Revisiting A Classic:
"Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic" (2003)
Part 1 of 10
Hey guys! I haven't posted since my Elden Ring gaming adventure more than a few months back but I started gaming again. Long story short, I got all the endings for Elden Ring but stopped playing a little after the coliseum update but will probably return to the Lands Between when DLC arrives.
I was feeling nostalgic after hearing we might get a Playstation 5 remake soon of Star Wars game, "Knights of the Old Republic," a.k.a. "KOTOR 1," so I decided to replay the original 2003 game.
I'd got KOTOR on my iPhone years ago so I just went into my app store history and re-downloaded. It was $10 and KOTOR 2's price was $15 so I'll probably grab that game too when I'm finished with the first one.
Anyway, here we go ... time to replay this classic game. I'll divide my posts for this game between the story's multiple locations.
Part 1 - Endar Spine
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic starts 4000 years before the Star Wars films, during a period known as the Jedi Civil War, a conflict between the Old Republic and the new Sith Empire.
KOTOR's first level is an Old Republic space vessel called Endar Spine, which is kind of like the game's tutorial.
But before you start, KOTOR has you pick your character's class, face, attributes, skills, feats, and name.
There are three classes in KOTOR: Soldier, Scoundrel, and Scout. I'd say they're similar to most RPG's warrior, mage, rogue classes but it's more simple than that. Soldier focuses on close-range and sword or staff weapons, while Scoundrel focuses on long-range attacks with blaster pistols, rifles, machine guns, grenades, and mines. Scout is more of a medium-range fighter, or incomplete mix of both Soldier and Scoundrel.
I picked Scoundrel because I wanted to be a Han Solo type character with a blaster pistol, plus I remember last time playing a more melee-focused Soldier with dual swords.
Not a lot of options for your face but KOTOR's not bad for a game made is 2003.
Attributes are your main stats: Strength for short-range attacks and heavier damage, Dexterity for long range and increased hit rate and evasiveness, Constitution for health and defense, Intelligence for boosting side stat points and boosting droid healing, Wisdom for Force Powers and Force Healing, and Charisma for Force Points and Regular Healing. There's also status effects in the game and it looks like folks online say either Wisdom or Charisma determine how successful status effects are on your character. As a final note for Strength and Dexterity: a high Strength will miss almost half the time but has a chance to insta-kill enemies, while a high Dexterity means you'll land most hits and dodge half or more of an enemy's attacks but rarely ever insta-kill an opponent.
In other words, a Soldier type should focus on Strength and Constitution, while a Scoundrel should focus on Dexterity and Intelligence if they want to sneak around and set mines.
Skills are side stats divided into Computer Use for hacking computers with less cyber spikes and parts, Demolition for defusing higher level mines, Stealth for higher and higher levels of stealth so enemies can't detect you before your 1st strike, Awareness so you can see higher level mines and stealth enemies, Persuasion for more dialogue options and efficacy (this one only works for your character), Repair for repairing droids with less parts, Security for opening doors and locked chests (You can melee open most chests, with a high enough Strength stat, so I'd just pick one side character max Security and let other characters spend their Intelligence points elsewhere), and Treat Injury which effects how much healing you receive from items, which isn't necessary for Jedi characters later on because they have Force Healing which is effected by Wisdom and Charisma.
Feats are basically KOTOR's skill tree which do a bunch of stuff: decide if and how heavy the armor you wear can be, what level implants you can use, give you special melee and range attacks, increase health and defense, increase evasiveness, give bonus melee and range damage, increase hit rate and power of dual weapons, allow Jedi to deflect higher percentage of blaster attacks, and etc.,. There's a lot here and you get extra rows for Jedi characters too, plus the additional skill tree for Force Powers later.
Equipment is a whole other part of the game, that took me a while to figure out. There's implants but only if you have implants unlocked in Feats, Head Gear which can be Light Side/Dark Side specific, Gloves, Gauntlets, left-hand and right-hand weapons, armor, and your belt. These all boost your primary stats, like Strength and Dexterity, except for a few head gear, gauntlets, and belts that give you special abilities like Stealth and limited Blaster Deflect.
Here's the gameplay screen for exploration and battle in KOTOR. There's the map in the top-left, Play/Pause button and Solo button above my character pic and health bar. The empty bar beside my health is for Force Points but we won't get that for a while. Bottom right is for Force Powers, Healing Items, Status Buff Items, and a fourth slot I can't remember -- maybe special equipment items?
The game's battles are real-time but you can pause them to pre-set a series of different commands: attack, heal, grenade, special attack, force power, uff item, etc. Your characters and enemies attack each other in turns but certain abilities allow you to attack more than once per turn.
Now I know I stopped playing for a while: personally I have to be in a specific mood to play RPG games like this or Elden Ring. If I don't have the time or patience to fully-immerse in something like this, I'd rather play a quick fighting or shoot-em-up game.
Anyway, back to the beginning of KOTOR and it's first level: Endar Spine.
Four thousand years before the Star Wars story most people know, there's a war between the Old Republic and the New Sith Empire called the Jedi Civil War.
These two bad guys above are Sith-Lord Darth Revan (right) and his apprentice friend Darth Malak (left), the leaders of the New Sith Empire. These two are the main villains of KOTOR.
Before the Jedi Civil War, was the Mandalorian Wars where the armies of the planet Mandalore (Boba and Jengo Fett's ancestors's home planet) started conquering the Star Wars galaxy. But since the Mandalorians were only conquering far away outer-rim worlds, and not main Old Republic planets, the Jedi Council refused to fight them.
The villains, Darth Revan and Darth Malak, used to be Jedi who served the Jedi Council but disagreed with the Jedi Order's decision to not help the outer-rim worlds. When the Mandalorians attacked a main Old Republic planet and the Jedi Council still refused to act, Revan and Malak left the order with a few other Jedi and disappeared.
Later, Revan and Malak reappeared with a fleet of mysterious new ships and defeated the Mandalorians, devastating them so badly that their armies were reduced to mercenaries. After that, Revan and Malak announced themselves as leaders of a New Sith Empire and attacked the Old Republic and the Jedi Order, claiming that the two authorities were no longer fit to rule the galaxy.
KOTOR's first level Endar Spine takes place right after these events. I know that was a lot of information but when I replayed the game I had a weak grasp of what was going on story-wise so the last six paragraphs are what I can remember from researching the who, what, when, and why online from wookipedia.
The gist of Endar Spine is that you wake up with no memories in a room and an Old Republic soldier named Trask tells you what's up: we're on an Old Republic ship in space being attacked by the New Sith Empire over the planet Taris, and we need to help a Jedi named Bastila escape because she's got a special Force Power called Battle Meditation that the Sith want.
If you have any comments or questions, feel free to leave them below. I'm sure I missed something about the gameplay and lore, and am always down to learn more!
So you grab some gear and kill Sith soldiers with Trask while heading to the escape pod hangar to join up with Carth the guy pictured before the above pic of a Sith soldier and Old Republic staring each other down. Long story short, Trask sacrifices himself by fighting a Dark Jedi so you can find Bastila with Carth.
By the time, you find Carth he's already rocketed Bastila off the Endar Spine to the planet Taris below. You two hop into an escape pod and follow after her but somehow get separated.
KOTOR's Endar Spine isn't the strongest opening level I've seen in a game but for something from 2003 it's not that bad. I think, speaking from 2023, I'm pretty spoiled when it comes to video games so I expected something more explosive and epic. On a positive note, I do like the Scoundrel class and fighting enemies with a blaster instead of a sword, since I'd rather settle for melee when I finally get a lightsaber later on in the game.
My Final Grade for this 1st Level of Endar Spine -- 6/10
A rather dull opener but I'm willing to keep on going ...
See you guys in Part 2!
If you have any comments or questions, feel free to leave them below. I'm sure I missed something about the gameplay and lore, and am always down to learn more!
Online Image Sources Below
KOTOR POSTER <www.gamerant.com>
Sith Soldier vs Republic Soldier <www.i.ytimg.com>
