Jedi bred in action and to Malik that in action would have led to more destruction than the dark side ever could now I don't mean to measure these two things you can't really equate the history and destruction of the dark side to the mandalorians but both had their fair share by doing nothing the Jedi seemed to be dooming innocent people the point is that it is understandable why you were convinced to join the war because it's understandable why it was the right thing to do you can fight Malik on this if you want or you can agree with him and as he continues to speak many of the students will join his side even basila will join his side which the Exile can point out never happened Malik responds by explaining that basila had her doubts from the start and even fell to the dark side at one point this is how the speech turns out what was once a discussion about going to war to protect innocent lives now becomes a plea for you to continue following Malik and Revan on their path to the dark side if you refuse Malik questions your actions you're willing to follow them to war but no longer when they want to fall he makes it seem like you should trust them now as you did then but that's not how this worked out for you nor should it have been it's one thing to agree to the ideals presented to you by someone you admire and respect but it takes a strong sense of will to be able to see when said leaders begin to go down the wrong path when you need to step away and distance yourself from them Malik wants you to be a good soldier he wants you to be unquestioning and consumed by the dark side you are one of the few that managed to fight this line of thinking and come out of the other end relatively unscathed although you did lose your connection to the force Malik and all of the students including basila will then fight you it's an easy battle especially if you've been buffing the ever loving out of your character as you've progressed rest the Exile has the ability to One-Shot countless enemies by this point in the game what this test does is show us the path of the Exile first hand while giving us the opportunity to both consider what she would have chosen back then and what she might choose now maybe your Exile agrees with the war agrees with the dark side and is willing to follow Malik leading to more Dark Side points gained maybe you stick to the virtuousness of the light and gain more points there it's up to you how you decide to shape the exile's ideology here and through doing so you'll shape her alignment as well the next test is of ducks in during some of the first battles against the mandalorians you're met with a republic Squad that do not wish to go on considering the battle to be a suicide mission you remember the battle well and you remember coming out Victorious but how you did so is up to you there's a Minefield nearby and you can force the squad to go through it leading to guaranteed casualties as you push towards the mandalorians alternatively you can deal with the minds first and lead the squad into battle allowing them all to survive in in the process it's another value test where do your values lie Revan was a merciless combatant and strategist he would sacrifice anything and anyone if it gave him the upper hand were you the same are you the same now the choice is yours the next test involves an apparition of Crea and potentially one of the most famous lines in the game if duckson and Malik were your past Crea is in some way representative of your present it's a weird scene one I still try to wrap my head around because of how the alignment points are distributed the force vision of Crea will discuss your past and present with you before being interrupted by a forced vision of aten tells you to stay away from Crea as she is a dark Jedi and trying to manipulate you something that is arguably true both raise their weapons readying themselves for combat as they do Bao dur shows up to defend aten T3 M4 follows and soon your entire party is there to defend you but this isn't what you think it is to the Exile Crea may have a history of being part of the dark side but she also has the possibility of being redeemed your entire party has turned against her but you can choose to defend her because you believe she can come back to the light it's a callback to an earlier conversation you can have with craya at one point Revan helped the ghost of a Sith Lord be redeemed into the light kreya considered this Redemption weakness not because they joined the light but because they had betrayed their sense of self and ideals to Crea if you are to go full Darkseid you should stick with it I assumed to go full Light Side would mean the same it's not about your alignment it's about being who you are in this situation craya is the dark side she's even in her Sith Garb you can try to redeem her and defend her in the process but we know that isn't what Crea wants we know that she is manipulative a possible danger and to defend her means killing everyone we went on this journey with our droids our apprentices Mandalore you get light points for this but is it truly a right side action I'm legitimately asking you here because I don't think it's so easy to classify in a way being one of the true gray morality choices in the game you get light side points sure but did you do the right thing was killing everyone in your party to defend craya the right call maybe it was maybe she can be redeemed but we don't know and we lose everything in the process of helping her one alternative is to side with your party the choice I originally thought would have led to a light side gain your party accuses kreya of manipulating you potentially towards the dark side she kind of is in a way and you can choose to side with them against her you shouldn't have to fight her but that is where this conversation is Heading by claiming Korea has been manipulating you is a danger and that you will stop her you in turn take a step closer to the dark side why is it that defending ourselves against Crea leads down the dark side why does siding with our party do that is crayon not what they are accusing her of should we not realize that that by this point in the storyline is the choice to not attempt redeeming her really worthy of us falling off our path a woman who has made it clear that she wouldn't want to be redeemed that light side or dark side she would rather stick to the values she believes in regardless of which alignment that puts her in Korea at this moment is a Sith she's a danger what is the right course of action here for you well there's one more option an option I believe is worth considering despite the message the tomb is trying to convey to you maybe you don't agree with craya but maybe you don't want to kill her maybe you can't get behind your party all turning against her but at the same time you wouldn't defend her maybe you can just walk away that's an option and one that leads to the notorious scene within the tomb Crea will chastise you for your inability to choose one of the two previous options it's considered an utter failure of the test and she will finish by telling you that apathy is death to make a choice will lead you down One path or another but to make take no choice to commit no action well you might as well be dead apathy is death craya says it and then is followed by everyone else in your party including HK 47 who says it like a sarcastic ghost in a Scooby-Doo episode so you will do nothing he is death worse than death because at least a rotting corpse feeds the beasts and insects apathy is death [Music] apathy is death statement apathy's death have apathy is death [Music] empathy is death is walking away from this scene the wrong call not necessarily you have to remember where we are in the Tomb of a powerful Sith Lord this entire place is pulsing with dark energy and whatever it may be trying to teach you may not be what you agree with for the Exile action is usually required it's why you went to war inaction is the way of the Jedi apathy is death in a way this is true you have a responsibility to do something to help someone if you can apathy is death but what choice would you make here regardless of your choice a battle will commence and you'll be on your way to the final trial once you reach it you'll be met by an apparition of Revan and of yourself fall into the dark side you'll battle yourself and then revin finishing your tests within the tomb I can only assume the final battle is meant to show your connection to Revan who you were at one point and how close you were to falling and becoming like him the battle against Revan is meant to show how much you've overcome how now you could even overcome Revan himself with the defeat of these apparitions craya will contact you through the force congratulating you for making it through you can mention that you feel the tomb has changed you into someone potentially not for the better and creole will point out that everything you have done and felt within is merely coming from within you you instinctively know your own path and you will follow it the tomb's power holds nothing over you it merely showed you things to think about I don't fully agree with Crea here as with many of her takes while the Tome definitely meant to show you various aspects of yourself and facilitated the ability to reflect it clearly had some darker motivations in mind the dark side is an inherently corrupting Force even if you are more powerful than it it still has that goal in mind with the tomb completed you can loot it for some items none of which I believe I ended up using once you get your party back from the Eben Hawk you can head inside the Sith Academy proper there's nothing to do here really I don't mean that as a slight but okay maybe I do mean that as a slight there's really nothing to do here you head inside see a scene of Darth Sion meditating before sending a group of Assassins after you and then you spend your short amount of time within unlocking various rooms as you search for the Lost Jedi Master to do so you need to open a nearby library via a terminal study Sith history pass a multiple choice quiz and then fight some dogs all while being hounded by Sith assassins you eventually unlock the torture chamber you visited as Revan only to find the corpse of the Jedi Master you were searching for out of all the Masters she is the only one to be captured and killed by The Sith since she's you know dead there's nothing else to really do here that is except for Scion who complains about Crea and how much he wants to murder his old Master for the torturous training she put him through probably Justified but we won't get into that just yet to Scion you aren't crea's Apprentice rather you are nothing a fly to him that he would see destroyed although this opinion will quickly change a short battle unfolds before Crea informs you that you cannot beat Scion here where the dark power of korriban courses through him you're forced to run and Scion prevents his assassins from following you believing you earned your Escape through battle with him that's corriban again your time here is relatively short out of all the planets it's potentially the one that feels the most unfinished until we reach the end game whether or not it is unfinished or this was just what the developers wanted I'm unsure but if you decided to do a zero optional content run I believe each planet may take you around half an hour or longer depending while korriban would take like 10 minutes maybe what Corbin lacks in content it too makes up for in dialogue and narrative taking part in the Chiraq cave and the hidden tomb is a must because of how thought-provoking it is how much it lays out the past of the Exile and her motivation your motivations for her Corban is short but sweet in this way with it now completed as we return to the ebenhawk will receive a calm from the mandalorians asking us to return as kavar has left a message for us I told you we'd be returning to onderon but we'll be exploring more of ducks in as well when you arrive back at the Mandalorian Camp you'll be informed that kavar wanted to get a hold of you and provided safe passage via Queen Talia unfortunately that's no longer possible as general vaclue has accused Talia of being a traitor effectively starting the Civil War I mentioned previously you need to take a ship to Isis as soon as possible but there's an issue there's plenty of energy signatures coming from an Uncharted part of the jungle on duckson and there are registry numbers tied to the Sith craya suggests that the force requires you to split the group up to tackle these issues together to which the mandalorians are unhappy about apparently strategically splitting up their forces doesn't make sense to them and is a sign of weakness showing that it is no wonder Revan outsmarted and overpowered them this means you need to choose two party members to join unizes and three party members to assault the Sith compound it's really up to you who you choose for the compound I chose baodur T3 and Mandalore throughout this entire game T3 has been an absolute tank who could solo most of this content so it doesn't really matter who I brought it alongside him the same could be said about the Exile we start off with our ducks and party one of the mandalorians has escorted us to the location of the Sith readings and what we uncover is the Tome of Frida NAD a Jedi who decided to openly be consumed by the dark side rather than having his tomb on korriban now's tomb was hidden away on ducks in the mandalorians seem to know of this but never this specific location surprising them that it was so close to their base this entire time what follows is an assault on the Tomb in the Sith force is within if you're wondering where all the Sith forces are coming from considering they were all defeated by the Republic so am I from what I understand these people are all remnants of the Sith from the Jedi Civil War I believe they are the forces of Darth nihilus who adopted them while cyan is off doing his own thing back at korriban regardless of where these forces came from you spend the next extended period making your way through the tomb and defeating them there's a few Tactical options to take advantage of such as turning off turrets programming the droids to attack their masters and destroying a proximity sensor so the enemy doesn't know where you're coming from however once inside things are more straightforward you can clear out the tomb but more interestingly you can find little pockets of dark side energy concentrated in specific spots on the map if you're having trouble with the battles within and I could see that being possible these dark side spots are very useful you can either bathe in the dark side energy or do what I did with Bao dur here and overcome the darkness through meditation by overcoming it I gained temporary attribute bonuses until the fighting was complete I found two of these in total and they made Bale particularly strong and tanky in comparison to the norm backed by T3 and Mandalore I made short work of the enemy units now I don't think it's completely clear what the Sith are doing here there are some Sith Masters at the central part of the Tomb completing a ritual presumably to bolster the power of the onderon troops during the Civil War General vaclu in an attempt to over overthrow Talia rid his planet of the Republic and take charge has sided with the Sith that shouldn't be surprising considering what we know of vaclu so far it's not like andrean was in direct threat of the Sith during the Jedi Civil War either onderon had to deal with the Mandalorian sure but the Jedi versus the Sith was more an annoyance to onderon on both sides vaklu holds contempt for the Republic therefore he holds contempt for the Jedi it is understandable why he would side with the Sith although it isn't justifiable by any means your party of companions will interrupt the ritual by defeating the Masters within we then switch back to the Exile in her party before heading to onderon the mandelorians have set up a basilisk for you to crash land in Isis it's one of their more effective War droids and is a rite of passage for young mandalorians to pilot during a war it's a sign that you were held in high esteem with the Mandalorian people and should be seen as a great honor once you crash into Isis it's a pretty straightforward Affair there isn't much to say until we reach the throne room past the sky ramp you'll meet with some Royal Palace guards fight your way through the militia and you'll even get the opportunity to try and convince them to surrender or at least Retreat if you want you can also just gladly Slaughter everyone if that's what you're doing in this playthrough once in the palace you need to find a way through the central door this takes you through some of the hallways within and you have to deal with the Twilight slicer Kiff Kiff was the individual that sliced our starboard visas for us during our first trip here now he's been semi-forced to help the underod militia in an attempt to stop you or at least slow you down you can deal with Kiff how you want but an awareness check shows that this wasn't really an act of malice rather he was just trying to save his own hide I ended up leaving him for the Royal Guards Captain reichen can be saved from imprisonment and you can get some security codes that will allow you to use a computer on the other side of the palace to open up the main door to the throne room here you'll run into kvar who ended up separated from the queen at some point once the door is open you'll be face to face with General Tobin you don't fight him though turns out all of the beasts within Isis were taking control of by the militia one particularly large Beast goes out of control and begins killing soldiers and wounding Tobin severely after you kill the Beast you can head into the throne room where you will witness vaclu and Talia fighting I haven't mentioned it yet but battle meditation makes a return in Kotor 2. what was once a rare ability that only bastila knew to use effectively at the time is possible to be utilized by your entire Jedi Party In fact when reaching the throne room there is an option to use battle meditation to bolster the Royal forces if you so choose vaclu with his back against the wall and with the arrival of kavar attempts to fight you off but is swiftly defeated here's where things come back to morality Talia wants to have vaclu executed for his actions and Crea will agree she thinks that vaclu is irredeemable a topic she focused on a lot during the trip to korriban to let him live would only cause problems for the people of onderon further down the lines now you can try to convince Talia to spare him if you want it's not about whether he should live or die but to kill him now would go against the laws set in place by the political powers of onderon Talia will respect your counsel but be steadfast in wanting to execute him you can let it happen or you can't it's up to you to decide what Justice is here Talia wants vaclu dead for all of the death he caused you may feel the same should vacu be dealt with now or should he have a trial is the concept of law in this instance even important further what repercussions would this have in order to convince Talia you can mention to her that killing vaklu now would make him a martyr to the people who sided with him and again you have to ask yourself would it what is the right course of action here is it too dangerous to leave that glue alive is that our choice to make should it be the choice of their laws and people it's up to you as the player to decide and it's not as simple as it seems I personally do not put a lot of faith into their laws but I do also believe the concept of vaklu becoming a martyr to be possible to me the best course of action is showing the people first hand how awful this man was whether that be in a court of law or in some other capacity after the battle and the discussion of how to deal with vac glue you'll have your time with the final Jedi Master kvar kavar will tell you much of what you now know already they exiled you because they thought it right but it was ultimately your choice they didn't cut you off from the force and they are hiding something from you still something that is most painful for kavar he points out that he almost took you on as a Padawan that he considers you a friend after the time you both spent together in the past and while he can't tell you about the secret the council holds it greatly pains him it's foreshadowing for something not so good something that is going to be happening sooner rather than later with all of the Masters found and with them all informed about the Sith showing themselves it's time for everyone to reunite on Dan to wean and begin what I would consider the end game of Kotor 2. not too much more to say about the conversations on the Eben Hawk with Mandalore joining us there's tension between him and bao dirt due to their history within the war bayodair is frustrated that Mandalore can easily justify his killing of countless innocent lives through the concept of Honor In the Heat of battle Mandalore doesn't understand why this makes bayodur so upset you can calm them both down but bayodair will mention that he'll shoot Mandalore out of the airlock if he ever acts up additionally I had a conversation with Bao about nightmares he has from malachor 5. to this day his creation of the mass Shadow generator still haunts him and is something he has to actively face on this journey as I mentioned before that's one of the game's major themes facing your past For Better or Worse everyone on your ship has a past and many of those are tied to war you are tied to the Mandalorian Wars same with bayodir same with Mira aten and Mandalore the wars and their destruction are something the disciple actively researches and invests time in the pain of the past is something that the game wants you to confront and it allows you to decide how it will shape your character I also finally had a conversation with Goto about his true identity if it wasn't obvious already especially since some of the dialogue will call him go toe but spell it as g0t0 goto is actually a republic Droid a Droid that was created by the Republic to theorize ways to save it something the Droid considered an impossible task and that allowed it to break free from its logic Loop despite being broken free the Droid was still programmed to love the Republic even if it believes it is weak and unable to be saved it's a frustrating concept for goto he hates that he is forced to love something that he considers so inferior he yearns for stabilization because that is what he is programmed to do and goto used his Droid abilities to control Nar Shada through multiple other droids the pizzok Droid we met previously was used to spy on gamblers the swoop Droid was able to do the same there was a myth scientist with a Droid who mysteriously vanished and there were all the droids working in voga's Warehouse the entirety of narshada was under the secret control of goto more than anyone truly realized despite him being the leader of the exchange with another batch of conversations taken care of it's finally time to head back to dantooine and meet with the Jedi Masters we located during our travels the return of dantooine marks the beginning of the end Kotor 2's Journey gets streamlined from here on out as we land and approach the Jedi Enclave a cutscene will play showing that it has been partially rebuilt with the previously locked door now open heading inside we will find the areas we explored in the original game now destroyed with overgrown foliage as nature takes back what once belonged to it within the council chamber you will find the last three Jedi Masters reminiscing about the Enclave they note that it isn't what it was but that it might be for the best the Masters have been waiting for you you can approach them and mention that you all must join together in order to defeat the Sith and Rook will argue with you surprise the Masters want to do nothing they want to just sit and wait until the true threat reveals itself as they believe it to be bait to lure them out as the Jedi went into high fighting to lure out the Sith threat they too now have made themselves known and put themselves in danger regardless nihilus is causing real damage to the planets around them currently countless innocent people are dying and something needs to be done even if a potential trap in action would lead to the death of so many and we know this the Masters know this you argue this with the council mirroring the time of the Mandalorian Wars kavar points out that this is not a normal battle sure there are people victims at the front lines but this battle is being fought through the force the enemy is attempting to defeat them through the force an invisible battle that they do not fully understand nihilus is forced to feed on all around him he's compelled to feed on the energy of the force and could cause great destruction due to this at one point during the Civil War and onderon Korea revived Tobin and sent him to nihilus telling him to warn the Sith lord of the many hidden Jedi in The Enclave Telos obviously there is only atres but this is enough to send the Sith to attack the entire planet a lot is happening all at once we have Scion off doing something somewhere it doesn't really matter we have nihilus feeding off the life force of everyone around him causing War to break out on Telos and then we have Crea who we will soon learn is the true threat here although this should have been obvious as you talk to the council Crea will walk around the Enclave reminiscing about her past cray takes his seat and seems to listen in on your conversation with the Masters kavar and the rest don't want to argue about whether or not they should fight to them they have something more important to deal with the secret that they have been keeping from you all this time we should all understand that at one point the Exile was cut off from the force but we also learned that this was not at the hands of the council rather we need to revisit the topic of force bonds our Force bonds with craya as the main example to have such a strong force bond is rare that the harming of one could harm another seems to be virtually unheard of as it turns out the Exile has an unnatural ability to form these bonds through being a powerful leader similar to Revan the Exile had the ability to command and make connections with those around her when these connections began to all die out in one quick moment during the events of malachor 5 the Rippling effect through the force would have been enough to kill her in an act of defense and self-preservation the Exile deafened herself to the force instinctually this prevented her from being harmed but had a side effect a wound was created in the force a wound that follows the Exile around and a wound that feeds on death to become more powerful I was actually talking to janky about this earlier but it's an interesting narrative topic because it basically describes why you get more powerful and gain experience in the game as you kill a bunch of people the Masters saw this within you when you were the only one to return to the council for punishment and judgment and for Exile they felt the wounds surrounding you the Masters tell you that you were blind find it at this point but we then see craya say you were finally able to see that you were finally free this is what Crea has been yearning for all this time what the Masters see as a great loss that inhibits you crazy sees as freedom from the force something she wishes for the entire galaxy and a lesson she is trying to teach the Masters Now by gathering the Masters here and having you presented to them craya's true goal is being realized she hopes to show the Masters the benefits of breaking one's ties to the force ending an unnecessary Reliance on it and presenting a world where the force would no longer exist or at least not be relied on craya's hatred for the force has always been what fueled her main desire to remove the force entirely and allow everyone to finally see for the first time to finally be free the Jedi fear this wound they believe you have gained or have always had an ability with within the force to create connections with people the main mechanic of the game are influence over our party may be something more rather than the skills and Charisma of a leader we may be manipulating these individuals through the force unconsciously but I want to make it very clear this is a theory only the Jedi are theorizing you have this ability but they don't know for sure the disciple even calls this their blindness later on the Jedi could not fathom the Social Power you possess as being natural to your personality and willpower to them this has to be some aspect of the force but while the disciple cannot prove to you otherwise he ensures you that he and the others follow you because of who you are because of your leadership and because of your ability to influence it's not the force that brought them to you it's you as a person the Jedi cannot see that at least not the current order the Jedi are scared of you they see your natural influence and frightens them they fear change and while you are the embodiment of that change these Masters each embody something of their own zez kael is the cowardice of the Jedi with his inability to stand up for you here and now or help the people of narshidah Rook the arrogance of the Jedi and never being able to look past the teachings and kavar the blind virtuousness of the Jedi who even though he saw you as a friend feels the need to harm you now the three Masters represent everything wrong with the Jedi that they are an outdated and obsolete order that they aren't willing to change and how it will be their undoing even as they attempt to be yours the wound that you possess feeds on death the Jedi know this all of the death on paragus reawakened your horse powers all the people you killed on your search for the Masters allowed you to grow more and more powerful you are stronger than you ever have been you you can continue to grow stronger but the cost is death whether Justified or not whether light or dark side death is what allows you to grow and this frightens them they see your ability as no fault of your own but a threat they cannot ignore they believe this wound to be a threat to the force itself with the potential to end it completely and that is something the Jedi cannot allow the force plays a huge role in terms of life on planets for it to be wiped from the Galaxy could have catastrophic consequences but is that what will happen is it possible that they are more scared of the idea that one can become more powerful by learning to let go of the force to cut themselves off from it and see for the first time not as a Jedi but as a person this is what Crea wants to show them and this is a lesson the Masters cannot and are not willing to learn to prevent this Potential Threat from taking shape the Masters thus choose to strip you of the force it's ironic this entire time we have been discussing how awful this would be to do to somebody just when we think that the Jedi are somewhat deplorable in their actions we learned that they hadn't stripped you of your connection after all yet now we learned that it is perfectly within their ability to reason to do so the Jedi can find reason to strip you of the force to you even if it's not a punishment to them it's for survival you are a threat but not one I think to the Galaxy at large I think you are a threat to the current Jedi Order to their way of life and this is an excuse they have managed to believe in in order to remove you from the equation and to prevent change the Jedi in this light show who they truly are selfish individuals people not some gods that we should all look up to and Trust Crea arrives just in time to save you she reveals herself to the council and kavar mentions that he believed her to have died during the Mandalorian Wars I suppose this is a good time to mention that there is a fan Theory surrounding craya her true identity could be that of Aaron Kai or Aaron K again I don't remember a master of Revan and mother of Brianna the handmaiden most of this is based on the fact that Crea and the handmaiden look similar and craya had high praise for Aaron when talked about in an interview Chris Avalon was asked about the relationship between kreya and K he stated can't comment but good catch sorry apparently Chris is known for saying something like this when an interesting theory is brought up that he didn't consider beforehand I'd assume that the theory isn't Canon until stated otherwise but it is something that could be considered creative chastises the council for judging something that they could not understand rather than waiting for the echo of malachor to arrive they should have taken the time to travel and seen the darkness first hand to learn what dangers there are in the galaxy and to learn how to either utilize or contain those Powers by sitting at home and doing nothing the council has become ignorant and blind to the world around them cray discusses the power of War how War creates a power that would normally be utilized by a Sith an area of corruption that can drown all within it corrupting them and turning them to the dark side it's how Revan was able to convert so many people to become dark Jedi to become Sith he had the power of malachor 5. he eventually had the power of the star Forge both relics of Wars long past that now act as beacons for the dark side but what's important about these places and about the atrocities that unfolded is that no one could walk away from them except for one person the Exile you learned something that others could not you unlocked something new within the Galaxy something that Crea and the triumvirate have now learned this entire time Crea attempted to understand you how you turned from the force and survived she believes she understands why now it was due to fear you feared for your life and self-preservation is what saved you Crea then passes her judgment onto the council preventing them from being able to judge you any further like they tried against the Exile she strips them of all of the force but so thoroughly that there is nothing left within them without the force the bodies of the Masters are left as simple husks as you lay claps on the floor kreya walks away only to be approached by several handmaidens I assume they were there for the Exile as crayon mentions she is no more but I'm not entirely sure regardless Crea orders the achani to bring her before atres believing she can do what the rest of the council could not meanwhile you can hear the thoughts of your party members aboard the Eben Hawk Mira for example is worried about what Crea may be up to worried that she may be planning something that would kill all life in the Galaxy most interesting is bayodur who mentions that he knows the Exile can hear his thoughts he's always known it's why he followed her in the past he has destroyed planets for his General but now he hopes to save something instead and in the process save himself as you get back on your feet and make it to the Ebon Hawk you'll find atten has been attacked presumably by the handmaidens he informs you that Crea has been taken to Telos and Bully's atres will attempt to execute her due to Crea being Sith oddly enough you can question this acting confused at the idea aten will ask if you were actually surprised as it was obvious from the start and this is true it was abundantly clear since you met her on paragus that Creo was Sith like in nature you can even have a conversation with her about this about how she was a Jedi how she became Darth treya how she was exiled from both of course Crea is Sith of course she is of the dark side there should have been an option to acknowledge this understanding at the very least aten points out that if we were all judged on who we were in the past we may not be able to understand who we are now Creo was Sith in the past yes and she may act as Sith now but she may be something more than that I mentioned that the disciple will have a conversation with you here that you will ask him about the possibility of your Force connect actions if he believes they exist and he points out he doesn't and he believes the Jedi are ignorant that their choice of isolation has left them unable to see things as they are to see connections and the power they hold he believes that living life without the force may not be punishment after all maybe it was something more a lesson to learn a perspective that the Jedi should have when Crea comes before atris it's as though atris cannot look at her she knows kreya is there but in some ways she is still masking her presence to those around her the room atres is within is a chamber for storing Seth holocrons it's why she only has non-force sensitive achani Warriors by her side so the influence of the holocrons doesn't affect them atres as a historian collected and preserved many Jedi artifacts the Sith holocrons were kept to better understand the Sith so she could learn more about the threat they faced unfortunately this had the adverse effect of Shifting her towards the dark side Crea informs Aegis that she has always been there air watching the events of the Jedi unfold in fact she was the one who manipulated the council asking for your character to be exiled even back then everything was part of crea's plan for you aetress accuses kreya of being a Sith but Crea points out that Sith is nothing more than a title one could classify her as a Sith but that is not what she is or what she believes in Crea was once Darth treya but she too was exiled and took on a new purpose however she believes there must always be a Darth treya someone who has been betrayed and can betray others as well she believes atres fulfill this role for her as she has begun to fall Aegis was betrayed by Revan Telos was one of the first planets to fall at his hand during the Jedi Civil War it's the home of cartho Nasi it was always the plan for the Jedi to retreat to tilos if something went wrong and Revan knew this striking there first to say that there would be nowhere for the Jedi to hide in a way this broke atres and started her down her path of resentment cray leaves before you arrive but atres is still there waiting for you she challenges you to combat as Crea predicted would happen atres believes that battle with you will lead her to Enlightenment allow her to truly Ascend and then rebuild the Jedi Order after using her new power to defeat the Sith but atres has now become Seth and her thoughts are corrupted still everything is going to plan for her atres leaked the recording of your trial to you she wanted you to see the missing Jedi Masters to search for them and in reuniting them draw the Sith out of hiding now the Sith are approaching Telos and atres believes she will be able to defeat them even if she could defeat nihilus there's still other Sith to be dealt with atris included she believes she could rebuild the order to be a council without War but the truth is that she would be building up the Sith Empire and the Sith failings without realizing it the 2v fight and as she is defeated atres asks you to kill her I imagine you can but I chose to spare her it's poetic in a way Idris brings herself back from the brink of Darkness but has nothing left to show for it her hate took everything from her and all you can offer her is the concept of Exile something she chooses to do choosing to strip her identity as a Jedi away and live as a person again atres knows where kreya has gone to back to malachor 5 where all of the pain and suffering of the Mandalorian Wars met its climax you need to head there to confront her but before we can we still have nihilus and his ship the ravager to deal with if playing with the restored content mod which you should be you'll take control of hk-47 and Infiltrate The HK manufacturing plant in order to shut it down all of the content is restored from the files left within the game and I don't want to focus too much on it I found the entire section to be a slog both because you are forced to solo it with HK and because I didn't have the speed Buffs of a Jedi party member still it does feel somewhat complete as its own section and brings the hk-50 assassination units storyline to a conclusion while HK and mayoder have gone off to do their own thing tilo Citadel station is under attack by Sith forces once you've dealt with atres you head there with aten to push the forces back here you're able to talk with the tsf kunda militia and churohaba to see how things have been going since you left the various planets you explored choto is happy to inform you that zirko was removed from the restoration project on Telos but has been reassigned to several other planets making him feel like it was all for nothing you can fight through the Sith forces to save the station and once complete you'll take a strike force to the ravager with a group of mandalorians you visas and Mandalore stormed the ship and placed several proton charges around the ship to destroy it once you deal with nihilus you can run into Tobin here who has been corrupted and you can convince him to return to the light as the Sith would only come back to attack onderon later he'll then help by blowing up one of the proton charges you set up on the ship along the way you can reach vesus's old Chambers she requests the ability to stop by so she can meditate on everything that has happened here she is able to come to terms with the destruction of her planet and loss of her people giving her extra Force points in the process the three of you placed the charges deal with Tobin and make your way to the bridge where you confront nihilus for the first and last time there's not much to the actual confrontation unfortunately it feels unfinished if anything in a large portion of these final areas are just that a bit of a rushed and unfinished mess you can inform nihilists that craya tricked him that there were no Jedi on Telos said nothing for him to feed on the hunger is consuming him and becoming too much for him meaning it is possible for you to battle and strike him down I really wish the developers had more time to flesh out the interactions you had with nihilus he's an ominous and enigmatic character one I'd love to see developed further but all we end up with is a short Battle Before He collapses from exhaustion and is devoured by the power of the dark side fading from existence after his death visas takes another moment to meditate seeing malachor 5 in a vision and seeing you walking down its path one she plans to follow with you as you all prepare to leave you are hit by one final burst of energy from nihilus's body as he disappears visas goes to help Mandalore and commands him to stand letting him know he still has many battles to fight in the future Mandalore mentions that she sounds like Revan and he begins to open up to you and visas about what Revan had told him while exploring the outer rim the reason Revan had given him the helmet to become Mandalore and save his people as revan's memories came back to him he informed candorus that the Mandalorian war was orchestrated by forces unknown that the mandalorians were nothing more than pawns and manipulated to attack the Galaxy and the Republic to weaken the Galaxy so it could be conquered later I've seen people online complain about this point that it removes the agency of the mandalorians as it was established in the first game and acts as a bit of a retcon but I disagree the war the mandalorians fought while it destroyed them was still something they took pride and honor Within it was a glorious time for their people to fight against someone like Revan even if their agency as a people is now subject to scrutiny I wouldn't say that this is for the worse rather it allows the established motivations of the mandalorians to still be intact while building the narrative towards what kotar was supposed to be originally the trilogy of Revan and his journey it's unfortunate that we never got to see that narrative come to fruition only getting the story fleshed out in external media and finalized in the MMO the Old Republic when Revan returns after escaping and destroying the ravager you'll be informed that karthunasi wishes to speak with you what follows is the narrative tie that would have led into the third game karth asks you if you know where Revan is he once served with Revan in the Ebon Hawk but they had to part ways revin knew of a threat far off in the galaxy and knew he had to go alone because of bringing anyone he loved would have put him and them in Jeopardy they would have been used against revin in an attempt to manipulate made him he reiterates that the mandalorians were used as pawns and that karth was asked by Revan to keep the Republic afloat in order to deal with this new threat however whatever Revan set out to do karth doesn't think he succeeded and now he wishes to find Revan so that he can help him it's unfortunate but you can't help karth with this at the moment as you two are searching for Revan and are unaware of his current location karth has a request for you if you find Revan don't tell him the location simply report to Revan that Admiral onasi is following his orders that the Republic is still intact you make your leave for malachor 5 and as you do basila appears from off screen to discuss the conversation with karth basila can't bear not knowing why Revan left and not knowing why Revan had to protect his friends from the knowledge all they can take solace in for now is that they are doing as Revan asked and when playing this on release we could hope to find out those answers in a future installment unfortunately we wouldn't for many years it's finally time for your party to head to malachor 5. HK and bayodir may have been absent from the scene on Telos but HK at the very least is back and will appear in a scene later I can only assume Bao dirt is on board again as well but I don't know for sure malachor 5 is a broken Planet its pieces are held together by the gravitational pull of the mass Shadow generator and the atmosphere is chaotic at best this makes it particularly difficult to land and the ebenhawk ends up crashing into some mountains apparently launching the entire party around the map and knocking them unconscious how you get knocked out of his spaceship I'll never I'll never understand that meanwhile crayer returns to the treas academy where she had trained Scion and nihilus she's ambushed by Sith Assassins but takes care of them without any issue she then approaches Scion who is meditating in the academy Center and overpowers him with little effort showing that she had always been holding back against him Cray's power is immense and she once again makes Zion her Pawn to be used and abused by her her atres had informed you that Crea threatened to end her own life to end yours if you did not come to meet her on malachor 5. she has questions to answer and it's your destiny to meet her there but it's still a test and craya won't make it easy for you to reach her this entire time kreya has been using you for many reasons she used you to collect the Jedi Masters to show them their wrongdoings to show them life without the force and its power she used you to get revenge on nihilus and Scion and now she hopes to use your death at malachor 5 to release the wound and Echo within you the wound and Echo would then Compound on the planet's pain and create something even greater that had enough power to deafen the force entirely craya's true end goal and the potential end of all life in the Galaxy but there may be more to it than that and we'll learn as much once we reach her in the meantime you have to travel across the surface of malachor 5 fighting beasts until you approach the academy proper along the way you can find several buried ships with consoles within but you can't utilize them for anything at the moment while traversing the surface you will see a scene of Mira waking up as well and as she travels to find you she will be stalked and attacked by handhar forcing them into a final confrontation it felt like another unfinished aspect of the ending by the time at the ravenger we barely see any of our party any longer they virtually disappear from existence until the very end of the treas academy Mira fights hand har and you can choose not to kill him I offered to have him escort Mira decrea as Crea would put an end to his life which he wanted and agreed to but after that we never see hanhar again nor What Becomes of him I believe this is due to the scenes being part of the restoration mod and cut content we get some extra narrative and context on malachor 5 but a large portion of it leaves plot holes due to not being complete all this to say that if malachor feels rushed confusing and incomplete that's because it is and the restoration efforts can only do so much to remedy that as you make it to the academy a scene will play in bayodair's remote will appear on the surface as well a hollow vid shows that bayodair programmed remote to reactivate the generator using the engines of broken down ships on the planet by doing so it would cause the planet to break apart instead of squeezed together thus destroying it completely however remote was told not to fully finish this task until the Exile was safe off Planet while attempting to activate the engines around the surface goto will attempt to prevent remote from doing so however hk-47 intervenes and kills goto allowing remote to complete its task why did goto want to save balacor apparently it was to hoard the artifacts he believed it to be an abundance of I believe the death scene with goto is also cut content soon your Jedi apprentices all reunite except for bayodair I believe and they all attack Crea before you get there unfortunately she's able to overpower and imprison everyone including Mandalore so that they can be used as a test for you later however atson manages to escape before running into Dar sign he manages to beat him in combat but doesn't manage to kill him before absconding crayon orders Sion to wait for you to reach him mentioning that there are two paths within the academy that will get you to your destination however it's a choice you have to make you either take the path that is full of enemies for you to slaughter but will have you skip saving your friends or you take the path to your friends which will weaken you in the process this is a lie probably a development issue more than anything the truth of it is that both paths are full of enemies and killing them will allow you to level up further more than anything else they'll hardly weaken you especially if you are as powerful as possible in this point in the game Additionally you are not making a morality Choice here since you don't actually know which of the two paths are which it's unknown to you whether the left path or right path will lead you to your allies you can miss them completely by accident again I don't have a list of all the cut content but this feels related to it in some capacity I can't be sure though considering the last time I played this game without restoration mods was when I first played it as a child to find your party members you have to travel through the Proving Grounds area you'll fight countless enemies and then find a series of prisoners you'll fight countless enemies and then find a series of prisoner cells with a terminal nearby opening the cells will free your comrades and you can convince Mandalore to take everyone to safety and ready the Eben Hawk for escape you'll split off from the group and continue making your way to craya which will leave you face to face with Scion who blocks your path the conversation with Scion is great it turns out that he has gained immense respect for you to the point that he loves you he sees much of Crea in you but without the pain and influence you are just there silently in his mind and he finds that presence beautiful which he equates to death he tells you not to go further as you will only suffer at craya's hands he'd rather see you have a swift death on the surface of malachor or he's willing to kill you to prevent you from falling into Korea's clutches cyan is only alive due to his hatred and connection to the force it's what keeps his body intact and the power of of malachor 5 feeds him allowing him to fall again and again only to get back up you'll fight him several times and each time he'll get back up while you try to convince him to turn away from the force to see true power and to finally be free and released from this hell he lives within after several battles he will fall exhausted confused as to how you could be so powerful to beat him here and you can explain that you are as you are because you were able to turn away from the force something Scion is unable to do you can ask him if his life now is worth living and he will admit that it isn't that no matter how much pain he inflicts in darkness he spreads to survive there is no end to his own pain he yearns for death but is scared of it but you are the final nail in the coffin that convinces him to release himself from his own torment from the torment of the force so he can finally die and rest in peace before he dies Scion tells you that you are craya's weakness as she is yours he falls to the ground defeated and you can move forward to your final confrontation with craya cray agreets you and the first thing I had the Exile say to her was that it wasn't too late that the Exile could save her if she willed it that despite everything kreya had done she could be redeemed we already know how craya feels about Redemption but she still wanted to hear the words wanted to confirm the connection the two of you shared as master and apprentice and for it she is grateful even if she does not plan on being redeemed or accepting your mercy you can use this time to ask Crea a series of questions to help shine some light on her mysterious nature for example why did she confront atres cray will explain that she merely showed atres what she had already become she couldn't allow her teachings to continue because she didn't want to see the old ways of the Sith or Jedi to persevere they were obsolete at this point and therefore Crea orchestrated your confrontation with atres as a means to remove her from the equation with hatred's dead or exiled she would no longer have influence on the future while also finalizing your training yeah even now Crea has been training you if you were to overtake her and defeat her she needed a backup plan if she could not deafen the Galaxy from the force and if she were to die here what would happen we'll soon learn the answer to that question but you can continue asking Crea about her actions such as why she chose you specifically plenty of people have been cut off from the force before but why were you so special Korea explains that it's because it was your choice anyone else was forced to lose their connection you chose to do it to survive you chose to do it to survive and in doing so gained knowledge and power that no one had ever experienced before and this knowledge would shape your ability to teach others thus craya's plan becomes clear has contempt for the force she wants to see see it removed completely and by killing you here and now she will be able to make that wish a reality but at the same time Crea truly was your master you excelled in every way she could have hoped she began to love you for this and wanted to protect you she wanted her teachings inscribed on you so that if you met her here on malachor 5 and defeated her it wouldn't have been for nothing if kreya were to die here she wouldn't have failed because the order of the Jedi would be rebuilt by someone who had craya's teachings and the knowledge of what turning away from the force Means A New Perspective that the older order of the Jedi couldn't fathom in this way craya cannot lose but it also isn't about making her lose it's about stopping one option she has laid out before us in order to save ourselves we don't care if Crea wins even in defeat because she's right the Jedi were outdated they were arrogant and ignorant they couldn't be saved after the events of the Jedi Civil War because they refused to change and adapt you will change that and in learning this we now see what I have already mentioned previously that in your search for the Lost Jedi you found the true lost Jedi and your companions aten Mira Mikhail visas and bayodur these are the individuals who have the ability to rebuild the order even if the force won't be destroyed there will be an order of people who understand what it means to live without the force a group of people that follow crea's teachings she's one and the Galaxy may be better for it Crea can't be saved and she believes one of you must die so you finally begin the battle within this fight you cut off kreya's other hand but she uses her powers in the force to control three floating lightsabers at once one of the rawest scenes in Star Wars history in my opinion still it isn't enough to best you and you land the final fatal blow on craya sealing her fate crayer reveals that the battle is complete she states that you are the greatest pupil she has ever trained and you rewarded saved her by ending her life as she stands there dying craya uses the power of the heart of malachor to gaze into the future she is willing to answer several questions for you before she passes on Crea will confirm that the true lost Jedi were the friends we made along the way and tell you of their Futures she can't tell you anything about bayodair because that dude is somehow a vault but Mira for example will go on to be a powerful Jedi who will die on her own terms saving those who need her she will have no regrets the disciple will go on to reluctantly sit on the council holding a pure love for you in his heart Mandalore will continue to fight many battles and the mandalorians will unfortunately fizzle always to be a shell of what they once were thesis will return to Qatar to make peace with the destruction of her Planet Crea confirming that you saved visas in the end actin apparently is the fool and the force will continue to watch out for him you can ask if aten loved you and Crea will basically confirm that he did but that he has nothing to offer her Crea will also confirm that she would have destroyed the Galaxy to protect you that you are her greatest apprentice and the love she holds for you is immense finally Crea will talk about Revan how it is your destiny to chase after him and protect him in the battle that is to come against the true Sith the heart of the Seth and like Revan you will need to cast aside all of your companions so that they cannot be used against you it's a bit of a sad story about what happens to Revan and the Exile in the end if you ever want to see for yourself you can play through the MMO but I won't be covering it here there's plenty more for Crea to tell you about including how all of the planets you visited will fair but at some point the end of questioning will be met and you can let Crea pass on her dying in front of you as you walk away from the scene aten will be there to greet you he asks where you'll be going again since last time was such a crazy adventure he reminisces about the mining Colony the Sith Lords and more as the scene Fades to the Eben Hawk escaping from malachor as the mass Shadow generator is activated and destroys the planet for good if you were hoping for more of an epilogue here there isn't one the ending of the Sith Lords is abrupt the ebenhawk escapes and the credits roll everything we might want to know about the future of our party we have to hear from craya you get their knowledge if you talk to her long enough but I still would have enjoyed a bit more closure at the end even the original game was fairly abrupt but at least we had the award ceremony but maybe that's for the best even if we look past the rush development Kotor 2 wasn't meant to be a conclusion it didn't need to have closure because it was meant to lead us into the finale the finale of Revan and the exile journey in a way it ends on a bit of a cliffhanger and knowing now that this would never be truly resolved as it should have been it's a sad note to end things on regardless that's where we are the end of Kotor 2 with crayagan the force saved and a new age of the Jedi who will hopefully turn out better than their predecessors I had always assumed that the Sith Lords was unanimously considered the better entry between the two games but that doesn't seem to be the case rather there seems to be a lot of people upset with the Sith Lords due to what they consider retcons to the original and nonsensical story elements on top of An Unfinished product to some the Sith Lords can never be the classic that Kotor 1 originally was but I disagree having replayed the game now with all of the restored content and paying attention to the dialogue and motivations of characters Everything feels more fleshed out overall more in depth than anything the original game could have offered with its comical dialogue and inability to create moral choices with any weight or depth quarter 1 failed were the Sith Lords succeeded Crea is a complicated character one that I believed confused and frustrated a lot of people because that's what she is confusing she's manipulative and you may not agree with her actions I know I don't but there is clear Clarity in what her goals are if you look for them if you listen to her and try to understand her you will learn what Crea wants out of you out of the Jedi and out of the force why she leaves you on Dan to wean and why she goes to malachor kreya is enigmatic and confusing but she has purpose it's a sad end for her but one she finds beautiful because regardless of what happens on malachor 5 she knows she can rest easy if she can't read herself of the force she at least has you to carry the torch and you can do so however you see fit through the light side or the dark if we consider Crea a villain I would say that obsidian has succeeded in creating one of the best villains in Star Wars as a whole even in Los craya wins even if we stop her we can see the truth in a lot of what she says she's sympathetic in a way but that doesn't mean we can forgive her actions that she doesn't need to be stopped a sympathetic villain is one of the best in storytelling and Crea is one one of the best sympathetic villains in this series Kotor 2 is about confronting your past it's about learning to not rely on the power that controls you to expand your perspective you confronted your past during the Mandalorian Wars you turned away from the force and you became a better person for it this in turn allowed you to introduce your party to the force with your teachings for them to confront their pasts as well they saved the Galaxy because of your actions and leadership in a way they learn to live again it's sad to think about what happened to Kotor as someone who isn't a fan of the MMO I was always disappointed we never got a true sequel to finish off the trilogy I feel for obsidian and the development hiccups they had I feel for the game in its unfinished State I feel for the series as a whole because it will never have the conclusion I believe it deserves forced to live in a weird limbo through the storylines created in the MMO I don't know I feel it deserves it better than that there's a remake of the original game on the way or it's stuck Hiatus still I'm unsure but with that remake maybe we will open the door to a remake of the Sith Lords as well and with it we can see the project fully realized even if it's too late to get that third game in the series if you haven't played Knights of the Old Republic before why are you watching this video please do yourself a favor and play it play the first game and then play the second enjoy the ride and see what could have been if there was plenty to explore and learn in the first game the same is doubly true for the sequel in my eyes Couture 2 had everything going for it that would have allowed it to be a perfect game a perfect Star Wars product it just needed more time that it would never receive it was doomed from the start but some dedicated fans picked up the pieces and even today the Sith Lords is better for it so please give the series a chance I promise it will be worth it thanks for watching everyone [Music] hey thanks so much for making it to the end of the video this is the patreon section where you can support the channel and have your name called out or have your name here it's usually it's usually there shout out to woolly rallcar tritonate primex D disparity Nolan Brookman and mo Alka semi shout out to Captain Ziva cyberworm crunchy cow Roo Jonathan strangely Rosalio and Mr janky big shout out to Mr janky since he helps proofread these scripts before they go out so thank you everyone for the support as always uh hopefully you're gonna look forward to the next video because I think it's going to be Oblivion I think the next big one's going to be Oblivion so look forward to that thanks guys

Channel: SuperRAD

Views: 205,349

Keywords: star wars, knights of the old republic, kotor, swkotor, tor, swtor, tsl, the sith lords, lucasarts, xbox, dnd, wotc

Id: NwaN7j169X8

Length: 282min 3sec (16923 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 09 2023