coolbeans

User Score
10

Presentation - 9.5
Gameplay - 10
Value - 10

While many have come to experience that "galaxy far, far away..." before in the cinema, Star Wars: KOTOR (Knights of the Old Republic) delivers an experience that feels like the first time to even major Star Wars fans.  You're set in a timeline that predates the movies and is really only well known by Star Wars "lore-ist" at the time.  Star Wars: KOTOR delivers some great action with a great narrative and awesome characters by the boatload making it a can't-miss by any RPG fan.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is a RPG that revolves around a brand new storyline to that of the Star Wars lore.  Set about 4000 years before the Battle of Yavin (battle revolving around the Death Star blowing up in first Star Wars movie or Episode IV: A New Hope), KOTOR takes you into a time where the Republic + Jedi are in a full-fledged war against the fastly-rising Sith.  While sent on a mission to Taris for the Republic, your crusier is quickly overwhelmed by Sith fighters (equilvalent to TIE Fighters) forcing you to abadon ship by escape pod and land on the planet's surface.  Upon which you soon realize that this Outer Rim planet has been militarized by the Sith who've declared martial law, allowing no vessel to come in or go out all the while looking for a powerful young Jedi with everyone a step ahead of you in the beginning of your journey.

Upon the way to reaching your first main objective in the game and others that come after, you'll have to band up with an assortment of people/aliens to achieve it.  This variety spans from having a decorated warlord gone mercenary to a crumugic old Jedi who left the Jedi Order.  Each of your party members (save for your astromech droid) have an interesting story to tell that either can be affected during the game for better or worse.  These pinnacle moments for your party help portray more sides to character and help you become emotionally attatched to them.

The same quality in storytelling and great magic that you've seen in the Star Wars films can also be found in KOTOR as well.  It has that great sense of one seemingly ordinary person holding the fate of so many and it's told in a great way.  Almost all facets of the story, whether they be sub-plots or main plots, holds a solid meaning to Star Wars' philosophey even to the point of it's plot twist. 

The graphical presentation is of high quality as well.  The artsyle's really good but it's unfortunate to see it's not as expansive as it could be.  Most locations are familiar from the movies so there is a borrowed sense.  Technically, the graphics are great as well and boast a good showing of it's lighting and textures.  The main complaint I would find in regards to graphics is an iffy framerate.  When the action heats up to about 10+ enemies on screen, you'll have stuttering but it's a small complaint.

Another facet that's so famous for Star Wars is the music/sound design which is expertly produced as well.  Yes it does have the John Williams-composed music from the cinema but it also offers some of its own during most of your great lightsaber clashes.  You also have a good mix of noises happening all-around you whether it'd be a lone speeder flying by to the different weapon attacks in your arsenal.

The core gameplay revovles around it's being a pseudo-turn-based based RPG revolving around stats, critical hits, and the like.  You have 3 in a party (max) during 90% of the game and can control any one of those party members to focus their attacks on a certain enemy.  It helps provide a nice flow of strategy and action at the same time.  Most of your actions will revolve around melee (since that's always been the strong point for SW) while other party members are distanced with shooting blasters or throwing grenades. 

Where all of your actions are shown is a box in the lower left-hand area of your screen.  These seperate your attacks by a standard one, special/learned attacks, grenades, powers, shields, and health w/miscellaneous items that come with it.  After a while, the more items you get the more you must scroll through to get the attacks or powers you'd like to set up.  This can be a bit over-cumbersome but it's help reinforced with a 3 stage setup where you can click Critical attack, a force power, and a grenade which will make be your steps of attack so you can move on to your next 3-set of moves if you desire or, if you wish, just hit certain attack buttons to keep it simple.  Even for it's tad over-bearing system, the strategy the can be made definatly makes up for it.

When it comes to having a Star Wars RPG, you should expect a great certain aspect that's been passed throughout SW history, the light side and the dark side.  Depending on the actions you take, they'll affect how your decision plays out.  You'll see a scale for how your overall stature is by going to the start menu showing your character's attributes.  If you make more good choices, your character will lean towards the light side with a blue background getting brighter and brighter depending on how "light-sided" you are.  If you make more bad choices, you'll lean the opposite that being the dark side.  Depending on how cruel you are to all you wish, your character's facial features can look more corrupted than that of Palpatine's.  You'll be a pit of death with a pissed-off stature (on the menu screen) and have eyes and face of pale white and purple.

What's another great addition to KOTOR is found in the abudance of different side-quests.  While they don't unlock a new place depending on how you complete them, the variety between certain quests like joining a Star Wars "mafia" to take out certain targets or acting as a defense attorney for a party member's friend in court they all have a great impact to the game that doesn't make every single reaction to a side quest show major importance, it's nice to see these old faces in new places thanks to certain actions you make.

The overall great experience of this game can be completed in about 25-26 hours when counting most of the side-quests and branching dialouge, low 20s when not counting it.  It shows it's great replay value in getting it's different two endings and seeing what kind of world you create depending on your actions.  There's so many things that KOTOR pulls off with meticulous fashion in terms of the Star Wars we've come to love behind the game while making it feel like the first time you ventured into that galaxy far, far away.......

Conclusion:

10   Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is an amazing universe full of interesting new characters and worlds.  While not a "perfect" game, it's encompassing story, variety of great characters, well-paced combat, solid graphics, and it's immersive own world that's created is one of the closest examples to perfection games can be.

Pro's                                                 Con's

Amazing story                                  "Iffy" framerate during heavier combat

Immersive turn-based combat           Tough learning curve

Great cast of characters                  

Great graphics and view

Good dialouge

Vast amount of choices