The best Star Wars game is KOTOR II — and it’s not even close
The best Star Wars game is KOTOR II — and it'southward not even shut
Every yr on May 4th, the Tom's Guide team invariably gets into a big discussion nearly the best (and worst) Star Wars games. Two games always wind up near the top of the list: Knights of the Old Commonwealth and its sequel, Knights of the Quondam Republic II. If you've played them, this won't come as a shock; they're both fantastic sci-fi RPGs, which add together a lot of interesting concepts and characters to the Star Wars mythos.
And yet, when we're invariably forced to rank them, the first KOTOR game usually winds upwards on top. It'southward hard to quantify exactly why. People oftentimes say it'southward because KOTOR is and so classically heroic, much similar the original Star Wars (or Episode 4, or A New Promise, depending how old you are). It'southward a straightforward story near good versus evil (or evil versus evil, if you pick the Dark Side path), with archetypal characters, a satisfying resolution and a narrative that really makes you feel like a righteous hero or a charismatic villain.
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Knights of the Onetime Democracy Ii, the KOTOR-boosters debate, is more similar The Empire Strikes Back. It's dark, information technology's deliberately paced, it'southward nigh morally gray characters, and information technology ends on an uncertain bewilderment. Furthermore, KOTOR ii was a buggy, unfinished game, with a ton of cut content and dangling plot threads. Non even the most comprehensive fan mod could completely fix its technical issues. No, KOTOR 2 was ambitious, they say, but ultimately it'southward too unfocused and clashing to attain quite the same heights equally its predecessor. Isn't information technology?
With all due respect, I would contend that the Empire Strikes Back comparison is actually selling KOTOR 2 short. KOTOR ii isn't The Empire Strikes back; information technology's The Empire Strikes back, if George Lucas had handed the project off to Ridley Scott. Information technology's the kind of Star Wars story that could only emerge subsequently thirty years of critical analysis and fan theories. Information technology is, in fact, the only Star Wars spinoff dauntless enough to enquire, "What if the central conceit of Star Wars was actually nonsense?" Worse than that, in fact — "What if the central conceit of Star Wars accidentally dismantles the movie's most of import theme?"
KOTOR ii is to Star Wars as God of War (2018) is to God of War (2005); it'south both a love letter and a deconstruction. And, equally such, it's the only Star Wars game — possibly the only Star Wars story, period — that builds on its source material instead of simply reiterating it.
(Also, this piece contains SPOILERS for both Night Empire and Knights of the Old Republic II, so read on at your ain run a risk.)
The power of the Strength
Similar most things in life, I had an epiphany about KOTOR 2 while washing dishes.
Let me contextualize: Since the COVID-nineteen quarantine began, I've been doing a lot more cooking than usual, and that means a lot more cleaning up after. To keep myself entertained, I've been listening to Star Wars sound dramas.
The history of these radio plays is fascinating, and could support a whole commodity by itself, but briefly: in the '80s and '90s, Lucasfilm created sound dramas for the Star Wars trilogy likewise as select Expanded Universe stories, such as Crimson Empire and Dark Forces. I decided to listen to Dark Empire: an adaptation of an early '90s comic volume, whose storyline directly inspired The Rising of Skywalker.
I had first read Night Empire in high school, and I didn't like it very much. When I listened to the audio drama, I remembered why. For those who haven't read it, Night Empire takes identify a few years after Render of the Jedi, and tells the story of Luke Skywalker trying to rebuild the Jedi Gild while dealing with a revived Emperor Palpatine. It as well makes ample use of what is arguably the worst narrative technique in any Star Wars story: Every time the characters demand something to happen, "the Force" lets them do it.
Granted, the Force should be mysterious, and its powers not fully defined. But characters in Nighttime Empire rack up Strength abilities similar they're special skills in a video game. During the class of the story, the Force lets characters enter battle trances, deflect starship missiles, create lightning storms in infinite, lay dormant for centuries, create indestructible records and fifty-fifty transfer a consciousness into a new body.
I began to realize that Star Wars stories, from the old European union to the new Disney trilogy, take gotten into a bad habit of using the Force to hand-wave any questionable story decision. It'southward a way of telling the audience, "only go with it." This lets the heroes conquer impossible odds and the villains contrive outlandish plans, of course, but it also forces (heh) the audience to surrender to the story rather than try to analyze it.
Why KOTOR ii succeeds
As I stood in forepart of the sink, hot water sloshing off of a sauce-covered plate, I wondered: Did whatever Star Wars stories not use the Strength equally a fallback plot device? A handful, certain. Games like Dark Forces and books like The Han Solo Trilogy focus on not-Strength-sensitive characters, so the Jedi's obscure power source doesn't actually factor into the plot i style or another.
But that's sidestepping a trouble rather than addressing it head-on. If Star Wars bakes a manner to justify whatever narrative conclusion right into the plot, information technology makes it almost incommunicable for the audience to care most stakes. Side stories about smugglers and mercenaries are all well and good. But equally long as the Jedi are at the crux of the Star Wars universe, the way they address issues affects the whole setting.
This is why KOTOR 2 succeeds when almost every other Star Wars story I can retrieve of fails. For those who haven't played the game, it tells the story of a fallen Jedi, exiled from the social club for horrendous state of war crimes. The experience was so traumatic, the Exile cut himself (or herself — you can customize your protagonist) off from the Forcefulness entirely. However, doing so created a living wound in the Force, which the game's master villain, Darth Traya, is not bad to dispense.
Darth Traya is an unconventional Star Wars villain in a lot of ways. She's an quondam lady; she's soft-spoken; she has a morally grayness view of the world; she has no interest in acquiring or exercising ability; she even spends most of the game as a member of your political party. And no, her real identity is not a big twist; she reveals her Sith affiliations almost halfway through the game as part of a regular conversation. But information technology'due south never exactly clear why she'southward then neat on mentoring the Exile, until the very end.
During the final confrontation (which is more subdued than climactic, much like the rest of the game), Traya finally reveals her motivations: if the Force can exist wounded, as the Exile demonstrated, then possibly it can exist destroyed. And the Force is not a benign presence in the galaxy. It is the antithesis of free will, determining the fate of the galaxy while treating its inhabitants similar pawns. The Force lets a scattering of people wield massive power, giving them undue and unfair control over other living beings.
In other words: The Force isn't a neutral party that can empower either good or evil. The Forcefulness is a self-serving entity (not necessarily a conscious i) that makes the whole galaxy bend to its will, whether they want to or not.
That the Force has a will of its ain isn't in dubiety; the overarching plot of the prequel trilogy was well-nigh bringing "rest" to it. Both Yoda and Obi-Wan taught Luke that the nighttime side of the Forcefulness must be defeated then that the lite side tin can propagate. But only KOTOR ii stopped to question whether letting the Force command the galaxy's destiny was a good thing — and whether giving Jedi and Sith superhuman powers was itself a dangerous and undemocratic concept.
The main theme of Star Wars, regardless of the story in question, is almost freedom vs. domination. The Empire wants to impose its will on the milky way; the Rebels are good considering they want to restore ability to the people. The same is truthful whether you're talking about the Sith and the Jedi, the First Order and the Resistance, or the New Democracy and the Yuuzhan Vong. But to gainsay evil, every "good" team in Star Wars has turned to the Forcefulness, whether information technology'due south invoking Jedi powers or merely wishing someone luck earlier a battle.
The hypocrisy here isn't hard to spot. Freedom is the ultimate practiced in the milky way — and the best manner to become it is by surrendering yourself to a power that can bend every living thing to its will. At best, it's trading 1 course of tyranny for another.
Unanswered questions
Of course, information technology's hard to approximate KOTOR 2 in a vacuum. The game clearly left itself open up for a sequel, which never happened. (The MMO, Star Wars: The Sometime Republic, answered some of its lingering questions, but not all.) Perhaps KOTOR three would take provided a articulate rebuttal to Darth Traya'southward ideas — or mayhap at that place would take been some kind of tertiary option, that let the Force and free will coexist.
Whatever the case, KOTOR 2 is unique among Star Wars stories in that it turns the franchise's central concept on its head. We've all dreamed of being a Jedi and wielding fantastical powers. But the calculus changes if the cost is your freedom.
KOTOR 2 is no longer canon, which probably comes every bit a relief to fans who want Star Wars to be merely an escapist fantasy, and nothing more. But Disney has reintegrated a lot of Legends textile back into the canon. Could the House of Mouse delve into KOTOR two, and would it keep the game'south deconstruction intact? If it did, "may the Force be with you" might take on a decidedly sinister ring.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/opinion/star-wars-knights-of-the-old-republic-2
Posted by: foutstognoo.blogspot.com
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