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| | Title:
Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic
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System:
Xbox
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Genre:
Roleplaying
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Publisher:
LucasArts
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Developer:
BioWare
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Release:
June 2003
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Online:
No
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ESRB:
Teen
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Knights of the Old Republic, developed by BioWare (the same makers of Baldur's Gate), is an RPG/adventure hybrid set within the realm of Star Wars. This game puts the player in control of their destiny by allowing you to create a character (or rather, choose your gender, a head, a name and their attributes) and set off to explore the galaxy.
Gameplay
The game first starts with your character sound asleep on a ship, which shortly thereafter gets attacked by the Sith fleet, who are the main bad guys in the game. You play through the scenes, learning how to play the game and getting used to attacking or utilizing objects within the game. --On a side note, the tutorial is fine for the first time you play the game, those who wish to bypass the walk-through should have been given the option to do so-- The tutorial guides the player to some escape pods where you blast away from the ship as it gets blown to pieces, spiraling down to the first of seven planets you must explore, in order to further your journey.
The real game starts with the player waking up once again from having been unconscious for several weeks. But safe and sound nonetheless, thanks to the ship's Captain, Carth O'nasi, who watched over you until you came out of your mild coma. He then ventures to explain your vital mission in finding and helping the real person the Sith were after all along: Bastilla. A Jedi with unique powers to control the morale of entire battle fleets, an ability aptly named "Battle Meditation". A Sith master named Malak is intent on controlling Bastilla for his own ends. The game plays out around this story while more depth takes place with a bigger plot that evolves further into the game.
As the game progresses, the player is able (or rather forced) to become a Jedi. Although you are at least given the ability to choose what kind of Jedi you would like to be, including a Consulor, who manages to use more wisdom and force powers rather than simply relying on brute force; a Jedi Guardian, in which their primal focus is on advanced uses of the light-saber, or brute force; and the Jedi Sentinal, who is a mixture of the other two classes. Considering that this plays out like an RPG, Force powers are the equivalent of magic. There is a meter for how much Force you can use at a given time and how much is absorbed based on the game's gimmick of either being "light" or "dark"; good or bad. The downside (or upside, depending on how you look at it) is that no matter what your alignment, any Force power is available so long as you have the prerequisite of the Force ability you would like to utilize. For example, if a light-side Jedi wanted Force plague, they would need force poison, which is always available no matter your alignment (I don't remember Yoda wielding such deadly force?). As long as you have the requirements when it is time for you to level-up. Which is a bit of another drawback.
While getting level-ups makes a lot of sense in the world of a Star Wars game of this kind, in a way it standardizes a bit of the playability. This, in a way, is controlled by level-caps --ensuring that no one goes beyond level 20. But considering that level 20 is the max that the player can reach, it guarantees that you are applicable (based on your weapons and armor) for defeating whatever bad guy stands in your way. This is good and bad, because it shortens the gameplay for experienced gamers, due to the lack of needing to train or develop skills to your liking. Albeit, for newcomers it probably works out evenly, resulting in less times of reloading or restarting the game, as opposed to the likes of the older generation of RPGs, such as Tales of Phantasia or Final Fantasy on the SNES where it was anyone's guess on how strong you needed to be at any point in the game.
A major drawback to the gameplay would have to be in the player's inability to actually <i>fight</i>. The fighting system is similar to Baldur's Gate's free-roaming, real-time, turn-based battles. The player picks a command from the available attacks/force powers/items and presses a button to activate that option for the current or next turn. Hence, while the player can run around, there is no control over when or how (exactly) they shoot or use the light saber, either then what is provided. And there is a lot of fighting to do in this game.
A redeeming quality would definitely be in the personalization of your light saber. Where you can select up to three different crystals that compose of your light saber, ranging from increased damage to making a droid-murdering light saber, or even flaunting a nice, evil-killing, purple light saber. Constructing one's light saber could have been a bit more in-depth but the feature is welcomed regardless. Though there needed to be more planets with the option to collect crystals, the online content does make up for it.
A plus to the gameplay is that the story revolves around your character, but the downside is that the story has only two composite outcomes. In just about every situation where you can choose the dialogue, most of the time it results in either adding light-side or dark-side points to your overall alignment. You can only be one or the other, which hampers on the need to replay the game anymore than twice. But with the downloadable content, it can regenerate some life for the game, in which other RPGs can sorely lack.
Sound
This was a Star Wars game, so where was the Star Wars themed music? Audio effects for Star Wars games have been consistently fluent and well done. Lasers and light sabers all sound the way they are supposed to, voice acting and speech all sounded professional and sometimes even convincing enough to seem as if some scenes were playing out like a movie. But the music...what happened? From one planet to the next there are different tunes to match the environment, yet their semblance to Star Wars in general seemed bleak, almost non-apparent. It is not to say that the music was bad, ( I especially liked Manaan's city music ) it was just that the music had little depth or relation to your character or the on-going story. As a matter of fact, your character or the other characters in the game had no real theme song. While some gamers would care less about this, it would add a sense of satisfaction when you see your character stand victorious over a fallen foe while your theme song plays triumphantly. Maybe in the next game?
Overall
The graphics are well done, though some of the characters look a bit too bright or a bit too dopey. Other aspects are done just as well, such as the cluttered streets of Tantoonie or the water port of Manaan. The music is okay, but nothing really resembles Star Wars except for the music in the very beginning and music near the end. While the sound is done nicely with good voice acting, all male-created characters share one voice as all female-created characters share one voice, which, in turn, takes away from the individual effect of some characters you might create. As an earlier Xbox game, it is definitely a good game. And while it suffers in some areas, it does have an overall appeal that would suit any Xbox owner's video game library, and a definite must for any Star Wars fan.
| The Core Score |
Overall
7.5 |
| Fun |
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7.0 |
| Gameplay |
|
7.5 |
| Graphics |
|
8.5 |
| Audio |
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6.5 |
| Replay |
|
6.5 |
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