Pirated Holocrons | Reviews & Ramblings

Let's start with the characters.

First up is the dashing astromech himself, T3-M4.

THAT'S RIGHT.

HE HAS RETURNED.

My hype is immeasurable.

Dedicated archivists will already know my opinion, but T3 was easily one of my favorite characters in the first game, so seeing his familiar face....or optic sensor....again was a win.

Next is Kreia.

Kreia is an elderly Jedi who immediately decides she wants to mentor us.

This becomes slightly more understandable when it's revealed she's the former master of Darth Sion.

So far, however, most of her dialogue has consisted of vague mystical warnings,

appearing out of nowhere, "trust the Force", and "emotions lead to suffering".

In other words, she's currently hitting most of the stereotypical Jedi beats.

At the moment I find her more mysterious than interesting, but I also don't think I've seen enough of her yet to make a fair judgment.

Then we have Atton Rand.

We meet him in prison, which feels very on-brand because he immediately comes across as KOTOR II's version of "guy who doesn't trust anyone and carries a blaster", just like Carth.

Unlike Carth, though, he leans much harder into the scoundrel archetype.

Specifically, he feels like A New Hope Han Solo.

Calling it now, At some point this man is going to become an unwilling hero. The setup is written all over him.

Right now I like him well enough, but I'm hoping they don't waste his potential the way I felt KOTOR wasted Carth's.

Finally we have the main antagonist so far, Darth Sion.

Immediately, his design is more interesting than any of the major villains from the first game.

He actually looks intimidating.

He looks unique.

He looks like somebody whose presence should matter.

We still don't know much about his motivations beyond his hatred of both Kreia and the Jedi Order, but visually he's already making a much stronger first impression than Malak ever did.

Character-wise, I think there's a lot more potential here than there was at the beginning of KOTOR.

So for the first time in a while, I'm cautiously optimistic.

Now for the gameplay.

The combat system is basically identical.

Except now there's an unequip button.

And somehow even MORE menu scrolling.

This means that on top of occasionally disengaging from combat for no reason, you can now accidentally put your weapon away and start throwing hands.

While the mental image of my character dropping two swords to beat the absolute shit out of someone with a blaster is very funny, it is not an effective combat strategy.

One improvement I do appreciate is that you can now smash locked containers open.

There's a chance you'll break some of the loot inside, but honestly that's a trade I'm willing to make because I physically cannot leave unopened containers behind.

I also had a brief moment of panic when I realized there was a spacewalk section.

The underwater and spacewalk sections in KOTOR 1 were some of the most miserable gameplay I've experienced in Star Wars.

Then my character started speed-waddling across the exterior of the station like an escaped penguin.

I laughed out loud.

So thankfully that particular issue seems to have been fixed.

Unfortunately, the intro area also ends with a shooting gallery minigame.

And good lord.

The aiming sensitivity is absurd.

You have to mash the fire button constantly.

The cursor flies around like it's trying to escape the screen.

It was genuinely one of the most frustrating parts of the opening.

Overall?

Too early to make any major judgments.

But so far I already find the cast more interesting than KOTOR's opening cast, Darth Sion is making a much stronger first impression than Malak ever did, and T3-M4 remains incapable of disappointing me.

I'm Cautiously optimistic, Which is already a better starting position than KOTOR 1 managed.

As the Ebon Hawk approaches, we lay eyes on a large space station.

The star forge.

A massive fleet surrounds us and begins opening fire as the Hawk starts failing mid-flight.

We barely escape before crashing onto the planet Lehon.

Lehon is a tropical world littered with the wreckage of crashed ships that were not as lucky as us.

The Ebon Hawk is stuck here until we can repair it and figure out what caused the crash in the first place.

As soon as we step outside, we’re attacked by the local inhabitants called the Rakata.

The Rakata are amphibious aliens split into rival tribes who immediately recognize me as Revan.

The tribe we first encounter, called “The One,” accuses Revan of betraying them years ago after promising to share forbidden knowledge kept from them by the rival Rakata Elders.

I explain that I am technically not that guy anymore, which apparently is convincing enough.

They ask me to retrieve the knowledge I once promised them and wipe out the Elders in exchange for helping me.

So naturally I go speak to the Elders first.

The Elders explain that Revan ALSO betrayed them after using their knowledge to get to the Star Forge and then refusing to destroy it.

At this point every civilization in the galaxy apparently has personal beef with Revan specifically.

I tell them I actually do want to destroy the Star Forge, but understandably they’re hesitant to trust me.

Still, they agree to help if I rescue one of their captured scouts from The One.

So I backtrack across the planet fighting approximately twelve million Rakata and several Rancors.

Eventually I rescue the scout, kill the leader of The One, and return to the Elders.

The Elders agree to perform a ritual allowing me access to the ancient temple protecting the Star Forge.

There is one condition.

I must enter alone.

Which I agreed with, knowing the temple is supposedly filled with Sith acolytes and ancient dangers.

Then the game immediately undermines this.

As I dismiss my companions and begin the ritual, Jolee and Juhani suddenly interrupt and insist on accompanying me.

The Rakata priest repeatedly explains that only one person may enter.

I repeatedly tell them please just stay behind.

They refuse.

Eventually the game forces me to persuade the Rakata to break his own sacred traditions because apparently “going alone” was never actually an option.

This annoyed me more than it probably should have because the game spends several minutes establishing rules and how deeply tradition matters to these priests and then makes you betray their trust regardless.

Anyway.

We enter the temple.

And honestly?

It’s mostly just another hallway filled with Dark Jedi.

A few weak enemies.

One very simple puzzle.

A staircase to the roof.

That’s basically it.

At the top we finally encounter Bastila.

Now dressed in black robes with a red double-bladed lightsaber, she announces she’s evil now and that I’m apparently a puppet of the Jedi.

Then she leaves.

Now sidenote:

this actually created a weird lore issue in my brain.

Her lightsaber later returns to yellow, implying she either swapped crystals or simply used another saber entirely.

Which is strange because modern Star Wars lore places heavy emphasis on Kyber crystals bonding specifically to their wielder through the Force.

Bleeding a crystal red is supposed to be an extremely deliberate and painful corruption process.

So Bastila apparently either borrowed someone else’s Sith saber for aesthetics or temporarily swapped out her crystals to aura farm.

I’m aware KOTOR lets Revan swap crystals constantly for gameplay reasons, but I always interpreted that as game mechanics instead of literal canon behavior.

Anyway.

Back to the plot.

We disable the planetary disruption field, repair the Ebon Hawk, and reunite with the Republic fleet above the planet.

The Republic is currently losing badly because Bastila’s Battle Meditation is empowering the Sith fleet.

And unfortunately Battle Meditation continues to be one of the vaguest Force powers imaginable.

The explanation basically amounts to:

“she concentrates really hard and whoever she likes starts winning”

The Republic decides the solution is to send us directly into the Star Forge itself

The Star Forge is YET ANOTHER hallway with enemies.

walk forward

fight Sith

walk forward

fight droids

walk forward

fight more Sith

for an extremely long amount of time.

Eventually we confront Bastila again.

She talks about how much stronger she’s become, immediately loses the fight, and then suddenly both she and Revan start talking about how much they’ve always loved each other.

Which felt incredibly unearned.

Their romance never mattered throughout the story and then suddenly becomes emotionally central during the last ten minutes.

Still, Bastila turns back to the light side and redirects her Battle Meditation toward the Republic fleet, allowing them to start winning the battle.

We continue deeper into the Star Forge until finally confronting Malak.

Who, for some reason, has several captive Jedi floating around the room that he somehow recovered from Dantooine despite actively bombing the planet from orbit earlier in the game.

I should've stopped questioning the logic hours ago.

During the fight Malak repeatedly drains life energy from the captive Jedi whenever he gets weak.

I later learned you can actually destroy the captive Jedi beforehand to prevent him from healing.

Meaning I accidentally fought the hardest possible version of Malak completely unintentionally.

Still beat him though.

The Republic wins.

The Sith lose.

There’s an award ceremony.

Everyone claps.

Credits roll.

And honestly?

The ending kind of confirmed most of the issues I’d already been having with the story.

Revan’s redemption feels unearned because it wasn’t truly their choice.

Bastila and Revan’s romance barely exists until the ending suddenly insists it matters deeply.

Malak never evolves beyond generic evil Sith man yelling about power.

Maybe I’m spoiled.

I got to experience newer Star Wars games like Jedi: Fallen Order and Outlaws near release, and those games did a much better job pulling me into their characters and relationships.

There were believable friendships.

Conflicting motivations.

Good people making bad decisions.

Villains with actual depth beyond “I am evil.”

KOTOR, by comparison, often feels emotionally underdeveloped despite its massive reputation.

That said, I DID enjoy parts of it.

The droids were consistently great.

Korriban was genuinely interesting.

But overall the game was dragged down for me by tedious combat, frustrating controls, shallow characterization, and a story that rarely felt as deep as it thought it was.

Final score:

Immediately upon landing we discover that Czerka Corporation has apparently been working with the Sith the entire time.

The authoritarian right-wing militant regime aligned with the hyper-capitalist slavers.

Shocking.

Absolutely nobody could have predicted this alliance between evil corporations and fascists.

The Czerka workers mention the collapse of their Kashyyyk operation and openly discuss whether continuing Wookiee slavery is still profitable enough to justify the losses.

So I’m glad helping overthrow the corporation there actually mattered beyond morality points.

We enter the settlement of Dreshdae where everyone immediately recognizes the Ebon Hawk.

Apparently this ship gets passed around the galaxy like your mom (haha), meaning whoever currently owns it gets treated like a celebrity.

Conveniently, this benefits me.

We eventually meet the Sith named Yuthura Ban, who informs us we need a token from a registered Sith student in order to access the surrounding ruins where the Star Map may be hidden.

She refuses to help us acquire one.

Fortunately, a group of Sith hopefuls nearby are currently murdering random civilians for fun in order to prove themselves worthy of the academy.

You know.

Normal KOTOR Sith behavior. They'll fit right in among Malak and Bandon.

So I kill them and take their tokens instead.

Yuthura then escorts us into the Sith Academy where we meet the academy master, Uthar Wynn.

Uthar explains that in order to impress him we must either manipulate, betray, or kill people, retrieve ancient Sith relics.

Very normal educational environment.

Before entering the tombs, Yuthura secretly approaches me and reveals she wants to overthrow Uthar during the final trial.

Apparently she believes she’s been overlooked for advancement despite being one of the academy’s strongest members.

Her plan is simple.

We both enter the final tomb alone with him.

We kill him.

She's suddenly the headmistress now.

Honestly this is probably the most functional climbing of the corporate ladder I've seen.

I agree to help her and head into the tombs.

And honestly?

This was probably my favorite section of the entire game.

The Korriban tombs are the first time the game really made me feel like I was exploring ancient history instead of just moving between combat arenas.

The atmosphere is genuinely pretty decent.

Ancient traps.

Buried Sith Masters.

Half-forgotten artifacts.

Old stories hidden inside ruins.

Environmental story telling.

THIS is the kind of stuff I wanted from an Old Republic game.

I would absolutely play an entire spin-off game about exploring ancient Sith tombs and off world temples as some non-force adept archaeologist.

Honestly, give me a Tomb Raider style game starring Doctor Aphra immediately.

I will say though, the planet has an aggressively “Egyptian planet” aesthetic in the funniest possible early-2000s sci-fi way.

KOTOR really did:

water planet

city planet

forest planet

Egypt planet

Which is weirdly common in older sci-fi games.

We already had:

Manaan = water planet

Taris = city planet

Kashyyyk = forest planet

and now Korriban = evil Egypt planet

This is not even specifically a KOTOR criticism.

I just think it’s hysterical that “Egypt planet” was once considered an essential worldbuilding category.

Eventually we gather far more Sith artifacts than necessary and return to Uthar, who finally grants us access to the final tomb.

The main obstacle inside is a massive pool of acid blocking the path forward.

To solve this I head left and encounter…

a Tower of Hanoi puzzle.

For those unfamiliar, it’s the puzzle where you move stacked rings between poles without placing larger rings on smaller ones.

In other words, the Sith apparently protected their darkest secrets with a children’s daycare activity.

Now luckily I’ve done this puzzle before so it wasn’t difficult.

It was just incredibly funny.

Especially because after solving it, the reward was basically nothing.

On the opposite side of the tomb I instead encounter two massive Terentateks.

Since the game forces me to enter the tomb alone, this fight was slightly harder than usual.

Unfortunately “slightly harder” in KOTOR still mostly means:

pause

heal

spam abilities

repeat

After killing them, I obtain two ancient Sith relics:

a fire grenade

and an ice grenade

Which raises a lot of questions about ancient Sith technology.

Mostly

why are grenades sitting in thousand-year-old tombs.

I throw the ice grenade into the acid pool, freezing it solid and allowing me to cross.

Beyond it waits my initiation gift

a Sith lightsaber.

I return to the entrance where Yuthura finally turns on Uthar and announces her betrayal.

At which point I immediately betray BOTH of them.

They call me a fool for trying to fight them simultaneously.

Then they both die almost immediately.

Which is admittedly disappointing because the game spent a long time building this confrontation up only for it to end like every other boss fight:

very quickly.

Still, Korriban was easily my favorite planet overall.

The lore was stronger.

The puzzles were more engaging.

The choices felt more impactful.

I even managed to convince several Sith students to abandon the dark side entirely, which made my actions feel more meaningful than:

“kill thing because quest marker said so.”

Ignoring my continued issues with the combat and movement systems, this is the first section of the game where I genuinely understood the potential of the Old Republic era.

There’s something really compelling about digging through forgotten tombs and piecing together the lives of ancient Sith Lords, smugglers, and fallen empires.

A Sith capital ship called The Leviathan has us completely dead to rights, and the game gives me a choice of who stays behind to rescue the crew after capture.

For plot reasons, apparently only ONE person can do this.

Naturally, I choose T3-M4 because he's small, fast, good at hacking, and already the most competent member of this team

Meanwhile Bastilla, Carth, and I are dragged before Saul Karath, Carth’s former mentor during the Mandalorian Wars.

Saul interrogates me while threatening to shock Bastilla every time I refuse to answer honestly.

Now despite the game giving me almost no reason to actually like Bastilla so far, I feel bad but still refuse to cooperate because we do not negotiate with terrorists.

During the interrogation Saul casually reveals that Malak destroyed the Jedi Enclave on Dantooine.

I immediately become skeptical.

Bastilla tells me to trust him despite saying that massive loss of life should create a disturbance in the Force.

Which feels odd considering in Star Wars: Episode III, Revenge of the Sith, Yoda senses individual Jedi dying across the galaxy during Order 66.

You would THINK an entire Jedi enclave being vaporized would produce a similar reaction.

Instead the game points out it's own plot hole, shrugs, and moves on.

Saul informs us Malak is on his way, but says it’ll take some time before he arrives.

Cut to T3-M4.

A fellow droid attempts to hack him, which T3 responds to by essentially cyberbullying it until it explodes via malware.

T3 zips through the Leviathan opening security doors and freeing the crew while proving once again that the droids are better than the meatbags. (Thanks to HK-47 for the anti-human slur)

After regrouping, Bastilla, Carth, and I make our way toward the bridge in order to unlock the hangar doors.

Unfortunately the final door is locked.

Which requires a detour.

Which requires a spacewalk.

Meaning the return of the painfully slow environmental movement sections from Manaan.

Now unlike Manaan, this section contributes ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

There are:

>no enemies

>no puzzles

>no hazards

>no meaningful dialogue

It is literally just slowly walking in a straight line through space because apparently the developers thought:

“You know what this section needs?

Less momentum.”

Regardless, we eventually reach the bridge where Saul Karath waits with several Sith troopers and Dark Jedi.

Saul taunts Carth a bit before combat starts.

And honestly?

This is the first fight in the entire game that gave me any actual trouble.

Bastilla died almost immediately.

Carth got reduced to roughly half health.

But then I discovered Advanced Lightsaber Throw, which turns the fight from fair to trivial.

Saul eventually falls, but before dying he whispers something to Carth that sends him into an immediate rage.

Carth starts cursing out Bastilla and the Jedi Council, accusing them of hiding the truth from us the entire time.

Naturally my character asks:

“What truth?”

To which Bastilla responds:

“I’ll explain later.”

Which is the narrative equivalent of putting a blanket over something and yelling “DON’T LOOK AT THAT YET.”

We unlock the hangar and attempt to escape.

Then Malak shows up.

And finally reveals the big secret:

the player character is actually Darth Revan.

Now honestly, if you’ve been paying even the slightest amount of attention, this reveal is about as shocking as discovering the suspicious amnesiac Force prodigy personally connected to Revan’s disappearance might secretly be Revan.

The game then immediately drains all remaining subtlety out of the moment by replaying EVERY previous hint in a montage like it’s worried the audience got distracted jingling keys in front of their own face.

Then it somehow gets EVEN LESS subtle by showing Revan removing his mask in a flashback and revealing:

surprise.

It was me the whole time.

The four of us then proceed to have a surprisingly calm and cordial conversation about the fact that I used to be one of the most feared Sith Lords in the galaxy.

Honestly everyone handles this information WAY too well.

Unfortunately the reunion is interrupted when Malak freezes Bastilla and Carth in place before attacking me directly.

I get him to half health almost immediately, at which point he runs away.

Which makes him feel even MORE like a sad excuse for a Darth Vader cosplayer.

I chase him through another set of corridors, beat him up AGAIN, and then Bastilla suddenly intervenes and tells us to flee while she holds him off.

For some reason, my character actually listens to this instead of helping her finish off the primary antagonist while he’s weakened.

So Carth and I leave Bastilla behind and escape aboard the Ebon Hawk.

After returning to the ship, I explain to the crew that I am apparently Darth Revan.

And honestly?

Everyone takes this information shockingly well.

Like I’m pretty sure if my friend suddenly revealed they used to be space Hitler I’d have at least a FEW follow-up questions.

Now here’s my issue with this whole sequence:

Bastilla sacrifices herself for the Star Forge, but the game still hasn’t properly explained what the Star Forge actually IS, what it DOES, or why it matters beyond:

“Go find it.”

So the emotional weight doesn’t really land for me because the stakes still feel weirdly vague this far into the story.

Why are we prioritizing finding the final Star Map over killing Malak when we literally had the opportunity?

Why is Bastilla sacrificing herself for something we barely understand?

The game keeps trying to build urgency without fully explaining why I should feel urgent.

And that kind of summarizes my feelings on the story overall.

It constantly tries to be subtle before immediately explaining itself five more times.

It hints at mysteries and then panics that the audience might not understand them.

Immediately it’s clear there’s a diplomatic dilemma going on.

We run into Republic and Sith representatives arguing in public, where the Republic agent explains that the Selkath, a species of catfish-people, maintain strict neutrality in the ongoing war.

This is because they control the entire galaxy’s supply of Kolto, the most potent healing substance currently known.

Meaning both the Sith and Republic are forced to play nice or risk losing access to the space Tylenol.

A lot of Manaan revolves around a winding side questline, which ive avoided talking about up to this point, so I’m mostly sticking to the main story content here.

I head to the Republic embassy, where they immediately tell me they may help locate the Star Map…

but first I have to do something for them.

Shocking.

Apparently the Sith intercepted a Republic submersible droid and they need its data recovered quickly.

They hand me a lead on an access card for the Sith embassy, which requires completing a “security puzzle” that amounts to doing basic math.

As a former chemistry major, this ancient Sith encryption technology was unfortunately no match for basic addition and multiplication.

I infiltrate the Sith base, fight my way through a handful of guards, and eventually discover several slaughtered Selkath.

I retrieve a token from one of the bodies and move into the next room, where surviving Selkath reveal the Sith have been secretly training young Selkath in the ways of the Force in order to infiltrate the government through political puppets.

The Selkath don’t fully understand they’re being manipulated until I hand over the token and a datapad from the Sith master literally explaining the entire evil plan in writing

Very convenient that they just had their secret plans lying around.

I retrieve the Republic droid data and leave the base.

Only to immediately get arrested.

Apparently entering the Sith embassy and leaving behind a hallway full of corpses violated local law.

I’m brought before the Selkath court and decide to represent myself.

I explain the Sith grooming operation, present the evidence, and the judges immediately acquit me of all charges.

Upon my arrival back at the embassy, the Republic ambassador thanks me for returning the data and then immediately reveals the Republic has secretly violated the neutrality treaty by operating an illegal underwater mining facility.

Communication with the facility was lost after workers uncovered ancient ruins beneath the ocean floor.

Multiple rescue teams were sent afterward.

None returned.

Naturally this now becomes my problem.

The Republic loans us a submarine, and I bring:

T3-M4 for hacking and Jolee Bindo to spam force heal while I take care of the actual fighting.

We descend to the facility and discover a surviving mercenary explaining that the Selkath workers suddenly became feral and started killing non-Selkath personnel.

Eventually I locate an environmental suit allowing me to travel across the ocean floor.

And this is where the game became psychologically damaging.

Movement underwater is ATROCIOUS.

In a game where movement already feels like briskly jogging through knee high snow, the underwater sections somehow reduce it further into a halfhearted shuffle.

Turning interrupts causes you to completely stop.

Everything is absurdly far apart.

The environment is almost entirely empty.

You slowly trudge through the ocean while periodically getting attacked by Firaxa, giant shark-like creatures that are immediately defeated by a sonic pulse from your suit.

They aren’t dangerous.

They are merely another inconvenience.

But eventually enough mild inconveniences stack together into one major inconvenience.

After approximately twelve centuries of underwater walking, I encounter surviving scientists who explain that a giant Firaxa has been attacking the mining rig and is likely the reason the Selkath became aggressive.

I’m given two choices. Either poison the giant creature, or destroy the mining infrastructure.

I choose to destroy the rig.

Mostly because at this point the mining operation had annoyed me enough that I was emotionally siding with the fish monster.

I complete the environmental puzzle, blow up the injector, and the massive Firaxa peacefully allows me to pass deeper into the ruins.

Beyond it lies the Star Map.

Upon leaving, we’re confronted by Darth Bandon, or as I continue to call him internally, Mr. Brandon.

Do not ask how this man got here.

We are at the bottom of the ocean.

There is one submarine docking bay.

Only our submarine is there.

On second thought, maybe he got dropped off and then they left like a mom leaving their kid for a sleep over.

My character dramatically recognizes him from the tutorial section where he killed a Republic soldier.

I, meanwhile, genuinely did not remember he that was him.

He looks so aggressively generic that I didn't commit him to memory.

He and his two lackeys immediately die in yet another extremely easy boss fight.

We return to the surface where I am once AGAIN arrested by the Selkath because apparently every major event on this planet somehow becomes a courtroom tv show.

I explain that I destroyed the mining rig in order to save the giant Firaxa.

The judges suddenly become extremely interested upon learning the creature may be the ancient progenitor of their species.

They acquit me, once again.

As a certain space fascist once said:

“I love democracy.”

We return to the Ebon Hawk and prepare for the next planet.

At this point in the game, the amount of tedious busywork is really starting to wear on me.

Even something as simple as a fast travel system would massively improve the experience because Manaan involved so much slow backtracking that I started feeling like I was being punished.

The characterization also continues to disappoint me.

Darth Bandon showed up, killed some random people, appeared again, instantly died, and now his storyline is over.

Meanwhile Jolee Bindo’s characterization so far has mostly been:

I am old.

I am intentionally abrasive.

this reminds me of another story from my past.

I’ve now stolen the Ebon Hawk from the surprisingly Italian-sounding crime lord Davik Kang. Genuinely, this man talks like a Chicago mobster. Every time he opened his mouth I expected him to say “You come to me... on the day of my daughter's wedding...”

The gang has now expanded to include:

>Bastila Shan, Jedi prodigy and professional whiner

>T3-M4, an Astromech who is the greatest thing in the galaxy

>and Canderous Ordo, who currently has the personality depth of a filled in swimming pool

Unfortunately, getting here was not smooth.

I somehow managed to progress past THREE scripted sequences without triggering any of them. I ended up in the sewers before even meeting Mission Vao, meaning I literally could not rescue Zaalbar because the game forgot to introduce me to half the plot.

So naturally I had to reload an old save and lose multiple hours of progress.

Then I accidentally talked to the wrong NPC first. Because I had already explored so much, I’d found the items he needed beforehand, which caused an entire camp to relocate before I finished their main questline. Once again: reload save.

Then came my favorite bug.

There’s a scene where a man is being mauled by a rakghoul while trapped behind a gate. Since I’m trying to do a Light Side run, I heroically chose to lower the gate and save him.

The cutscene plays dramatically. Carth and my character rush forward to protect the innocent civilian.

And then…

nothing happens.

Everyone just stands there breathing heavily while the civilian politely waits for death to arrive.

I reload the save. Same thing.

I reload AGAIN. Same thing.

Finally I choose the Dark Side option and leave the gate closed so the man gets violently ripped apart in front of his friends.

THAT cutscene works perfectly.

The game apparently decided this random man needed to die or else I could not progress

After finally getting through the sewers and rescuing Zaalbar, Carth starts opening up about the Mandalorian War. During this conversation he says the war ended five years ago.

The VERY NEXT loading screen says it ended four years ago.

So either Carth forgot one full year of his own military trauma, or the narrator is lying to me.

We later infiltrate the Black Vulkar base to secure a better accelerator for our swoop bike, allowing us to enter the race to win Bastila back from the gang.

I somehow won on my first try, which triggered a vision of Bastila confronting the Sith Lord Darth Revan.

What’s funny is that her dialogue in this scene is delivered with absolutely zero energy. She’s confronting a genocidal dark lord and sounds like she’s mildly suggesting someone not wear shoes in the house in all lowercase like “stop it revan”.

Meanwhile the music and visuals are acting like this is supposed to be the most dramatic moment in galactic history.

Afterward, Bastila tells me I might be Force sensitive because I’ve been having visions. Which immediately became confusing later when some random Sith officer instantly senses the Force in me with no problem.

So apparently this highly trained Jedi prodigy is less perceptive than unnamed Sith General 2.

Eventually we meet back up with Canderous, who offers to help us steal Davik’s ship, gives us a droid, and explains how to escape the Sith blockade for basically no reason whatsoever.

Even Carth, whose primary personality trait is distrust, has no problem with this.

We then head to the droid shop, where I threaten the life of a minimum wage employee because I can’t afford the droid otherwise.

And this is where we recruit the BEST character in the game, T3-M4.

I think it says a lot that my favorite companion so far is the one incapable of speaking Galactic Basic. The writers physically cannot make him annoying because his dialogue consists entirely of beeps and whistles.

And honestly?

Hell yeah little man.

T3 helps us infiltrate the Sith base, where we slowly fight our way to the top floor and steal the launch codes needed to escape Taris.

Around this point we also meet Darth Malak, who currently feels like mom saying we have Darth Vader at home.

They’re clearly trying to invoke Vader’s presence, but Malak lacks the same intimidation factor. Vader would casually murder someone for questioning him. Malak just vaguely threatens to maybe kill his admiral, and then allows the guy who actively is showing he would question his orders to hold a high position of power. This is exactly why Vader is so feared. Anyone who questions him is cutdown and replaced immediately without hesitation.

He eventually orders the bombardment of the entire planet because he’s impatient searching for Bastila, which feels less terrifying, and more like a child throwing a Scrabble board because they're losing. He simply feels like he's evil for the sake of being evil.

Eventually Canderous brings us to Davik’s estate, where Davik tells us not to leave our room or his guards will kill us on sight.

We immediately leave the room.

Naturally this results in us accidentally walking in on a guy trying to hook up with an alien masseuse before we finally locate the Ebon Hawk.

Davik and his bounty hunter Calo Nord confront us at the ship, but the fight ends almost instantly when the Sith bombardment collapses the ceiling onto them.

Honestly? Kind of underwhelming for what felt like it was supposed to be a major showdown. They spent the whole game thusfar telling us how crossing this guy is a fate worse than death.

Now for my biggest issue with the game so far:

the combat.

The best way I can describe it is “asynchronous turn-based combat,” which is a nerdier way of saying it somehow manages to feel both tedious AND mind-numbingly boring at the same time.

You click attack. Your character jogs over and auto-fights somebody. Except half the time your attacks miss for reasons unknown.

If you accidentally click something wrong during combat, your character may suddenly stop fighting entirely and just stand there getting beaten to death while you desperately try to make them remember how to punch someone again.

Special attacks require menu scrolling. Healing requires menu scrolling. Everything pauses your attacks. Half the difficulty comes from fighting the controls instead of the enemies.

The combat somehow creates the illusion of active gameplay while letting the AI handle everything.

Since this is my first time, I'm looking to maximize damage. I chose a soldier and maxed strength, self healing, dual melee weapons, and flurry for the added attacks.