YEP ABSOLUTELY NOTHING BAD HAPPENS AT ALL ON DANTOOINE.
First things first though. HK-47 is sadistic as heck and tortures one of the HK-50 droids to learn the location of the droid factory on Telos. He’ll be dealing with it sooner or later. (Apparently not sooner because the game makes you wait for it a little.)
It’s back to Dantooine and the Jedi Enclave which looks considerably nicer than it did the last time you visited and Masters Vrook, Kavar, and Zez-Kai Ell are all waiting for you. The more you talk to them, the more messed up everything gets especially as it intercuts with Kreia’s own commentary from a courtyard slightly further away. Turns out that the Jedi Council didn’t cut you off from the Force and that you did that yourself as a sort of survival/coping mechanism after everything that happened at Malachor because the screams of everyone dying were just too much to handle. While you always did form bonds with others and inspire them to follow you rather easily, the Masters are convinced that you’re actually just some sort of black hole in the Force now and feed off of other Force Sensitives and grow stronger the more people you kill and the more you convince to follow you. It’s really messed up. Continue reading →
When Kavar calls, the Exile comes running apparently and so we’re on our way back to Dxun so we can then go off to Onderon again. First though, we must *gasp* split the party. Unsurprisingly, the Sith are partially behind General Vaklu’s attempted coup although his own ambitions are certainly helping there. The Exile is left with a decision to make: choose a squad mate to lead some of the crew to deal with the Sith base on Dxun while she leads the attack on Vaklu’s forces on Onderon.
For some reason, I always choose Visas to lead them. I don’t know why but it just feels right. With her this time, I send Mandalore (Kreia approves) and Mira (Kreia seems unimpressed.) Oddly enough, Mira might be the best choice given her ability to walk through mines so she can sneak through there and disable the sensors. The more I think about it, the more Mira seems like one of the only choices to deal with those stupid mines. (So shut it, Kreia.) Once we’re past the sensors, it’s a matter of just cutting through the waves of Sith troops to battle our way into the heart of the base which oh so conveniently happens to be the tomb of Freedon Nadd. Visas gets to continue her light side journey by not falling prey to any of the three dark side temptations within the tomb and also kick some ass along the way. Chalk one up in the success column for Team Dxun. Continue reading →
In retrospect, I feel like I erred and should have gone to Onderon before I went to Dantooine but that’s what I get for asking Twitter and abiding by the poll results. Onderon and Dxun are some of my favorite parts of the game to play through because we get Mandalorians and royalty! Space politics!
Everything’s going just fine when you arrive in the Onderon system until someone in their military figures out who you are and tries to kill you and you have to crash/hide on the moon of Dxun. Coincidentally, it’s also where the Mandalorian War started and where an outpost of Mandos still remains. Unknown to the Exile, Kreia tells Atton that he’s not allowed to be done with the ship repairs until she says so which means we have to find another way to Onderon. Ugh.
After fighting through the jungle and encountering the warrior race, Canderous—I mean Mandalore offers to take you with him to Onderon but only if you prove yourself useful and worthy first. That means (you guessed it) running around the camp and the jungle finding more beasts to beat up and things to fix. Along the way, Kreia even teaches you a totally useless power that’s supposed to work against beasts. (Spoiler: It doesn’t do crap.)
Well here we are… back on Dantooine. I don’t know why but this planet seems to fly by especially in comparison to Nar Shaddaa even though it’s way less entertaining than the first. I don’t know if there’s genuinely less content or if I just played through at the speed of light but dang this went fast. Not that I’m complaining.
Dantooine is the planetary embodiment of bitter. They got the short end of the stick thanks to the Jedi Civil War after the planet was bombarded from orbit and scavengers and mercenaries flocked to them when the war ended. No one really wants to be there. In a way, I guess it makes sense that there’s not tons to do there. You go examine the ruins of the Jedi Temple, find some neat crystals, and then defend the settlers from the mean mercenaries. (Or betray them if you’re feeling bad. What I really should do one day when I’m playing through as a dark sider is pull a last minute double cross on the administrator and Master Vrook. Apparently there’s an achievement for that. It’d be worth it because Vrook is a jerk.)
Dantooine also means that you pick up a new companion assuming that you’re playing as female. I would have happily left him in the ruined library and taken the Handmaiden from Telos instead but NOPE. That’s tragically not how this game works. Mical (that’s his name even though he never tells you) is bland as hell. He was a younger Jedi student back in the day but had some weird fixation on you and left the Order after you were Exiled and it’s not weird at all that the game wants you to romance him. NOPE NOT AT ALL.
In far happier news, I assembled HK-47 and he’s mostly functional again and every pissed off about the HK-50s running around the galaxy because they are inferior models and besmirching his good name. How dare! What kills me is that I probably won’t be able to raise my influence with him enough to hear his impressions of Carth and Bastila. However, I did get to experience his thoughts on love. If you’re not familiar with them… well… it’s best to just watch them for yourself.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I love HK-47. Murder droids are the best droids.
I’m also chugging right along in my quest to turn all of my companions in Jedi. The very first time I played this game, I think I only managed to get Atton because I didn’t consider the possibility for some of the others and just hated Disciple. (I still hate Disciple.) This play through, I’m rather aggressively trying to show them the ways of the Force and quickly got Disciple on board and finally got Bao-Dur to cooperate. Now if only Mira would play nice…
There’s not much else to say here because Dantooine and Disciple are both just that boring. Sorry not sorry because Onderon/Dxun are next and those are waaaaay more fun. (Mandalorians AND royalty!)
Dantooine might be mildly more ridiculously fun than Telos when it comes to second planets but there’s something to be said for how much more immersive this “level” feels because there’s a heck of a lot to it. We make it to the Citadel Station orbiting Telos buuuuut there’s a slight problem: the Republic’s not happy and decides to imprison you because the destruction of Peragus sure does look shifty and by the time they’ve worked out it wasn’t your fault, someone’s stolen the Ebon Hawk. Jerks.
Citadel Station puts you in the middle of a battle between the very nice Ithorians and the very not nice Czerka Corporation and it’s not hard to guess which is the light side and which is the dark side option. (Seriously though: Czerka is the WORST.) It is fun that the Ithorians don’t mind condoning breaking and entering to help you along. Along the way, there are the usual ‘help out random people or screw them over’ mini missions and honestly, I think I might be a better person in video games than I am in real life because I’m not about to give a stranger 2000 credits any time soon. Continue reading →
Aaaaand we’re back! I know, I know: it’s been awhile. Blame Celebration even if it was a delightful time but hey! We’re here again and that’s what counts. We’re kicking things off with the final step in this KOTOR journey and playing Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. It’s not just the standard game though. Oh no. I’m playing the modded version for the first time ever! For those who don’t know, KOTOR2 was basically rushed into stores and was never properly finished but much of the unfinished content was still on the discs… or something. (Honestly, I don’t really know what I’m talking about with coding stuff.) What I do know is that people have been working pretty much ever since to build a mod that would restore that unfinished content into the game and that the mod was available when KOTOR2 was finally made available for Mac via Steam a few years ago. (That was such a great day.) I figured this project was a good time to play through the game with the cut content for the first time and, well, here we are!
The game starts with you waking up in a bacta tank on a mining station in the middle of nowhere. Oh wait and no one else is there except for all of the dead people and the homicidal droids. How could this possibly get any worse? (It gets worse.) Between the not-actually-dead creepy old lady and all the droids trying to kill you and the definitely not a protocol droid who is also trying to kill you and the Sith Lord who sleeps with vibroblades… not a great day. And this is on top of you being a former Jedi who was Exiled from the Order after the Mandalorian Wars. Continue reading →
