Today’s game is Knights of the Old Republic. I played this like back in 2018 when it was on Game Pass and made it to the academy. Unfortunately I believe it was pulled from Game Pass (one of the reasons I never went back to it and one of the many reasons I avoid game pass now). Because of that I never got a chance to finish it. Fast forward about last year and I bought a copy. Now fast forward to now and I’ve really been wanting to play an RPG. I’m not sure if that will scratch that itch but this seemed the most appealing to me so it’s what I went with.
My guy is named Riblet. There’s not any particular reason behind that, I just looked at him and thought “yeah. He kind of looks like a Riblet.” So that’s what I named him. I made him a soldier. I remember on my last save I went with Scoundrel because I thought they were cool but I also really struggled in combat. So hopefully here I should do a little bit better.
The combat is fun. I like the concept though I do feel like it’s a lot of “stand there and trade shots until one party wins”. Not bad but definitely nothing amazing.
Admittedly after crashing on the planet I didn’t do a whole lot. I spent most the time trying to figure out how to get down to the undercity. I wandered into a bar, watched an arena match, wandered out, fought off some debt collectors, then wandered over to an elevator where I got yelled at followed by me trying to enter a military base. So far a lot of wandering around blind. It’s been a lot more fun than I was expecting. Hopefully next time I play though I’ll actually be able to find my way underground.
Saw that hallway and that Quarren and immediately knew, this is KOTOR. The thing about the combat in this game–which was like the one thing I hated about the game–is that it’s actually all dice rolls under the hood, and the animations are completely meaningless. Like, it doesn’t matter if you physically move your character out of the way of a blaster shot, the dice already got rolled before the shot was rendered, so if your save roll failed then you’re still taking damage anyway.
Reminds me that a couple years ago I went back to Morrowind for the first time since I was a kid. Lot of nostalgia built up, and I still like it for what it is.
I hit some enemy (one of them little bugs on the trail to Balmorra) and the game’s like “you missed”. Excuse me? No, I didn’t. I modded that out because that system only makes sense in turn-based RPGs or Disco-esque dialog that can easily and visually account for it; not in an action RPG. Damage resistance (or even immunity) can be fine, but attacks that visually hit but the game says miss never feel fair. Definitely a quirk of early games in the genre.
I do overall prefer its expanded skill and gear system over later entries’ more simplified ones, though.
Hello me! your words were eerily similar to what i was gonna say.
i loved the dice rolls! this is how i also played sumnoner! let the game almost play itself during fights while i eat a cheese ball or something
The thing that gets me is the disconnect between the combat animations and what’s actually happening as far as the game is concerned. If an attack visibly misses my character, especially because I specifically moved to dodge it, I expect to not take damage, y’know?
For contrast, Witcher 1 uses the same engine, but CDPR tweaked it so that while attacking is still all dice rolls that don’t really sync with your animations, you can interrupt combat at any time with a dodge, and if an attack animation misses a hitbox then no dice get rolled at all.