Every time I’ve played this game, I’ve told myself that I’ll do the planets in a different order and every time, I always go to Korriban last because I just can’t help myself. When you do Korriban last, you get all these hilarious new dialogue options where you can tell people that you’re Revan and they just do not believe you. The other really fun part about Korriban depends on who you take with you. For maximum hilarity, I usually go with Canderous and Jolee because their commentary on everything is THE BEST. (Although I’m not sure now whether Jolee’s snarky remarks when you have to tell the Sith that your companions are slaves are cringe worthy or amusing.)

In a way, Korriban is kind of like a darker Telos. You briefly encounter people you’ll encounter again later as you make your way through the city and then—okay so I’m not entirely clearly as to why (aside from video game laws) we couldn’t just go around the Sith Academy but we don’t. Instead you have to get accepted as a student there. This couldn’t possibly go wrong. Once accepted, Master Uthar makes you and the other new students (yeah those people you met before) compete to be America’s Next Top Sith Apprentice and this, my friends, is where the funs begins. Continue reading →

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. Continue reading →

Dantooine… they’re on Dantooine… parts of the Jedi Council are at least. Honestly, I always forget how much I love this planet because it is so completely and utterly ridiculous at times. Take this woman Elisa. She wants you to find her droid because it’s all she has left of her dead husband. One problem: the droid ran away because she was treating him a little too much like her dead husband. Yeah. It’s exactly what your brain went to and it makes me laugh every time.

The real point of Dantooine though is for you to be accepted into the Jedi Order and learn to use the Force because you and Bastila have some sort of connection and some super weird dreams about Darth Revan. (In retrospect, my 14-year-old self should have picked up on this foreshadowing way sooner but more on that later.) This means that you’ve got to study the Jedi way of life, their code, make your lightsaber, and decide what class of Jedi you want to be. I used to go for Sentinel but then I realized that I just want more of those sweet, sweet Force powers so Consular it is! It’ll be a cold day in hell before I go for Guardian.

There’s one final test before they make you an official padawan: you must cleanse the ancient grove of the dark side taint. Or something like that. This is flashing warning sign number one that the Jedi Order is kind of screwed up. You have to redeem a Jedi padawan named Juhani who fell to the dark side after her own master was testing her and made Juhani think that she’d killed her. It’s kinda messed up. Incidentally, that’s a good tagline for the Jedi Order. Continue reading →

When I started this project, I had magical dreams about being able to use Twitch to livestream my game play and/or maybe recording videos of my playing and editing them into highlights. Unfortunately, then I remembered that I don’t actually have the technological abilities to make those things happen so uhhhh… gold star I tried?

On the other hand, it’s actually a good thing that you didn’t get to watch me play the game with the exception of those of you who tuned in for a little bit during my very early game play via Instagram. I die a lot. Now before you pull out your pitchforks, let me explain. For some reason, I like playing the game on the hardest setting which is still not terribly hard. Where I throw in the real challenge though is by leveling up my character as little as possible on Taris. What does that mean? It means that my Level 3 Kassia Ettyk dies a lot and poor Carth Onasi has to compensate by frantically shooting people and also dying a lot. (Seriously though: she’s supposed to be like a Level 7 or so by now.) Why do I do this? So I can get more Jedi powers once I go to Dantooine.

The initial levels of a game are often painfully slow no matter what but after almost a year of playing Mass Effect religiously, KOTOR’s older mechanics really suffered in comparison. (It also didn’t help that I’m switching from a PS3 to my laptop.) You’re setting up your actions about 4 moves in advance and you can also switch to actually fight as one of your crewmembers. (That last part is actually pretty nice… it helps me die a lot less.) The downside is that it feels a lot slower and less exciting. Getting off the Republic ship just made me want to take a nap until it was over. (Literally no one cares about you, Trask.)

Thankfully, things get a lot more interesting once you crash on the planet because now you and Carth Onasi (my boyfriend!) have to figure a way off Taris and then past the Sith blockade. This involves a lot of running around the Upper and Lower City levels, breaking into apartments, and either helping people or being a massive jerk to them depending on whether you’re being a light sider or dark sider. There’s approximately zero nuance involved with the light/dark choices. I think that’s why I never had a problem playing as dark side because you’re evil to such a comical extent that I never felt like a total jerk. Also the powers were cool.

Because I just wanted this planet to end, I skipped doing all the death ring battle matches this time around and I definitely didn’t play Pazaak with anyone. Instead, I just killed a Sith soldier, stole his armor, went down into the really Lower City, tried to avoid getting infected by these creepy Rakghouls, and then dived right into the sewers. Along the way, I picked up/rescued Mission Vao and Zaalbar to help me break into one gang’s base so I could steal back a prototype engine and give it back to another gang who let me ride the swoop bike so I could win a race and rescue Jedi Knight Bastila Shan. And all of that sounds way more convoluted when I actually write it out. Wow.

But wait there’s more! I also teamed up with Canderous Ordo to acquire an astromech droid (T3-M4) so I could break into the Sith base and steal codes and then we stole a ship from some crime lord and blasted our way off the planet while Darth Malak tried to bomb it into oblivion. (Nice try, buddy. Come back when you’ve got a Death Star.) Thankfully, I’m finally off Taris and have made my way to Dantooine.

One of my favorite things about this game is getting to know your crewmates and that kicks off almost from minute one. Carth has more trust issues than any one man really should but he also flirts with my player character and calls her beautiful so it all evens out really. I also love his interactions with Mission and Bastila that are randomly triggered as we run around the city. Mission and Carth clash because she’s a teenager pushing back against authority and Carth and Bastila clash because… she lost her lightsaber? Actually that last one’s just funny. If I didn’t play favorites, I’m sure that I would have encountered more of these conversations already but… well… Listen: I just know which crewmembers I really like, okay? Curse you Bioware for only letting me take two with me at a time!

Taris may have been a bit of a drag but I’m hoping that things will pick up now that I’ve made it to Dantooine and can get cool Jedi powers! I’m readjusting to the older game mechanics and the story’s more fun now. And hey! Maybe I’ll even remember to take screenshots while I’m actually playing this time…