I just wanted to make sure you all know how ugly the Republic uniforms are before this retrospective ends.

Manaan and its Fish People (okay fine Selkath) hate fun and don’t want to just let me live my life. Apparently they take their neutrality super seriously and I’m not allowed to just get into fights with random people on the street. What’s the point then? Plus, I end up in their court all the dang time for one stupid reason or another and I hate having to argue my case to them because they always seem to hate me. (Jolee, buddy, you deserve a better side quest than arguing your friend’s court case because he was sleeping with a Sith lady and they think he killed her.)

Most of my surprises from this play through have come about because the game glitched. Not so this time! I stumbled upon a subplot/mission that I’ve never found before. Apparently I talked to the right Selkath and unlocked a whole section of the Sith embassy/base where they’ve been kidnapping Selkath youth and training them in the ways of the dark side. I had to prove to them that the Sith really are evil and take on a Dark Jedi Master or two along the way.

Speaking of which! I find it fascinating that the game describes a lot of the dark side Force users as Dark Jedi even though they’re part of the Sith. The soldiers will have ‘Sith’ as part of their descriptor but not usually the Force users. It’s an interesting distinction especially since that’s not something I’ve seen done in a very long time. Can you imagine if Kylo Ren was referred to primarily as a Dark Jedi now?

This is what hell looks like

But back to the pain that is Manaan. The Republic Embassy guy needs you to go break into the Sith Embassy because they got their hands on one of the Republic’s droids with a secret. That gets you your first court trial. THEN the Republic needs you to go down to their secret underwater kolto processing facility and find out what went wrong and suffer through the painfully slow underwater walking while you do it. That gets you your second trial. And because I brought Jolee with me, his friend’s wife begs us to help them because Sunry’s arrested for killing a Sith woman. AND THAT’S TRIAL NUMBER THREE, FOLKS!

I’ll happily admit it: I cheated my way through the Sunry trial because that thing is a paaaaaain to win otherwise. I gave it a shot on my own the first time but the court found him guilty so I just reverted to a save and followed the nice little instructions so I could move on with my life.

Manaan isn’t all bad. The city itself is gorgeous and the planet is one of the few where I don’t click-skip through the landing/take off procedures. Obviously Bioware went to the planetary extremes with the Star Forge worlds but it makes them all visually distinct and helps keep things interesting. It would be neat to see more of the world when I’m not trying to avoid getting arrested every other minute.

Part of my annoyance with the planet this time around likely had to do with the preemptively triggered duel with Malak’s apprentice. If Manaan’s the third planet, he’s supposed to appear in this long hallway right before you get back in your submersible so that way there’s more of a fight involved. Thankfully, the game didn’t make me fight him again although it would have been entertaining given that my character was wearing his armor… (Video Games: where an average height, physically fit woman can wear the same clothes as a hulking giant of a man.)

Good news though! I don’t have to defend myself in Fish Court anymore! Oh no. This game’s about to get much much muuuuuuch more interesting. WE GET A REVANATION NEXT TIME!

I’m sorry. That pun was terrible. I’ll see myself out until next week.