Knights of the Old Republic is an RPG released in the early 2000s. - Style: CRPG - Mood: Space Opera - Type: Branching RPG - Developer: Bioware # Notability A literally life-changing game for me. Experimenting with it gave me the ability to see that there are other approaches to life than the one I believed in at the time. Introduced perhaps the coolest and most under-utilized character in all of Star Wars: Revan. # Philosophy Takes place 4,000 years before Star Wars Episode III. That's not a typo. Seriously four millennia. Called the Old Republic era, hence the title. # OS Support - Windows (2003) - XBox (2003) - Mac OS - iOS - Android - Nintendo Switch (2021) # Features - Complex and varied storylines with very different experiences and potential for different party members, two people could experience almost completely different narratives - Built on top of the classic Star Wars D20 tabletop RPG system - Good writing (but [[KotOR II]]'s was better) - Several unique classes, story-based multiclassing, 6 available to the player character - XP-based progression, combat is a large part of it, but XP is gained from other activities as well such as successful negotiation - Very moddable and absolutely massive modding community with tons of cut content restored and entirely new sections - Alignment based on conversation choices - Mid-game twist is actually amazing # Foibles - Unergonomic UI, like it's really awkward compared to any other game in the genre, including prior Bioware games (mostly fixed by [[KotOR II]]) - Perhaps it is just because of how many times I have played it, but I think this game has some of the weakest characters of any classic Bioware game - which is still better than 90% of any other game ever released - The stealth skills are nearly useless - Mines sometimes explode due to bad pathfinding, even when they are identified - Many maps are huge but almost completely empty, particularly Dantooine's fields and Tattooine's deserts, its clear that either the hardware or the artists were not ready to handle a mass of 3D assets, though this might have also been due to issues with the deadlines # References # Inspirations Proceeded by Bioware's other games. # Inspired [[Mars: War Logs]] is clearly heavily inspired by Bioware games from this era. Inspired an absolutely staggering amount of fan fiction. My favorite is one that I haven't been able to find, but it was a female Revan who never actually lost their memory but was playing along with the Jedi's plot, but slowly does have a change of heart throughout the storyline. A remake of KotOR was under development, but is delayed indefinitely (until at least 2025) after an internal demo was rejected by the publisher and IP owner, with the Art and Design directors being fired and possibly even the development studio itself.