"Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords" Why Did They Have to Make This?

    Why, just why. I'm going to be honest with you, this game is a struggle to play. It's simply too old, and too unfinished to released in the state its in. Which is even more ironic when one considers the fact that they tried rereleasing this game in the year 2023 for some god-forsaken reason, then back tracked on promises to improve on the original game, and in compensation provided the uncompleted game that they tried to release almost 20 years later without improvements.

    Seriously, what is going on with this series. From a remake being in development hell, to this game being released on Nintendo Switch, it all just baffles me. The same issues that plagued the first game remain here, the combat system is archaic to say the least, the game is just a complete eyesore, it becomes ridiculously easy and what's worse, the story is not better. 

    I mean one could say, "they added new features, only improving on the already proven formula in the first game" but to that I say, how did these features actually help? Aside form the fact that they reused the same ship, multiple companions, and multiple worlds, the best new feature was, the workbench? Throughout my playthrough, I had multiple people harp on the importance of repair, "trust me bro, it's vital you have to spend a bunch of points on it" only to find out that if you play on the normal difficulty like I did, it's a lot easier to just forget everything. 

    All I did was simply buy whatever I needed from whatever merchant was there, and it all just kind of worked, even when it came to medpacks I rarely used the chem lab, half the time I killed enemies quickly, and other than spamming life support packs in the final battles, nothing really fazed me like that. I suppose it's nice that they did up the level cap, because it makes the beginning of the game that much less of a slog when you don't have to save your levels wisely because there's only so many Jedi skills you can get otherwise.

    Though, frankly, even if you couldn't receive most Jedi skills, your companions would have anyways. Why are over 50% of my companions able to become Jedi? In the first game, characters who could use the force were rare, and it was a treat to be able to mix and match with a gunslinger/scoundrel with a force user in my party. However, in this new game, pretty much everyone you meet you can teach to be excellent with a lightsaber, and it just becomes kind of boring.

    Don't get me started on the influence system, which is so so dumb. The "lore" rewards you gain from them are minimal at best, and even still you pretty much have to purposely be an asshole to gain influence with certain party members. Personally, I enjoyed the first game, with its companion quests, which allowed you to explore their pasts, without feeling the need to make sure you had the right companion along because they only gained influence from certain events.

    What I'm saying is, the story of the last game is what held it together, and with the story falling apart very quickly before my eyes, so did everything else. Legitimately, at the very end everything is so messy, even with a restored content mod meant to remedy it. I still don't know what happened to Bao Dur, apparently he died, but my game never showed me that so I wouldn't know, even at the very end Kreia doesn't either. It's almost comical, not to mention how you can skip major parts of the story by accident by walking a bit too close and triggering certain cutscenes.

Final Score: 70/100

    I will say this, running the game at 1080p and not crashing every time I alt-tabbed made it slightly better, but otherwise, why did they rush this game. I mean it had potential, but the story is weaker and I disliked any of the new changes they added. I mean I can see why both this game and its predecessor had hype, but at the same time, in this day and age its unwarranted and the game is in dire need of a complete remake.