KOTOR vs. KOTOR 2 (SPOILERS)

[shaedar]

For those who have tried both, do you prefer the original or the sequel?

What would you say are the best improvements made in the 2nd one?
What did they change that makes you miss the first one?

[kams]

The first one is a LOT better!
The second has incomplete storyline and the worst map design I ever saw.

[stormcloud]

The first one is better.

Tons more NPC interaction (Carth, Candy, etc)
Complete storylines and area.
Better mini stories (ie Sith Academy teacher, etc)

And, the Sith War and the Sith are portrayed exactly the way they should be... as a powerful invading army.

[qt 3.14159]

While I have to agree that the first one has a complete story line, there is just something about 2 that draws me in much more than 1. Maybe it's the influence system. Maybe it's that the quests seem to be much less linear, much more interesting. All the characters seem more interesting to me. Somehow, the overall story, while incomplete, is just so much more involving.

I will admit that getting to the end and being completely bumfuzzled by the ending does suck, but at the same time, I just can't wait to shell out more money for an expansion pack or kotor III when I get the chance.

I played through 1 lightside then went straight to 2 and have played through it lightside 4 times (though I don't finish the game, just try to get influence with different party members to make things happen). I am now trying to play through 1 again dark side, but just have a harder time getting involved in the game.

I really liked most of the menus (xbox) on 2 much better (especially the save/load game screen organization).

I loved starting out as a Jedi.

I loved being able to turn my party members into Jedi.

When you get to the end of 2 you are so incredibly powerful it is really a blast. Of course, some people think that it's boring to be able to wipe out a room with 2 force storms, but I really enjoy it.

I liked having a choice about who to have a romance with (even if Disciple is sucky choice).

I liked the complexity of the force in 2 (spoiler: kreia's lesson on light side actions having negative consequences).

The characters in 2 seem much less one dimensional. Even Mandalore is more interesting than Canderous.

There were some things about 2 that bugged me though. I hate that you can't avoid picking up any party members. The romances didn't seem to really go anywhere at all (I'm not entirely sure they *are* romances for the female PC) unlike in 1 where there was a definite outcome.

In general though, I will be much more likely to play 2 over and over again.

[Darth Zenemij]

Major Spoilers!!!

But Canderous is Mandalore!! It won't let me attach the proof that I found, But Here is a pic.

[qt 3.14159]

[QUOTE=Darth Zenemij]But Canderous is Mandalore!! It won't let me attach the proof that I found, But Here is a pic.[/QUOTE]

Exactly my point... They are the same character, but somehow, with his trying to rally the Mandalorians, plus his former attachment to Revan he is just *much* more interesting in 2... to me anyhow.

[Faust]

I'm partial to the first game, as well.

Both games follow compelling storylines. The second game has more small twists as it progresses, but the monumental twist of the first game was much more exciting than all the smaller twists in KoTOR2.

Likewise, the rushed nature of KoTOR2, as well as the use of recycled areas, kept the game from ever feeling as if it had the type of rich worlds that KoTOR did. The worlds were less bland, more interesting, and far more detailed in the first game. Taris was much more interesting than Telos. Likewise, the old Korriban and Dantooine were far more involved and fun than KoTOR2's version. Probably the element of discovery and newness added something to this, but the older versions were more involved and carefully rendered, as well. The same could be said of the other KoTOR2 planets, most didn't possess the same polished feel the ones in the first game did.

The NPCs in KoTOR were better, as well. Bastilla was far more interesting and developed as a character than Handmaiden and Visas put together. Likewise, other NPCs such as Carth, Mission, and Jollee were really well thought out and remained interesting as the game progresses. With the exception of Kreia, who was a brilliant NPC, and, perhaps, Atton most of the NPCs in KoTOR2 don't have much to say and seem very incomplete. This isn't to say there weren't interesting NPCs in the second game. Bao-Dur, Handmaiden, Visas, Mandalore, Mira, and others had the potential to be quite fascinating (particularly in lieu of the influence system), I just didn't feel they were were ever developed as fully as the characters in the first game.

The debate over which version of Canderous was more interesting is a good example of this. I think that Mandalore had the potential to be brilliantly fascinating in the second game. Following the characters battle to reform the Mandalorians and his odd relationship with Reven, is certainly very interesting. However, again, I didn't feel either of these themes were really utilized to their full potential. You knew these things were going on in the background, the themes simply weren't explore in enough depth.

With that said, KoTOR2 did do a much better job with droids than KoTOR did. Characters like T-3, GO-TO, the Remote, and HK-47 were much better dealt with than in the first game.

KoTOR felt like a very complete game. KoTOR2 on the other hand screamed of loose ends at every corner. It's one of the few games I've ever played where there extremely important plots that were set into motion but never resolved. The ending was particularly lackluster. It's difficult to say how I would feel about the two games comparison if the developers had been able to take their time with KoTOR2.

Finally, KoTOR2 was simply too easy. The first game was child's play as well, but at least had a handful of difficult moments early in the game. KoTOR2 was a cakewalk and the scope of power you're capable of at the end of the game was simply too great in relation to your opponents.

This isn't to say I didn't care for the second game. I enjoyed parts of it very much. The more "grayish" area that the character walks in is quite intriguing. Likewise, NPCs like Kreia added complexity to our normally black and white understand of the Force. It was a decent game that could have been a very good game if more time had been spent on it.

[Darth Zenemij]

Now here is a more recognizable pic.

[stormcloud]

And who didnt like the little interactions in KOTOR1...

When mission asks Bastilla does she ever use her force power for fun... then says she's a snob, and Bastilla pushes her down...

or how HK calls everyone a meatbag.

[fable]

[QUOTE=stormcloud]And who didnt like the little interactions in KOTOR1....[/QUOTE]

I didn't, particularly. The writing was okay, but it seemed a clear step back from BG2 (just as the game itself seemed to be aimed in general at a much younger audience, unused to conversational nuances). It was precisely the character development and interactions in KotoR2 that were the highlights of the game--a game that was never quite finished, thanks to LucasArts.

[Faust]

[QUOTE=stormcloud]And who didnt like the little interactions in KOTOR1...

When mission asks Bastilla does she ever use her force power for fun... then says she's a snob, and Bastilla pushes her down...

or how HK calls everyone a meatbag.[/QUOTE]

I enjoyed the interactions, but felt they were a bit rough in KoTOR (as Fable said, they did pale in comparison to the BG2 interactions). There really are only a handful of them and they are all little humerous scenes with little to no depth. I was really hoping that they would take the interactions to the next level in KoTOR2. As it worked out, they elemenated the random party character to character interaction altogether. In lieu of that, KoTOR2 used pre-boarding Ebon Hawk cutscenes (Jade Empire is using something similar, actually). Those were generally good (though, still, hopelessly unfinished in places), but I still would have liked to see more meaty versions of the interactions like we saw in a BG2.

[stormcloud]

Which bg2 conversations? (its been a long time)
u mean jaheira-to-aerie and all that?

imo, kotor2 seemed lacking in conversations... and the development (ie the Atton love affair) was cut short by LA. boo!

At least everything is tied up in kotor1.

[Heksefatter]

Why I think that Kotor is better than Kotor 2.

1) Kotor is a much more finished product. The endings and the planet maps spring to mind.

2) Kotor is an epic, wheras Kotor 2 is a depression. Everything is deeply rotten in Kotor 2: Your companions (seriously Atton is a former torturer, Mira is willing to hunt decent people for money, even if she doesn't kill - that's EVIL in my book), the Jedi Master's are utterly incompetent to such a degree that it spoils suspension of disbelief - they believe that Revan will defeat them and yet they throw out one of Revan's top generals, when s/he returns to them, thus losing much inside knowledge and battle experience!!! I have tried to describe the situation for friends who were unfamilar with the plots and then asked them: "what is the stupidest thing you can imagine the Jedi Council doing in the situation." It always turn out that their most intentionally stupid idea was less foolish than that of the Jedi Council!!!

3) Inconsistensies. Kotor 2 is full of them. For example: In Kotor 1 we learn about how Carth held his wife as she was dying, while the colony burned. But in Kotor 2 the entire surface of the planet is utterly uninhabitable outside the restoration zones. In that case, Carth couldn't have held his wife, but merely sifted through an irradiated bunch os ash. Also, in Kotor everyone, from shopkeepers on Tatooine to legal officials on Manaan distinguish clearly between Sith and Republic. But just five years later, the war is called THE JEDI CIVIL WAR. Yeah right.

4) No romances. Due to rushing, the romances were incomplete in Kotor 2.

5) The influence system. I meet a Dark Jedi, slave to the foulest of Sith Lords, and I am nice to her. Because of my niceness my influence grows, and she immediately converts to TOTAL LIGHTSIDE! That's not influence, but DOMINATION. I can imagine how one would exploit the flaws in Carth's caracter and eventually corrupt him, yes. But a total change of character takes more than five minutes of conversation, even to a 'natural leader' like the exile. But it doesn't really matter anyway, as I turn both Atton and Mira into 100 % lightsiders, and hence they should act such that Carth and Mission would be like murderous cynics in comparison, but in fact there is no difference. Atton still talks of shooting people in the back and grumbles when I am nice to people.

6) On the other hand, I liked the way that skills and stats played a role in conversations in Kotor 2. Good idea. Also, I liked the-creation-of-items-part.

Verdict: Kotor defeats Kotor 2. Easily. Very easily...

[fable]

[QUOTE=stormcloud]Which bg2 conversations? (its been a long time)
u mean jaheira-to-aerie and all that?[/quote]

Exactly.

imo, kotor2 seemed lacking in conversations... and the development (ie the Atton love affair) was cut short by LA. boo!

There are many, many conversations between various party NPCs and the player character. Some of them are fully the equal of the finest things I've seen in any game.

[qt 3.14159]

3) Inconsistensies. Kotor 2 is full of them. For example: In Kotor 1 we learn about how Carth held his wife as she was dying, while the colony burned. But in Kotor 2 the entire surface of the planet is utterly uninhabitable outside the restoration zones. In that case, Carth couldn't have held his wife, but merely sifted through an irradiated bunch os ash. Also, in Kotor everyone, from shopkeepers on Tatooine to legal officials on Manaan distinguish clearly between Sith and Republic. But just five years later, the war is called THE JEDI CIVIL WAR. Yeah right.

I assumed that Telos was made "utterly uninhabitable" by the fallout after the attack not that it was suddenly and completely obliterated by the attack.

It doesn't seem unlikely to me that most people would equate Revan & Malak with Jedi since Sith are fallen Jedi and they were both Jedi War Heros. Furthermore, the deliniation between Sith / Republic is made before the Jedi Coucil is hunted down and destroyed. I think it would be very easy for the people left in the wake of that war to think that it was the Jedi/Sith's manipulation that brought that war about. Therefore it would make sense for the Republic to rename it "The Jedi Civil War" to try to distance themselves from it as far as possible politically.


I do agree with most of your other complaints, however, I guess I'm just hopeful that we'll get the rest of the story somehow.

[Cuchulain82]

Ummm... not to be an armchair mod or anything... but could we keep the KotOR 2 details to a minimum? I haven't played it yet, so I'm trying not to hear about the plot ahead of time. Sorry to be a wet blanket...
Should the thread maybe go to the KotOR 2 forum?

[slapandtickle]

Kotor 2 is a better sand box with the components building, the jedification of your team, the array of feats and skills. But Kotor 1 was a better experience overall. I thought it managed a good amount of emotional impact for a video game. Everyone complains about the crappy ending but I thought the premise for KOTOR 2 was weak too. It didn't make sense and then contradicted itself as it unravelled.

[Bryn]

This was a tough decision, since I really liked both games, and they each have their stronger and weaker points. But I think, overall, I had more fun playing the first one. I remember taking my time with the first one, trying to draw out the game play in spite of how anxious I was to see what happens, because I knew I could only play it for the first time once. With KOTOR 2, I just was interested to see what happened. Maybe part of it was that the novelty had worn off by the time I was playing KOTOR 2. This may account for part of why I was much more impressed with the scenery of the first.

There were nice improvements they made with the second one, from little things like alternating who is dealt first in pazaak (can't use that as an excuse anymore...) to bigger things, such as influence and lightsaber forms. Certain characters in the second were more interesting than certain characters in the first, but overall, I thought they were less fun--I didn't love them all as I had in the first (ah, Kreia's lesson to see them less as friends and more as pawns...). The storyline of the second was more complex than that of the first, and this certainly made it intriguing, but I think the plot was perhaps a bit too complex for the writers to handle without more time. It probably has a better replay value, though, because much more differs depending on what kind of character you play.

I just thought the first was cleaner than the second, in gameplay and in storyline. It was more complete, and I found it a more enjoyable experience overall.

[Chimaera182]

This thread should probably get *spoiler* put in it, considering that complaint.

[QUOTE=Heksefatter]

2) Kotor is an epic, wheras Kotor 2 is a depression. Everything is deeply rotten in Kotor 2: Your companions (seriously Atton is a former torturer, Mira is willing to hunt decent people for money, even if she doesn't kill - that's EVIL in my book), the Jedi Master's are utterly incompetent to such a degree that it spoils suspension of disbelief - they believe that Revan will defeat them and yet they throw out one of Revan's top generals, when s/he returns to them, thus losing much inside knowledge and battle experience!!! I have tried to describe the situation for friends who were unfamilar with the plots and then asked them: "what is the stupidest thing you can imagine the Jedi Council doing in the situation." It always turn out that their most intentionally stupid idea was less foolish than that of the Jedi Council!!!

3) Inconsistensies. Kotor 2 is full of them. For example: In Kotor 1 we learn about how Carth held his wife as she was dying, while the colony burned. But in Kotor 2 the entire surface of the planet is utterly uninhabitable outside the restoration zones. In that case, Carth couldn't have held his wife, but merely sifted through an irradiated bunch os ash. Also, in Kotor everyone, from shopkeepers on Tatooine to legal officials on Manaan distinguish clearly between Sith and Republic. But just five years later, the war is called THE JEDI CIVIL WAR. Yeah right.[/QUOTE]


The choice to throw away the exile was out of fear. They didn't like what they saw in the exile, the "wound" that Kreia said you were. By exiling you, they're throwing away a good chance of finding out what Revan's up to or learning some good info, but they're afraid of what you represent. And not just because of you being a wound, but also that they had to take responsibility for you. From a tactical point of view, yes, it was dumb (in the real world, it could possibly be compared to if the Allies hadn't helped the Soviet Union fight Hitler, then the Nazis could have made more progress and been stronger and more capable later; by helping the Soviets, it weakened the Nazis, but it also served a darker purpose in the long run, an echo we certainly paid the price for). You know, that WW2 example made sense when I thought it up, but now it doesn't; hopefully, someone'll understand it. Anyway, we don't even know if the exile would have had any inside knowledge of what Revan was up to. Just because s/he was a Jedi General fighting under Revan didn't mea s/he was privy to what was going to happen when the Mandalorians were defeated.

I'm not sure about that bit with Carth. I don't remember him saying he held his wife in his arms; I thought he said he tried to look for his wife and son but couldn't find them. It's been a while since I finished a game of that; I started one last month, kind of slacked off on it since. As for distinctions between the Sith and Jedi, it's not so hard to understand. The Sith Empire (under Revan and Malak) is usually what was meant when people made reference to "Sith." When people thought of Jedi and Sith, they were thinking about the Republic and the Sith Empire. But when the war was over (in hindsight), it was realized what was really going on: it was a fight between the Jedi. So it turned from a galactic civil war to the Jedi civil war. And since the "Sith" that fought the Jedi were really nothing more than fallen Jedi, people tended to see them both as two words for the same thing.

I dunno which I would choose, myself. KotOR didn't hold the "surprise" for me that it did for lots of other people, but then I tend to figure things out too easily; puzzle pices fall into place too quickly, and it tends to ruin the experience for me. I can't really think of anything specific I liked about KotOR I, and really the only thing I can think of I actually liked specifically in KotOR II was Kreia. The influence stuff bugged me, but a nice link in the KotOR II forum gave me a leg-up in my last game, so I wound up finishing up with everyone I travelled with. I did miss the little interactions between the characters while you're travelling (it's not the same having them all on the Ebon Hawk), like the one mentioned earlier with Bastilla and Mission (I've actually only seen that one once), and some of the others. It's more life-like; if you're travelling with a group of people, there's no way they're not going to want to chat during a lull in combat, short of them being professional soldiers, and even they talk occasionally. I do miss the NPC sidequests, though, since they were a nice distraction--although sometimes they weren't necessarily this--from the main plot. Everyone else has problems, too, it's not like you're the only one who has problems to get solved.

[Night_Hawk]

Of course, KOTOR I is the winner with two thumbs up!!!
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(1) - The story design

In KOTOR I, although the scope is smaller, the story was better designed and completed. From Jolee Bindo (one of my favorites) to Juhanni, Carth, Bastila, Mission, Zaalbar, etc. Each of those characters had his/her own sidequests and private stories that made you feel involved and satisfied when you got to the end of those stories.

In KOTOR II, although the scope is larger, the story leads to no where. My shipmates are less engaging than those in KOTOR I, and I don't have the same satisfaction I had in KOTOR I.

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(2) - The character design

In KOTOR I, the character design was well thought out. Each character has his/her own unique-ness that puts a last long impression on the players even after finishing the game. I don't have such impression in character design in KOTOR II.

For example (I know you are probably sick of hearing this ), if you were playing a male character in KOTOR I, you only had one character (Bastila) to romance with, while in KOTOR II, you had two characters (Handmaiden and Visas) to romance with. However, the romance in KOTOR II led to no where while the romance in KOTOR I led to a satisfactory result. Sheer numbers do not compare to quality!!!
(See it for yourself
...how many people miss Bastila after finishing the game?
...how many people actually miss Visas and Handmaiden after finishing the game?
...hence, which of the above characters has a better impression on the players? You know this answer!)

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The story line and the character design are the two most critical aspects of an RPG. Although KOTOR II has a more detail story-line and more dynamic character design, the story has loose-end every where, and the character designs lack the uniqueness and impression like those in KOTOR I. Therefore, KOTOR I beats KOTOR II outright on both those critical aspects.

It's true that KOTOR II has improved graphic and improved game-play interface compared to KOTOR I. However, those two aspects are not consider major impacts of an RPG.(Look at Baldur's Gate II, which is 7 year-old, with outdated graphic and horrible interface compared to modern RPGs. However, none of the modern RPGs can actually come close to the satisfaction Baldur's Gate II has brought to its player! ------ KOTOR I is one of the few that kinda comes close!!! Sadly, the case isn't true for KOTOR II).

Just something to consider...