Please discuss KOTOR with me. Admittedly I’m not far into the game; my character is only just now learning to be a jedi. But so far, I’ve found myself utterly bored by the game and have struggled not to turn it off. Perhaps I’m just too unfamiliar with the role-playing aspect of it (I’m used to first person shooters or strategy games like Red Alert).
Throughout KOTOR so far there just seems to be little actual game play. You walk up to characters and you’re given an option to talk; you’re given an option to say different things. You cycle through these options. Then if you walk away from the character and walk back up and you say the exact same things. The characters respond with the exact same canned replies. Somehow I expected better AI. Of course there doesn’t seem to be any AI in the game at all so far.
But what really bothers me is that the combat play seems totally disengaged. Press a button to make your character attack; sit back and watch the attack. Press another button to change the type of attack; sit back and watch the change. Going into it, I thought I’d have decidedly more control over this part of the game; I guess I expected something more like “Halo” that involved me moving my character and deciding how to pursue an assault rather than the game just automatically targeting an enemy for me so I could press the “A” button and let the character/group start attacking by him/themselves. This is probably where my own attitude is blocking my enjoyment of the game. I’m so used to FPSs that I dislike not having a more hands-on approach to the warfare.
Obviously to each his own, but I really think I must be missing out on something here. When gaming magazines are consistently naming this the game of the year and one of the greatest of all time, and reviewer ratings are almost always in the 90% favorability level, I have to consider that I’m blind to the game’s appeal.
I’d appreciate some Doper comments on KOTOR. I haven’t played the Dark Side yet and I knew there’s supposed to be tremendous appeal there. What are your thoughts? Did anyone have a reaction similar to mine?
You have not said how far you are into the game. The combat does get incredibly involved in later levels, and the story REALLY gets better. Some idea of your level of progress would help.
I favor RPGs myself, and I had similar problems for the first half of the game. It starts to pick up after a while, and there’s a very cool plot twist towards the end, which made me glad I’d stuck with it, but over all, yeah, the game is kind of dull.
Well, that’s RPGs for you. Remember, it’s called a role-playing game for a reason. A good RPG should focus more on character interactions than combat or levelling. Which is why good RPGs are so few and far between.
Absolutely agree. The combat system in KOTOR is based off the Neverwinter Nights system from the PC, but stripped down for consoles. Part of what got stripped was, IMO, the fun. Basically, it’s just a matter of watching fights until someone’s health gets too low and pausing to use some MedPaks. It does pick up quite a bit once you get some serious force powers, though. Once you’ve got two Jedi NPCs (which, if you don’t already have, you will soon) you can pretty much ignore the rest of your party, except maybe the R2 unit, which is handy with locks and computers.
Of course, I haven’t been completely satisfied with an RPG combat system since SSI stopped making the Gold Box games. But KOTOR’s really needs some work.
Not every game is for every person. If you never play RPGs, KOTOR’s appeal will be especially hard to appreciate. And there is a lot to appreciate there: there are a lot of interesting characters, a compelling story, multiple paths through the story, and genuine ethical choices that have definite effects on the story’s outcome. In short, actual role-playing. Most games that get labeled RPGs (especially on consoles) are nothing of the sort. Final Fantasy is a great example. Fantastic games. Wonderful games. I’m absolutely a fan. But they’re not role-playing games, because you never play a role. You fight stuff until you level up, then you fight more stuff to see the next cut scene, then you play some mini-games for loot, then you go fight some more. KOTOR, on the other hand, is so open-ended it doesn’t even require you to be the good guy. The “tremendous appeal” of the Dark Side adventure is that the Dark Side adventure even exsists.
So, a lot of praise you see heaped on KOTOR is because it is a role playing game that is actually a role playing game, and that is a rare and marvellous thing. Rare enough that it’s easy to overlook many of its other flaws. But if you don’t give a damn about RPGs, this probably isn’t the game for you.
Now, if you want to play an RPG that gets everything right (except for platform stability), pick up a copy of the PC game Fallout or Fallout 2. It’s been out for years, and should run on just about any computer that’s advanced enough to access the SDMB. I’ve only ever met one person who didn’t think Fallout was one of the best games they’d ever played. And that one person makes video games for a living, which should tell you something about the state of the industry.
Sounds to me like you’re having problems with the RPG combat aspect. It’s not action-based - far from it. You can pause at any moment and shift your tactics. The game runs off of the D20 pen-and-paper combat rules; all the combat animations are the results of virtual dierolling and statistics (whether you miss or hit, the amount of damage done), and the graphics show what happened. I imagine it’s something like
Heck, the whole thing could be done in text instead of graphics just by reporting the results.
But the thing is, this isn’t Halo or Jedi Knight. It’s an RPG with round-based combat. If you don’t care for rpgs then there isn’t much I can tell you to sway your opinion. But don’t expect a twitch-fest, because this wasn’t designed that way.
Now, if you want to play an RPG that gets everything right (except for platform stability), pick up a copy of the PC game Fallout or Fallout 2. It’s been out for years, and should run on just about any computer that’s advanced enough to access the SDMB. I’ve only ever met one person who didn’t think Fallout was one of the best games they’d ever played. And that one person makes video games for a living, which should tell you something about the state of the industry.
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I couldn’t agree more, play either Fallout and then ask why other games aren’t up to it’s standards.
Wow. I can’t believe I’m the first KOTOR fanboy. I call it “my all-time favorite game”. I loved the story. I loved playing both ways. I loved the sidequests. I even dug the mini-games.
I played NWN and KOTOR. What was stripped from the KOTOR combat that was in NWN? Both were (basically) AD&D turn-based with melee/ranged/spell|force/item, right? I thought the AD&D rules were perfect. The metal swords standing up to lightsabers was the only thing that really bugged me.
As BraheSilver mentioned, you can pause and strategize, plus you can move your characters around during combat. And role playing it right can make a diffence too. Very mild spoilers in the next paragraph. Go ahead and read it unless you’re a stickler.
When you get to pick which NPC teammates to take with you, it’s always easiest just to take all Jedis. But playing Dark Side, the other jedis in your party complain when you do mean-spirited Dark stuff. It gets annoying. So you always take Canderous and HK with you, because they’re Dark too, and it’s more fun when they laugh and encourage Dark stuff. But those two are best at ranged combat and have no Force powers, so you have to be a bit careful and use more tactics. And you can’t use Force Heal since you’re Dark and the only Jedi. No Force Heal really sucks :).
We have an obvious disconnect though; I’d say Final Fantasy is an exemplar of the RPG game.
FWIW, the comments here inspired me to finally get Fallout running. I bought a used copy a couple months ago and couldn’t get it to work with W2K. I just googled a bit more and got it working. Just firing it up now…
Except its not an RPG. Its called an RPG, but its not. Its a slightly interactive story. You aren’t a character, you are just leading a totally separate character around by the nose. Contrast this to, say Baldur’s Gate or Fallout where the character is you. Final fantasy is no more an RPG than Diablo is.
Another KOTR fanboy checking in. I loved this game. Yes the combat was not as interactive as say Tomb Raider or even Jedi Outcast, but it is not meant to be. This is a role playing game. While not a much fun a a well run live RPG, a good console or PC gam has a well done storyline that draws you in an make you want to interact with the world. It has been mentioned on these boards that the storyline wfor this gamae is better than the last two movies (not hard). The NPCs are well done. I found myself caring what happened to them. To put it into perspective I hated Diablo, all “go dere, kill dat.” This does not make it a bad game, only one that I personaly, did not like.
Ironically, many of the complaints in the OP are the polar opposite of what many people gripe about.
Usually a game doesn’t have enough plot, dialogue, engaging characters, interactivity, and actual decisions that affect things.
KOTOR is an interactive movie and your enjoyment might increase if you recognize that and don’t expect it to be something it’s not. It’s not Quake.
As an interactive movie, it’s certainly better than the two Star Wars prequels and on some levels as good or better than the original trilogy. If you’re a Star Wars fan, you probably enjoy seeing more of the world and seeing things you’ve never seen before. KOTOR has this in spades.
As for a game that combines interactive movie with twitch action combat, Deus Ex (although dated) was the only game I’ve played that did a good job combining the two. Does anyone know if the Deus Ex sequel does a good job of it also?
Nitpick: “Advanced” Dungeons & Dragons got retired years ago: they’re back to plain old D&D now.
Anyway, you’re mostly right: the combat system is largely the same, although battles tend to be much smaller (rarely more than five enemies at a time in KOTOR, plus you have a slightly smaller party.) The basic rules framework is pretty much the same, you just can’t do as much with it. Fewer feats, fewer spells, fewer skills, fewer character classes, fewer weapons, fewer inventory items. Content-wise, it’s a gigantic step backwards from NWN, a game which is an entire year older than KOTOR. If KOTOR had come out in the first half of 2002, it would have been groundbreaking. As it is, it’s a pale console-copy of a superior product. Except for the story, which is better than any of the commercial releases for NWN up until Hordes of the Underdark (which is a superb campaign, btw. One of the best I’ve ever seen in a CRPG.)
You can, but you never need to. Moving your character in combat doesn’t change anything unless you’re running away. There are, as far as I can determine, no bonuses or penalties for finding cover, flanking, choosing your terrain, or anything of the sort. The closest the game comes to a tactical element is when you’re fighting giant creatures, you can usually get them to hang against a corner while you blaze away from a safe distance.
This isn’t really open to debate. It’s a statement of fact: Final Fantasy isn’t a roleplaying franchise. Calling FF a role-playing game makes as much sense as calling it a real-time strategy, or a first-person shooter. Now, I admit, I’m new to the series. I’ve only played four of them: X, X-2, Tactics, and the original one way back on the 8-bit Nintendo. All of them great games (although Tactics? Waaaaay over-rated.) Not one of them had anything in them that could be remotely called role-playing. Maybe the earlier games, the ones I haven’t played, had role-playing elements, but they had been entirely excised by the time I came back to console gaming.
FTR, a fantasy setting or the ability to level up a character does not make a game a role-playing game. A role-playing game is a game in which your task is to create a character from the ground up: not just skills and equipment, but attitude, ethics, morals, and personality. In every Final Fantasy game I’ve played, those aspects of your character had been pre-determined and were rigidly inflexible. Thus, by definition, they cannot be role-playing games.
Which means you probably won’t be back to read all this any time soon. Have fun! Watch out for deathclaws!