The Ringer-Verse - Revisiting 'Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic' on its 20th Anniversary

Episode Date: July 10, 2023

It's time to turn back the clock, as Ben and Jessica take it back to BioWare's seminal game, 'Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic' as the iconic game reaches its 20th anniversary (06:56). They discuss the game's impact on the role-playing game landscape, the greater Star Wars lore, and one of the biggest twists in gaming history (56:22). Hosts: Ben Lindbergh and Jessica Clemons Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Bill Simmons from The Ringer, and this is a podcast called The Rewatchables. We have been doing it. Really since 2017, it started with how much we love the movie Heat. We decided to structure a whole podcast with categories, most rewatchable scene. Who on the movie, Apex Mountain, what age the best? But here's the thing. If you want the full archive, you can hear them only on Spotify for free, by the way. So make sure to follow the rewatchables on Spotify.

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wage a constant war within you the balance is tipped one way now but it can easily be tipped back savior conqueror hero villain you are all things reverend and yet you are nothing in the end you belong to neither the light nor the darkness you will forever stand alone. And welcome into The Ringerverse, your Nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. I am Ben Lindberg, a senior editor at The Ringer, and I'm old enough to remember when BioWare role-playing games used to say, you must gather your party before venturing forth. And as always, my party consists of a co-host whose presence makes every podcast a party.

Unless she's secretly a Sith Lord whose memory was wiped and replaced with a new nicer identity, Her name is Jessica Clemens. Hello, Jessica. Hi, even if my memory is wiped, I'd still be a Sith Lord. I think I'd still go to the dark side. This is the only time that I did not try to go to the dark side. We all have to make that decision every day in our lives and also in our digital lives. Absolutely.

You've chosen the dark side, and I support that. It's more fun. I think it is more fun. It's more chaotic. It definitely is. It's a path to quick rewards. And also, sometimes. tragedy. But last time, I accused you of being a secret scroll, and now I'm accusing you of being

a secret Sith Lord. So this is no way to treat a co-host, except you're not a secret Sith Lord. You're right out in the open, it sounds like. Yeah, exactly. I'm not hiding anything. I know that I'm a bad person. This is the third edition of the regular gaming pods that Darth Clemens and I are hosting here on the Ring ofverse. And guess what? We are close to having a name, closer at least. I know it's taken us a while. we've picked a few favorites and now we're just waiting for the all clear from corporate to tell you what we chose. So it's just a lot of layers of approval involved here. We can't just wing it and call ourselves something. We got to run it up the flagpole, run it up the chain, get the go-ahead.

So sometime soon, the ringer-vers trio of the house of our The Midnight Boys and Mid-Edition will become a quartet. But really, what's in a name? Sometimes you go by one name for a while, only to learn that the Jedi Council was hiding a different name from you all along. What matters were, are your actions and choices. And today, we are making the choice to talk about a stone cold classic Star Wars, Knights of the Old Republic, which turns 20 years old this week. Just, I know I'm an aging millennial, but I'm not sure I've ever felt as old as what I realized that a game I played and loved in high school was about to be 20. Now I know how Van feels, I guess. Just put me out to pasture.

No, no, no, we need it. We need you. It can't be that old. That means that I am a lot older than that. That's just sort of a scary thought. That's the part of you that I love Ben, is how old you are. No, it's that when it does come to the games like this, it's a classic game where you played it and you were like, I remember every moment of this in the reveals and everything I came with it. Whereas I, a very young lad, didn't have a.

the opportunity to play this game. And so I played it now as an adult. And I'm excited to talk about it because I do really enjoy it thoroughly. And I come from a different perspective than you do on this game. So that's why I'm really excited to talk about it. Perfect. We're going to bring different perspectives to a lot of games that we play and talk about this podcast. I think that's a good way to do it. If we were all just reminiscing nostalgically about the same games from the same times, that'd be boring. So we're bringing different views here. And we launched this show in the middle of summer showcase season and a bunch of blockbuster debuts, Diablo and Street Fighter and Final Fantasy. So we've had our hands full with announcements and new releases, but from time to time,

we want to turn back the clock to talk about a landmark game that meant a lot to one or both of us and hopefully a lot of Ringiverse listeners and what better game to begin these replay value lookbacks with then the truly iconic Cotor. We throw that term around. That adjective perhaps gets overuse, but it is fitting when it comes to Cotor. But before we rewind to a really long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, a few Ring averse programming reminders. On Wednesday, the Midnight Boys will continue Rebecca Ferguson week at the Ringiverse by riding their motorcycles into the studio to discuss Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1, as well as Secret Invasion Episode 4. On Friday, Haasovar will review their best of 2023 so far.

and this weekend won Jessica Clements, if that is her real name, will have her latest secret invasion video breakdown. And Jess, I'm enjoying your videos more than the series itself so far. You're doing a great job. That's not that high of a praise. That's not that I have a phrase. But I also like when you said if that's your real name, I like the idea of going by Darth Clemens.

Okay. And I imagine me looking exactly like Darth Maldo. I copied every part of his look. But yes, no, it's fun doing the videos. Go watch them. Go listen to me. And it's shorter than the episodes of Secret Invasion. There's that, yes.

Yeah, instead of Secret Invasion, just watch the video breakdown. Save yourself some time. I'm giving you the Easter eggs. I'm recapping the most important parts. So it's a little bit easier. I'll be Samuel Jackson. I'll be your Samuel Jackson if you want. And remember, in addition,

to following the show at Ringerverse on all the socials or most of the socials. I don't think we're on threads yet. Jomi's got to get on that. You can email me and Jess at Ringerverse Gaming at Gmail.com. We love hearing from you. Okay, Jess, are you ready to talk about an elegant game from a lower resolution age? Oh, God. Yes.

Okay. Yes, yes. I download. I'm so excited to get into this resolution. Right. So why are we talking about Kotar? Well, it's never a bad time to talk about. KOTOR. I could talk about KOTOR every week if I could find anyone to talk to me and listen

to me. But this week, as I said, it's the 20th anniversary. We love to recognize a round number here at the Ringer. Also, there's a remake of Kotor coming, though we don't know when. We'll get to that. And there's a renewed focus on the old republic these days at Disney and Lucasfilm. James Mangold, fresh off of directing Indiana Jones in the Dial of Destiny, will Indies' Add box office allowing the time traveling in another beloved Lucasfilm property with a prequel movie called Dawn of the Jedi that will make Cotor look like recent Star Wars history. This is going way back. We also have the Acolyte coming, which is later than Cotor Old Republic show. So we're going to get into the Old Republic and there will be opportunities at least for tie-ins potentially to Cotor.

And this is also a pivotal time for Star Wars video games. We have the expiration of the electronic arts exclusivity agreement. There might be a whole wave of Star Wars games coming. We have heard of some of them and previewed some of them. But it's an opportunity to take a big swing to strike off in some new directions like Cotor did 20 years ago. Perhaps future Star Wars games could learn a lesson from that. And we have the approaching release of Baldersgate 3, the next big blockbuster, which is an occasion to reminisce about BioWare. Baldersgate 3 is not developed by BioWare,

but of course, the first two games in that series were BioWare classics. That sort of set the stage and paved the path for Kotor. So there are a whole lot of reasons to talk about Kotor. It's not just that I love Kotor, although that's definitely part of it. But we want to go over the context for Kotor. What was going on when it came out, the making of the game, what made it great, what makes it great, how it holds up, what it's like to play it for the first time.

20 years later, what we want out of the remake, the original's legacy, and what Cotor can teach other Star Wars games and licensed games in general. So, spoiler warning, after 20 years, I think it's probably safe to spoil Cotor. Yes, 100%. If anyone, and if you guys want to fight someone, come find me. Come find me on this. It's been 20 years, two decades. We can spoil it. All right. Send your complaints to Darth Clements. Yes, go ahead. If you're the rare person, perhaps, who's been meaning to play Cotor for the past 20 years and has somehow avoided spoilers thus far, or maybe you're younger, you're waiting for the remake. Okay, that's understandable.

But we are going to get into the plot. We are going to get into a notable plot twist. So be warned. Now, here's your capsule summary of Cotor developed by BioWare, as I mentioned, which was then most famous for Baldur's Gate, directed by Casey Hudson, designed by James Olney. and written by Drew Carpicion. This was a BioWare and LucasArts joint, really the first Star Wars computer RPG, certainly single-player RPG.

It was announced way back in July 2000, that's 23 years ago. It entered development that year and was unveiled to the public as Cotor at E3 in May 2001, and instantly everyone was hyped for this game. It finally came out on July 15th, 2003 on Xbox and then that November for PC. And unlike a lot of 20-year-old games, it's still pretty accessible.

We were both able to play it easily and affordably. So it's playable on PC. There are mods out there if you want to make it prettier, but you can also play it on the latest Xbox platforms, backwards compatible. It's been ported to Mac and iOS and Android and Switch. So if you want to check it out after listening to us, there are ways you can do that without waiting.

for the remake. And at the time, it won numerous Game of the Year awards, as well as other awards for writing and character design and music and sound design. I would say it's the consensus Star Wars goat. It's the greatest Star Wars game of all time, right? I mean, even if it's not your personal favorite or it wasn't before you just recently played it, I think that's kind of the consensus, right? Like if you had to weigh what's the best Star Wars game ever, what do people in general think is the best Star Wars game. It's probably going to be Cotaur even after all these years, right? I can see that. I can see that. It's also, it's, it is, I will say it's one of, and maybe I'm being very dramatic. It is, sorry to say this. It is the only game. It's 20 years old, and I went

back to playing it. And I'm coming from a very mild Star Wars fan perspective. I love Star Wars. I've seen all of it, most of it. And I say most of it, because I miss a lot of the Clone Wars, but I watched it. And I love Star Wars. It's just the breadth of knowledge that Star Wars has. It's so hard for me to retain. And Codor was so original and so different that I was like, oh, this is new stuff to grasp on to. And I love that it's 4,000 years or so, whatever, behind what the movies are.

And it still has that little pieces. So it is, story-wise, it is so remarkable. It's such a good game in general. Star Wars, it being definitely the best Star Wars game. But in the world of just normal gaming, I was like, this is perfect. I'm obsessed with it. All right, this is great. I am old and decrepit.

You are youthful and vital. I'm a Star Wars sicko. You have a healthy relationship with the franchise. I do. That is probably the best way to explain it. I have the healthiest relationship with Star Wars, you guys. That is the best way to describe it. Not with Marvel, but with Star Wars, it's very healthy.

So when we did a Jedi Survivor pod on this feed a couple months ago, I said I thought that was the best Star Wars game in 20 years. I was careful to specify that I was not including Cotor in that 20 years because even now, whenever you see a ranking of the best Star Wars video games, Cotor is typically at the top. And it's hailed as not just maybe the best Star Wars game, but one of the best RPGs, one of the best licensed games, one of the best games, period. We don't have to qualify it. So as we noted, our experiences with Cotor and Star Wars games in general are a little bit different.

I was revisiting the game and I intended to just play it for a few hours. I picked up the switchport. As I said, I'm such a Star Wars sicko that I ended up replaying the whole thing. And you know what? Some parts of the game are definitely feeling their age, much like me, when I realized that this was the 20th anniversary of this game. But in other ways, this game still got it. How long did it take you to play through? I don't know exactly.

Compared to our recent plays of tiers. of the kingdom and Diablo and Final Fantasy. It was, I would say, a relatively compact. I don't know, maybe in the 20 to 30 hour range, probably, which feels like compared to the gigantic games we've been playing lately. Yeah, that's true. It felt like it flew by. That's true.

It definitely does compared to Diablo and Final Fantasy, where we have to watch the stories. This you can click through them if you want. But I also kept, which we might get into later, I kept running into like bugs. Yes, me too. Running into invisible walls. Or I get trapped between an invisible wall and my companion.

And I was like, okay, I need to switch into my companion. I unnatural, like so many times I had to switch into my companion to move out of the way. And so my main character could go around. And I was like, at first I was like, maybe this is just because it's on my PC. Maybe it's the times. But then someone was else. Yeah, someone else was like, no, no, no, this is normal. Yeah, that's part of the authentic Cotor experience.

Still loved it. You know, just what it was like to play in 2003. Really, Cotor 2, even more so. But yeah, bugs are part of the Cotor experience. Wait, even more bugs than Cotor 2? Oh, yes. Oh, no. Okay, keep going to go away.

But big picture, I love this game. Obviously, I have the childhood adolescent attachment to this game. But it sounds like you are not wondering what all the hype is about. can see why this game is beloved, even if you didn't play it at the same time or at the same stage of life that I and others did. Yeah. I still, it's, the story is so good. It's so good.

I love it. It's such a good story. And I don't know how they did, like, maybe it is because they chose this one piece from, like, a comic book, but I'm also like, how did they do this? It's so good. And the reveal made me be like, okay. Okay. All right, I love this.

So I don't understand how it worked, but it worked really well. It's such a good game. Yes, it did, and that aspect of it still does. So let's take everyone back to 2003. So the opening crawl for the Phantom Menace said turmoil has engulfed the Galactic Republic. And in 2003, turmoil had engulfed the Star Wars fandom. When is turmoil not engulfing fandom, I guess? But that was one of the times.

So you had poor receptions for the Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, to put it lightly, right? Attack of the Clones, probably the worst Star Wars movie, at least pre-Rise of Skywalker. We don't need to get into that conversation now, but at the time, at least. And you also had LucasArts just flooding the zone, just pumping out product. So-so Star Wars games at that time. Lots of movie tie-ins, phantom menace-themed games. from 2001 to 2003, I think there were 14 Star Wars games, some of which were good, and some of which were Racer Revenge or the Clone Wars or Super Bombad Racing.

We wouldn't have called them mid in 2003, but we probably would now, and that would be a generous term, right? And it was a tough time for young Ben Skywalker personally. I fell for Star Wars hard when I saw these special editions in. theaters, so I could not have been more hyped for the prequels, and then the prequels came out. And, you know, I watched a fifth a minute as many times in theaters, and I left the theaters on a high note. Oh, no.

I said, I left the theaters early. Well, oh, no, I would never. But the duel of the fates sent me home happy initially, and then I remembered the rest of the movie, and it did not quite meet my expectations, attack of the clones. same deal, if not worse. And I spent most of my time then also daydreaming about Star Wars galaxies, which was on the horizon, too, the first Star Wars massively multiplayer online RPG. And the initial reception to that game in June of 2003 wasn't that great either. Everyone was mad that they couldn't be a Jedi right away.

So there was a lot of Star Wars fatigue and disillusionment setting in at the time. Stop me if that sounds familiar. I'm learning about this. I played, okay, so I played Jedi Survivor. I played, I was a big racer person and like, that was like way, original racer's good, right? That was like, 99 maybe, yeah.

Yeah, I was like, that was before all these games started coming out that everyone hated. So I was like, oh, okay, I'm good. And I played Lego Star Wars. So I was like, my breadth of Star Wars video games are kind of very surface level, but I do hear everyone's not mean opinions, but not good opinions either.

Yeah. It was like decades went by with almost no new on-screen Star Wars, at least. And then after that extremely long wait, you would not necessarily say it was worth the weight in every way, right? So the future Star Wars slash Marvel comic book writer, Kieran Gillen,

he wrote a review of Cotor in 2003 for Eurogamer, and he started up by saying essentially, I hate Star Wars, right? because he was just over it at the time. He said, Knights of the Republic, however, take something that's been merchandised, franchised, and branded to death

over the last 25 years and makes it magical again. And he said it feels more like Star Wars than anything else has, right? It was like more Star Wars than the big budget on-screen Star Wars itself that George Lucas was still making, right? So coming when it did during that time of, of disappointments, Cotor, I think, especially stood out. It's like, this is the one, right?

This is the one that's bringing balance to the Star Wars universe. It's Cotor. Why can't they build the whole franchise out of Cotor? So I think that contributed to part of just how revered it is. So why does it feel like it's more of a Star Wars? It does feel more Star Wars than Star Wars. Yeah. Why is that?

Is it just because of the world just that we're visiting all these different places and the mission that is to destroy the Star Forger? Yeah. I think, yeah, at the time, it took a lot of cues from the original trilogy, right? And there was just a sense, at the time, at least, of like, this is boundless, and we can get in our ship, and we can explore the galaxy, and we can go to all these different planets, and it looks like Star Wars, but not exactly like the Star Wars we know, because it's set in this different time period.

So it was really fresh and exciting. It was an innovative take on Star Wars by Star Wars standards. at least by people who really loved and cared about the franchise and wanted to do it justice. Maybe that's it. It does. It's so good. I can't stop stressing that how good it is. Yeah, I'm mad about the bugs and codorph, too. Keep going. Okay. So I'll explain a little bit about the origins of the game, how this came to be. And I'm drawing partly on a book that Alex Kane wrote in 2019, that this game is so legendary. There's a book about it from Boss Fight book. came out a few years ago, and he talked to a lot of the people involved in making it.

And there were a lot of RPG fans at LucasArts at the time, and there'd never been a non-tabletop Star Wars RPG, and they wanted to run, right? Because they had grown up, a lot of people had grown up playing West Ends Star Wars, the role-playing game, the Dungeons and Dragons, you know, dice-based tabletop game that came out the first edition in 1987. and there hadn't really been a computer console game version of that. And so LucasArts was looking around wondering who can make a Star Wars RPG for us. And there was BioWare because Baldersgate had come out in 1998.

It really revitalized Western RPGs and PC RPGs in general. The sequel came out in 2000 and then Neverwinter Nights in 2002. So BioWare were sort of the modern masters of the RPG at the time. and they had worked with the Dungeons and Dragons license. And so they were the ones that you went to if you wanted a best-in-class RPG made with your source material. And BioWare was full of Star Wars fans who really were excited to be pitched by LucasArts. Now, here's sort of an interesting What If. Before Kotor, before they decided to take on that project,

BioWare was talking to George R.R. Martin about a video game version of a song of Ice and Fire, which would have been, I mean, that might have changed everything, right? If that had happened, if Byoware had made a legendary Game of Thrones style RPG before HBO made Game of Thrones, how would that change history, right? I don't know if, I don't know. And maybe I'm being a dramatic person again, you guys. Maybe there's the Sith in me. I don't know if it would have worked. I don't know if it would have worked because I think that was the, with maybe this is just also me.

For Codor, I was like, oh, yeah, I know the Star Wars universe somewhat. But like I'm going to go play this game. I know what we're going to be doing. It's going to be the Jedi's versus the Seas. Sure. And then it was a lot more than what I expected. And if I, I didn't read the books before I probably play this game. If the game would have came out in 2003, I definitely didn't read any of the Game of Thrones or anything.

So it's like I probably would have been just like confused. I would have been like, oh, this is a lot of overwhelming stuff. A lot of people, a lot of races that I don't understand. I'm not ready for it. So I think the show had to come out first for that game to be successful. Yeah. But that is my opinion. I wonder, because of course, it was seen as sort of unfilmable before it was filmed successfully,

and it also would have been challenging to make as a game, although maybe less challenging in some ways. If you have multiple player perspectives, maybe it would have lent itself to a game better. Or if it hadn't, if the game had flopped, then that would have tarnished the IP, potentially, then maybe we wouldn't have gotten Game of Thrones. We wouldn't have gotten binge mode. We might not have the ring of ours. It could have changed all of history. We can't do that.

We can't touch it. We can't go back in time and we couldn't have them do it. No, all right. We can't mess with that because we might not be here talking to you right now. We'd just be blipped out of existence. Okay. So, Byware, lots of Star Wars fans, as I said. And LucasArts kind of envisioned a Baldersgate style take on Star Wars, an isometric

perspective, kind of, you know, part top down. They wanted it to be Baldur's Gate in space. That's what everyone was expecting. and initially LucasArts floated the idea of a prequel setting that would tie into attack of the clones and Revenge of the Sith in progress, right? And that was rejected, I think, fortunately and wisely, because it would have imposed a tight timeline. That's one of the problems with movie tie-in games, right? You've got to get them ready for when the movie comes out, even if that means compromising quality. And you would have had to limit the scope.

You wouldn't have had as much freedom to determine your own. own morality. You know, you couldn't have decided Anakin Skywalker actually going to be a good guy. Forget about the whole Darth Vader thing. You know what? Forget it. We're taking it out. Yeah, there would have been a lot of constraints. And there was a LucasArts producer named Mike Gallo in the Kane book. He said it wouldn't have played to the strengths of bioware. Too much of the story would have been predetermined. It would have been like bowling with bumpers. You can't stray too far. Which arguably has been one of the problems with some recent Star Wars series, right? You know, Obi-Wan, for instance, you're definitely, you're bowling with bumpers, right?

Because there's a trilogy that comes before. There's a trilogy that comes after. You can't stray too far. So if Kotor, if BioWare had had to work within those constraints, there just would have been a lot less latitude to operate. And I don't know that they could have constructed as memorable a story. Just working within, we have to do what George Lucas says because he's making Revenge of the Sith. then we can't just throw a wrench into the prequel continuity. Do you think they could keep doing that, though?

I don't know. It's like Coder is such a good story that I'm like, oh, this one's really good. But if they chose a different story that people didn't really know of and tried to blow that world out, I don't know. I think a lot of it has to do with how they like interpreted it and did it. And if they tried doing it again today, it might not work as well. But it's, I think that specific story and whoever's like working on that made it work very well.

And maybe if they do want to do it, again. They could do it again. They have to be the exact same people, though. Right, sure. Yeah, no, it's definitely a risk. I mean, rewind thousands of years to characters we don't know and some planets we don't know in a conflict. We don't know it. That might not have worked. Star Wars fans might not have responded to that if it hadn't been done so carefully and so artfully. Also, at the same time, you had Star Wars galaxies coming out. That was set during the original trilogy era and came out just a few weeks before Kotor ultimately did. So that, again, kind of roped off that portion of the timeline, too.

So the solution was to go way back to the time of the Jedi Civil War, the second Sith war. And this was much more of a blank slate, not completely, because there was a series of comics called Tales of the Jedi that was published by Dark Horse in the 90s from 93 to 98. one of the runs of that series was actually called Knights of the Old Republic. So they definitely took some names and some of the premise and some of the connective tissue to those comics was pulled from this. But it kind of took place after those comics. But that was important because it kind of cracked open the door.

It was like, all right, we don't have to go into completely new territory here where we know nothing. We've already had this comic series so they could sort of pitch that to Lucas Archer, or LucasArts pitched to them and was confident that, okay, this is an completely uncharted territory. You can kind of take this framework and run with it. So Byware also decided that if you're going to make a Star Wars RPG, it can't look like Baldersgate. It's got to be cinematic. It's got to be 3D.

It's got to have full voiceovers, right? And it has to fuse that D&D-style dice system, the turn-based combat with Star Wars action, which doesn't look like that, right? So that was one of the big challenges. How do we port our existing strategic turn-based system and meld that with what people are used to with Star Wars, which is much more kinetic and dynamic and free-flowing? And they use the Wizards of the Coast tabletop game from 2000,

the Star Wars RPG. They sort of borrowed some of the mechanics from that to figure out how this was going to work. But it was still a big lift, right? because the original target release date was 2002, which they knew they weren't going to make, even with crunch, which you read about the hours that people put in on this game.

If this were now and these stories were coming out, BioWare would be getting crushed and savaged for the working conditions that led to this game, right? You can't argue with the results, but people basically gave over their lives for months at a time to make this happen even with the delays. and there were 39,000 bugs found. Obviously, there were some not found.

You found them 20 years later. Bug reports on the Riggerverse podcast in 2023. They also had to cut a planet that was planned and partially developed just to save time and get it out before it was too long delayed. To be fair, there is so much in this game. There is, yeah. I was like, 2003, that's insane. The menu and cataloging all your stuff, even like just learning everything, there's so much. It's actually, honestly, as someone for a first time or 20 years after the game came out, a little intimidating.

Going through the tutorial is like, I don't think there's any way I'm going to remember all of the abilities I have, how to level up, how to make sure I'm doing all my things correctly. And also I chose, oh, I guess we might get into this later, but I chose like the scoundrel, which actually maxes out at certain. points. And I was like, oh, so I made a mistake. Just like Diablo, choosing the barbarian, I made another mistake. So I was like, I was like, there's so much to take in. So I'm not surprised there were 39,000 bucks down. But, but, and I wouldn't let that, I would let that slide because the game is so, I love it. I'm obsessed. Yeah. So something like 15,000 lines of dialogue, I think that was recorded. And, you know, all branching. And if this happens, then that happens. And this person will say that thing. So it's incredible.

incredibly complicated. Oh, 100%. How to record or what to record. I am relieved to hear you say you were overwhelmed for once, because usually that's me being like, I don't know how to manage the inventory. There's too many items. And now you're bailing me out here.

It's like, yeah, I played when I was 16. So, yeah, that is true. Oh, my God. It is. It's so much. It's so much. It was just a lot to take in. And it's so weird because, yeah, after playing, like,

but I think with like, I've been playing games, like Diablo for a long time where it's like, yeah, I'm mixing my potions to make different elixir so I can take it for different reasons. But this, I was like, oh my God, I have to keep track of all my companions and make sure they're healed, but also interchange them just so I can move around them. And then also some can do extra things that I can't do. And I was just like trying to, like, I started writing down the stuff just to make sure I remember, like, go to my journal, find my quest, go here to make sure I upgrade my stuff right. And then I would forget to upgrade because I was like the story is so in depth.

And there's different ways you can take it. And I was trying really hard to be a Sith. I was trying really hard to be a bad person. So I was like, I got being like, well, we can't let this person live. We got to kill them. Yeah. If you send your mind to being bad, it's not hard to do in this game. I got it.

Well, it isn't hard to do. But then I got a spoiler later that was like, yeah, if you choose the dark side, you're going to kill four of your companions. And I was like, what? So I tried to switch it because I didn't want to kill any of the companions. The companions is probably my favorite part. this entire game. The characters are so good. They're so fun. Yeah, you're more of a PC gamer than I am these days. We're not console warriors. We play on all platforms. We wish them all success, but you are more of a PC person than I am. Yeah, 100%. And this was BioWare sort of adapting its

PC games to console and trying to streamline it for console players like me, who are used to our limited number of inputs and buttons and no mouse and keyboard, right? So you can tell at times that they had a hard time cramming everything into a console game, right? Because it's clearly got the bones of a PC game. You can tell that that's the lineage of the studio. It was probably much easier also controlling it. And now I think about it on a controller doing the camera than a mouse and keyboard.

I was going to throw my mouse out the window. It was the worst thing I've ever had to do. my life. I was getting so irritated. I was like, why is it? Why is it so sticky? I was like, it's moving the camera so quickly. And I got adjusted. First time players of this game after 20 years, you will get very mad for maybe 15 to 20 minutes. And then you'll get adjusted to how fast you're moving your mouse if you're playing on a keyboard of mouse. Okay. All right. Let's talk about why it works. Wyatt does not make you mad for the most part. And part of it's what we're talking about. The setting feels fresh, but also feels familiar. And that was,

intentional. They knew, okay, we're going back in time 4,000 years here. We don't want Star Wars fans to feel unmoored like they don't know where they are like it doesn't feel like Star Wars. So they embraced the used universe aesthetic that George Lucas helped sort of set the tone for the franchise that it would be this futuristic, you know, incredible technology, but also worn, right, and scuffed and sort of broken down. And Lucas's idea and Ralph McQuarrie, the artist who so inspired Star Wars, their idea of sort of this timeless mythic fairy tale in space where you can't place exactly when it's taking place.

It's a long time ago, but we're not going to specify, although this game does specify how much longer ago it was. That was actually LucasArts idea. BioWare just wanted to be like a thousand generations earlier. LucasArc was like, you've got to say it's 4,000 years. Okay. It is sort of strange. If you want to nitpick, you could say that it's odd that so little has changed in 4,000 years or that so little change subsequently when it comes to technology, right?

I mean, basically the gear and the ships and the capabilities of all of these empires essentially unchanged, right? Like people fire the same sort of blasters and they use the same sort of lightsafers and they fly the same sorts of ships. And it's 4,000 years. You know, you go to Tatooine, you go to Anchorhead. It looks essentially the same. It's like, all right, maybe Anchorhead is a backwater and Tatooine's not changing with the times. But it doesn't seem like the Star Wars galaxy, despite all the upheaval there. It hasn't changed a whole lot, which is good in the sense that we recognize this as Star Wars.

But if you want to be a stickler for continuity and why haven't things advanced and evolved, I guess you could question that. but it doesn't sound like that bothered you as a first-time player. No, and I didn't really think about it too much. I knew that it was, and this might be coming from a mild, the mild Star Wars fan experience where I was like, I was like, okay. And I just took that information and was like, I noticed that some of these characters look like other characters

that we've seen in the franchise, but I just kept telling myself, if this is 4,000 years ago, they're just not even descendants, it's just that their kind has been around. this long. Yeah, sure. It's the force. It's a coincidence that some of the names are the same, and all the alien species do the same thing that they were doing later. I was like, oh, they've just been here for a very long time. And since it's all like new planets for me or new places, I was like,

oh, okay, maybe it's not going to be there in 4,000 years. Right. Yeah. What do you think of the fact that Star Wars is essentially locked into its look from almost 50 years ago in our galaxy. You know, Star Wars looked a certain way in 1977. It still sort of looks that way in the 2020s, no matter where in the timeline it takes place. It's quite a contrast with, say, Star Trek, right? I'm a trek or two. I absolutely love Strange New Worlds, which I believe we will be covering on the Ring ofverse at some point. We have heard your requests. It's a direct prequel to the original series of Star Trek, but the design doesn't look like it did on NBC in 1966 when Star Trek first started airing, right? It's modernized. It's different. The Abrams movies have their own

look and different technology and different bridge and everything for better or worse, right? And maybe that's because the 60s TV show looks dated, right? And they were working with, you know, certain restrictions and you wouldn't want to be bound by that forever. Whereas I guess it's a testament to the special effects of 70 Star Wars, it still looks pretty darn good, right? So you don't have to change, but it does kind of make me raised by eyebrow every now and then when you have hyperspace and all these incredibly wondrous technologies, and then you have the display screens that look like it's wireframe from the 1970s. And that's what it's going to be forever, right? It's interesting. That is interesting because I never really noticed that, but I do notice it

in Star Trek, but I think I always put it by the wayside for Star Trek because I'm like, oh, it's different people working on it every time. And it is still different people with Lucas Films, but it's still Lucas Films. So it's like, it still has to have that heart and that look that it has at Disneyland and everywhere else for merchandise. So I'm like,

I'm wondering if it's just that. It's just easier, less money. Or if it's like, I know like with some machines, like some droids, it's like, yeah,

they were cheaply built. So it's like they're going to look like they did in the first movie. Yeah. Yeah. No, there's that. There's like kit bashing was one of the concepts. It's like, you just use different parts of models and glue them together, right?

And I guess it saves you some cash. And also, you probably have props lying around from every previous Star Wars production. You have sort of like design schematics and show Bibles and everything. And to completely revamp that would be a big lift. And it's distinctive, right? It's Star Wars. Like you can tell almost instantly that it's Star Wars. And there's something nice about that.

There's something nice about the almost like steam punky, melding of futuristic and old school. And I think it works really well in a show like Andor, for instance, where you have these sort of like claustrophobic, almost like severance style screens and technology, right? And I think it kind of adds to the atmosphere. But I am curious. I mean, if the Mangold movie, which has set 25,000 years or whatever before the original

trilogy, that seems like an opportunity to potentially tinker with some of this or maybe even the Acolyte. It's like, hey, we're centuries or millennia earlier here. Maybe we can tweak the formula a little. They should definitely do it with the technology, but I feel like they're doing it with the, like, buildings. Yeah. And the structure of what it looks like.

I'm like, okay, this is clearly like a freaking like blade runner or on like a blade runner planet, but they're still using the normal blasters. I'm like, what's going on? So they definitely should upgrade the guns and all those things, but they keep going for just like the vibe. They're like, hmm, no. And I'm fine with vibes over.

Does this make logical, scientific sense? Like, it's Star Wars. So it's best to take it in stride as you did and not even notice this. I'm in too deep to be obsessing over this stuff. No, we need people like you to notice these things because they go over my head, just like this reveal. Thank you. That's very kind. Well, because of the ancient setting of this game, Byware consciously used archetypes to anchor the audience,

these familiar Star Wars tropes, the Jedi, the Sith, the smugglers, the droids, the rogues, the Wookies, the Twilex, the Tatween. Of course, Tatweens here, right? Tatweens's always in everything. But there are also some original planets and settings and characters, obviously. And there's a pretty explicit original trilogy influence, right? You have your battle between good and evil that is spanning the galaxy. It's you against Darth Malik and his apprentice, Sith versus Jedi.

You've got Republic versus Empire. You've got your plucky crew of a smuggling ship named after a bird, right? Instead of the Millennium Falcon, you've got your Ebb and hawk. You've got a big twist about the protagonist's relationship to the big bat, which in both cases turns out to be quite an intimate relationship. You have a disfigured Darth, right? You have a Sith Lord who's missing some parts of the anatomy. me. You have a super weapon. You have a climax featuring on foot action and simultaneous space battle, right, much like Return of the Jedi. Everything down to the opening crawl and the box art really

evokes movie posters. Like it's all consciously a callback to, okay, this is Star Wars. Let's situate everyone within the Star Wars setting, yet it's in the past. And that alone, I think, makes it feel less derivative to me than parts of the sequel trilogy, let's say, where you do have some of the same characters and you're kind of running it back and thematically, there are some interesting takeaways from that, but also it's like only a few decades have gone by and we're doing all this again, huh, with some of the same people, whereas this is 4,000 years earlier, you know, not even Yoda's on the scene, right? He's millennia away from being there, although there is someone from Yoda's species, a Jedi master, obviously. But it's different enough.

that all the links, I think, are rewarding without feeling like it's just a copycat exercise. Yeah, I think it was a good test to see if they could do it without using any of Star Wars. Does that make sense? Like, I think it was a test being like, oh, we're going to sprinkle in a little things that look familiar, but it's not at all what Star Wars is. This is a different thing. It's like, this is Star Wars, but it's a different thing. It's an original concept idea.

So I think they were like testing it, which is weird. to test something like that when you're having all your games. I know. But it worked. So maybe it was just one of the things that they were like, let's see if it sticks. And it stuck. Yeah. Embed it into the wall.

It stuck hard. Yeah. I mean, it's a big swing. But when everything else is tethered to this tiny portion of the timeline, I mean, there's a big sweeping tapestry here. And we're just clinging to the prequel era and the original trilogy era at this point. And then later the sequel trilogy, which is, mostly been avoided.

And it's like, no, what if we just did something completely different and made it our own? And there's a lot of cool lore in this game. Like, even though in the broad strokes, yeah, it's Jedi versus Sith and it's a Republic versus an empire, right? It's sort of running it back some of the same beats. But there's a lot of stuff in there that's just sort of buried. It's optional. You don't even have to encounter it.

It kind of relies on you digging deep into the dialogue menus and talking to NPCs. You know, if you go to Tatouin and you talk to the Tuskins, a lot of it sort of prefigures some of the Book of Boba-Fat stuff where it's like the Tuskins are misunderstood and they have this whole rich history and culture. And there's this whole origin story of the Tuskins and of Tatouin used to be this fertile, rich, verdant world. And then there was a disaster. And some of that is alluded to in the Book of Bobatette, right? And then there's the Rakotin Empire, this new race, the Ricotta. And they're kind of like, it's almost a preview of Mass Effect and the Prothians and the reapers, you know, the racqueton builders and the Star Forge. It's this ancient empire that everyone has forgotten and, you know, was sort of the first empire that colonized the galaxy and then got high on its own supply.

And there was a plague and the downfall of the empire. it's not necessarily a new sci-fi trope, but it's sort of fresh for Star Wars, which typically doesn't delve that deeply or in that much detail into the early origins of the universe and how did this all get settled and where did everyone come from? And this game just leaves some really interesting breadcrumbs

that allows you to trace that back or things like your wookie characters, Albar and the idea of the mad claws, in wookie culture, if you use your claws, in anger and violence, then you're exiled because you let your animal instincts take over, or Zirka Corporation, this sort of galaxy spanning, this, you know, arms dealer, this company that takes over the slave trade and all of these other things that it's kind of like this capitalism critique almost that you don't typically find in Star Wars, at least pre-Andor.

Like, there's a lot going on here that's not necessarily on the surface, but it's in the side quest. It's if you talk to everyone, if you explore the nooks and crannies, like, there's just a lot of care and thought and effort that went into setting the scene. It did absolutely. 100%. And it's so hard. I'm a person, a firm believer, and I think I said this on the other podcast where I'm like, you want, I want games to make sure you get your money's worth because no matter when the game came out, it's extra income that you're like, oh, I don't have time or money for this. And it's like, if you're playing it, I want you to milk it for what it's worth. And this game does that so much so that you have to play again to get to those people and learn and get that backstory. I think when I played at this one time, I did not get to talk to as many NPCs as I should have. And most of the ones I did talk to, they just wanted to fight me. So I just kind of didn't really get to like learn a lot about the planet because I know that there's some characters that were like, I'm just going to talk to you about the history of so and so.

And I was like, oh, I wish I would have saw that. I didn't get to go to that. But this game, you're getting your money's worth because you get to play again, plays a different character completely, and go talk to the people. Because that's where you're going to explore the world more and get the history to it. I didn't get that much this round. And I regret it completely. If you're trying to rack up dark side points by slaughtering everyone, they're not always as willing to talk to you about their history. Understandable.

If you go full Anakin and wipe out the Tuskins like animals, then you will not get to learn about their rich culture and history. Look here. I was willing to slaughter before I became very close to my companions. And then when I learned that I had to kill my companions, I changed everything about myself. So I'm willing to go on the good part, the good side, but it takes a lot of convincing. It takes people I have to hang out with for a very long period of time to save me. Yeah. So there's a lot of lore dumps, but it's optional.

If you're not that into it, you can sort of skip it and bypass it. And it's not buried in like audio logs or like texts that you have to read in some menu. It's all delivered via voiceover. So it goes down a little easier. So I just appreciate that that's there for those of us who want it. And we should talk a little bit about the combat system too. And again, we have to put ourselves 20 years ago, those ancient times when I was but a teenager. And at the time, I think the combat system mostly successfully,

did its job, which was melding the turn-based tactical strategy and the dynamic action of Star Wars. Like just kind of the cosmetic effect of having synchronized saber clashes, like even if under the hood, it's all dice rolls and it's all probability, they made it at least most of the time kind of looked like people were actually fighting. So it's maybe kind of play acting. I will say there are times it's sort of strange where you just miss when, you know, you're just like, you know, you're a Jedi night master, you're swinging your saber at like a door or like a stationary point blank target and you just miss because that's what the dice roll dictated. But you're like, how did I miss?

Like, am I not a Jedi? Am I not using the force? Is the force not flowing through me? How did I miss a door right now? But. Yeah, that would only. And I kept maybe being like, this is a game. those 20 years ago, but I think it's also the probability dice where I'm like, I'm so high up

in a level, I do like a roundhouse kick and completely miss. And I go, wait a minute, wait a second. So there's, but you can, it had the ability, I didn't look at it, to see how the dice were predicting, right? Doesn't the game offer that or not see how it's predicting, but like you can see like what you rolled or something? Sort of. You can kind of get a glimpse of what's going on beneath the surface, but it's all playing out in real time. And like, you can sort of almost set it and forget it. Like, you can just punch in some commands and then sit back and check your phone and they'll just play the rest of the fight or you can just watch it play out, right? So there's kind of like the level of intervention that you want. You can just let them swing away and do

the default thing or you can be more tactical about it if you want. When we talk about the remake, we can say whether we might want some upgrades or some modernization maybe. to the combat, but at the time, it worked well. And there's some DeusX-esque kind of capacity. If you didn't care for the combat, if you wanted to find a way around, if you wanted to use persuasion or hacking or slicing or something instead, you can do that.

Now, sometimes it's just hacking a computer to blow up and kill everyone that way. It's usually killing everyone, but maybe more indirectly than directly. But you have some options, at least, how you want to progress through the levels. And I think the highlight, as you said, I mean, it's the story, but it's also the characters, right?

They're just really rich and varied. And you just grow to love all of them or at least care about all of them over the course of the 30 hours or however many hours you spend with them. If you take the time to talk to them, you know, they're just sort of standing around inside the Eben Hawk and you can get into their backstories

as much as you want. But they're all just really, well-drawn and distinctive. And even after all this time, I remember them and what they looked like and their names and their stories to a degree that I don't with most games. I feel that. Who can I ask who your favorite one was? I mean, I feel like Bastila is kind of like the heart and soul of the game to some extent.

That one. Yeah, that one to the side. You can't say Bassel. Okay. Okay. She's a different one because it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's her. But who else? Who else?

I think Jolie is my man. Jolie Bindo, who he's the gray Jedi, right? He was never officially a Jedi. He was a Padawan. Then he left the order and did his own thing. And I've always been drawn to that, whether it was with Asoka or some other character, get away from the Jedi, Sith binary, the dark light. Jolie's just like, you know what?

Do what you have to do, right? Like if you did some dark side stuff, I understand. And now your light side again, okay, you know, whatever works, right? I don't know if this is maybe the lore that got me really into Star Wars, but it was that situation of like, I think there's a way that you can't control whether you're on the dark side or the good side. I was like, I think there is a way to control it. I don't think I could do it because I'm not in charge of my emotions.

My emotions are crazy and wild. I can't control that. But him explaining that and being like, it's really like controlling your passion. And like, that's what it is. It's not love. Don't get it confused. And I love all of his deep meanings so much in the game.

And I was just like, this person has been controlling it his entire life. He's like, yeah, there's a gray area. It's not all black and white. There's a spot in between which you can't harness. I'm able to harness it. And now I live alone in the middle of nowhere. Right. Yeah.

I don't know if it's working out that well for him. Well, yeah. Okay. So, yes, he has no one. But I love him. I appreciate that Choli doesn't judge me at least. Yes. And look, Basla is great.

Obviously, there's the light side, dark side. struggle going on within her. There's almost a railo-like love interest between BASLA and your protagonist, right? I don't know how much you pursued the romantic options here. I don't know how heavily it's in there when you're a female character because they were trying to get me to be with Carth. Yes, right. And I was like, no. Yeah, no, I'm not as interested in part. I was like, no. I'm sorry, I don't mind Carth at all, but he's kind of annoying, in my opinion. Especially at the beginning. I was like, no, I didn't remember.

I didn't forget that you were kind of an asshole to me. Yeah, no, I feel that, definitely. And it's a lot less full-fledged than, say, Mass Effect got later on with the romance options. It's not quite as horny, a sci-fi space epic and space opera as later Byware games. But Basil is great because, you know, voiced by Jennifer Hale, whose future Femm-Shepp, of course, Commander Shepard from Mass-Effect games. but just incredibly prolific voice actor in so, so many video games and just brings kind of a gravitas to that role that you're instantly drawn to. And of course, there's the legend HK47, which this game, in a way, it kind of takes off for me when HK enters, right?

Just because to have this evil C-3PO, right, the inversion of the protocol droid created by Revin as 3PO is created by Anakin, and originally was not written to be as funny as he is, right? That was something that the voice actor brought to it. And initially everyone was like, this isn't what we wanted, right? LucasArts didn't like it. No one liked it. And then they all realized, oh, this is incredible, this comic relief of this assassin droid who thinks everyone's a meatbag and prefaces every statement with what part of speech it's going to be.

HK is just an absolute legend. So that brings something to the game that I think otherwise would have been, lacking like there's a lot of humor, there's a lot of comedy. It's much like Star Wars, right? There's somber and serious and there's romance and there's humor, but a lot of the comedy is coming from HK47. It's HK. And then I would say it's, what's her name, the Twilight? Mission. Yeah, mission. Yeah, I think it's mission when she, because she does a lot of funny things. And I love how mean she is. Or it's not mean. She's just sassy. She's sassy and she deserves to be. And I love her for it. Yeah, she's so tired of being underestimated.

And some of these characters like Carth and Basselan, Zalbar and Mission, they came from the designer James Olin's childhood Star Wars, the RPG campaigns. You know, he was like being the dungeon master, creating these names and these backstories. And then they were just still in his head years later. And they got into this game. So you could tell that they're crafted with care. This episode is brought to by Whole Foods Market.

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Sweetgreen.com. Let's talk about the twist. The Jedi do not believe in killing their prisoners. No one deserves execution, no matter what their crimes. The council would not normally accept an adult for training, but this is a special case. They say the force can do terrible things to a mind. It can wipe away your memories and destroy your very identity. The lure of the dark side is difficult to resist.

I fear this quest to find the Star Forge could lead you down on all too familiar path. What greater weapon is there than to turn an enemy to your cause to use their own knowledge against them? That was part of the montage. You hear when the twist comes up and you're thinking, oh, shit. It's me. It was me. I'm the problem. It's me.

If you remember one thing about Cotor is probably the twist, right? This is part of what makes this game so indelible. And I think it was more easily anticipated maybe than the Vader reveal. They weren't dropping a ton of hints initially because they didn't know that the Vader reveal was coming from the start. But you had kind of this lineage of late 90s, early 2000s, memory loss, like amnesiac protagonists, you know, Fight Club and Memento and the Born Identity. And then you have this twist, which was inspired by Fight Club and by the Sixth Sense. where they are trying to drop some hints. You know, Olin said if the twist is fair,

like if you've dropped enough clues that when it happens, it doesn't feel forced, then 10% of players or viewers should see it coming, right? Like there should be some subset of the audience that says, yeah, I saw this coming. Because if no one saw it coming, then it would feel like just shoehorned in. Like, what?

You didn't lay any groundwork here. And suddenly you're telling me, I'm the bad guy. We're the baddies, right? But I think most people did not see the Darth Revan reveal coming. And it was a shock. It was the video game equivalent of the Vader reveal. I was telling you this before we started recording where I was like,

I was getting irritated because I was like, I woke up. Put yourself in the character's shoes. I woke up at a war. I don't know what's happening. I'm also, yeah, getting a lot of weird privileges, advantages. People are constantly like, I see something in you. There's something about you that's different. And I'm like, yeah, I was asleep and then I woke up.

And then when it was like revealed, I was like, oh, shit. And I was like, and I do this a lot. I'm sure a lot of people play in the game also did it. We're not thinking outside the box. We're thinking inside the box. So when we're like, yeah, we're like a fight club, like the sixth sense. You're just not really awake for any of it. You're like, yeah, it's just how it happens.

And then at the end you're like, oh, that's why. I thought the guy was dead the entire time. Everyone led it to believe that this guy was dead the entire time. and that the other guy, the apprentice was actually the big bad, but it's like, nope, you've just been wandering around forgetting who you were. And I should have seen it. I feel like I should have seen it. I should have kept an eye on everyone's dialogue, but I didn't.

Yeah, replaying it now, I was thinking, how did I not see this? Right. But at the time, I didn't see it. I don't think most people saw it. Damn, it's so good. It's such a good reveal. It really is. And I think it sort of subverted your expectations.

Like, at the time, the unspeaking. avatar protagonist was pretty common. And you just, they don't have a personality and you don't learn a lot about them and their backstory doesn't matter that much. Obviously, Revan or whatever you name yourself, you know, you're selecting dialogue and everything, but you're sort of used to a video game protagonist who's just sort of a blank slate before the game begins. And here they kind of twisted that expectation.

It said, no, actually, you were the Sithflord before the game began. So I think it falls into their few kind of common twist. types in video games. Like you've got your shocking death twists, right? I'm not going to say who died. I don't want to spoil anything explicitly here. But you know, you got your Final Fantasy seven and you're the Last of Us games and your Red Dead redemption games and the Walking Dead by Taltale. Like you have some shocking deaths. And then you have some reveals about the setting or the premise like, oh, this is not what I thought was going on. You know, Portal or Metal Gear Solid 2 or Metroid. Oh, Samis is a woman.

didn't realize that, right? Or you have your unreliable narrators when you're seeing something that is not actually happening, like dead space or spec ops the line or call of duty black ops or Silent Hill 2 or braid. Then sometimes, I think this is this category, something the protagonist doesn't know either. You don't know either. You're finding out along with the protagonist like Final Fantasy 10 or Shadow of the Colossus or Bioshococ or Bioshop Infinite or Cotor. It's like, oh, it's one thing, you know, if you've been playing as this person you feel attached to, you identify with this character, they're an extension of you. And so if they've been hiding something from you all along, that's jarring in one way. But if they didn't know either and this epiphany

is donning on them as it's dawning on you, then you feel that in a very visceral way. You're like, I know what this character is going through because I'm going through that same thing. This character is an extension of me. So it's just a really effective twist. we were starting to list off all the other games and I was like yeah the last I'm not going to talk to in depth about these because you guys haven't played to go watch it but I think it's because this one's so cinematic

that I was like it hits harder to me than the other ones did because it's so beautiful and because I'm more interested in the storyline and the characters more than I am in like the fighting parts that I was like oh shit I was like okay I wasn't expecting this

and I love this more than anything. And I don't know. It's like the first season of, what's that? The Good Place. Where I'm like, oh, I don't know what they're, and I haven't played Coder 2. So I'm genuinely like, I don't know what they're going to do in Coder 2. Like, I don't know how they're going to make lift this.

I don't know how you can go higher than this. It's so good. That's the really memorable part of this game. But, you know, there's the customization. There's the morality. Like there was some squabbling between BioWare and LucasArts over lightaber colors. how many colors you were allowed.

LucasArts was like, no, you just get your basic blue, green, red, and BioWare wanted to explore the space, right? Wanted to give you more options. And ultimately you did. And that can be really cool. If you are a purple lightsaber, you can wield a blue and a red at the same time, right? It makes you feel like you're kind of charting your own course through this game. And the light side and dark side outcomes and playthroughs are pretty different, right?

It's not just a different cutscene at the end, but it's different relationships with characters. PCs and different quest lines and resolutions, right? And my first time doing this, I just went full good guy, Paragon, just trying to be a Jedi who would, you know, make a good guy. Thank you. I'm trying to balance out Darth Clemens here. But that was my initial instinct. This time, I didn't go full dark side, but I did more of a Jolie Bindo, kind of a gray Jedi playthrough. You know, I just took it case by case. I feel like doing the dark side thing here. like doing the white side thing there. So I ended up sort of in the middle. And right up until the end, you're making real difficult choices. It's not just sort of adding up the points that you got or

lost to that point and locking you in. Like, you can decide on your destiny to some extent right up until the end. 100%. That's the, I also think I was, yes, trying to go at it on the dark side. I was trying to put myself in there without them putting me. But there are a lot of parts where you're like, how would I answer this truly? And unfortunately, mine was still evil, where I was like, I am, I'm going to have my guard up at every moment. I don't know what is happening. I woke up from the slumber and now I'm just forced to, like, fight with alongside people.

And also, I genuinely, if someone was like, you saved my life, now I'm going to be one of your friends and follow you. I'd be like, no, go away. Leave me alone. Stay at arm's length. Clearly, I'm a curse. It's like Luke said, is the dark side stronger? No, no, no.

Oh, quicker, easier, more seductive. Easier. Easy to do. Love it. Arguably is actually also stronger in this game, but that's beside the point. So let's talk. Arguably stronger in this game. That is true. That is true. Let's talk briefly just about how it's aged. We've touched on that already, but you're coming to it with fresh eyes, right?

So look, the graphics look like they're from three console generations ago because they are. There's no getting around that, right? It's a pre-HD era. You look at the skybox. and you get up close to the surfaces and those textures, you go, ooh, that looks like 2003, or some of the animations or the faces or just the compression and the pixelation and the video in the cutscenes. It's funny how in your mind's eye, old games look great forever until you replay them.

I don't think Cotor looked incredible at the time, but it looked good by the standards of the day. And when I booted it up for the first time in 20 years, whiff, right? It's like when I go back to visit my old grammar school sometimes and everything looks small. You know, like the classrooms and the stairwells are like they're small. Actually, I was small then, but now I'm bigger and they seem smaller. But you get used to it as you play. You know, it's like you get in a unheated pool and at first you feel like you're freezing your ass off. But you give it a few minutes and you acclimate to it.

So by the end of Cotor, I was not noticing that it looks like a game from 2003 anymore. but it definitely looks like a game from 2003. It is definitely a game from 2003. It definitely is. It plays also kind of like a game from 2003. Yeah. Yeah.

It's, yeah. I don't want it. I'm ending it there because I like, I don't want it to deter people from playing it. Like it is even after 20 years replaying it, go do it. You'll still love it.

It's still really great. But it is like, yeah, there's bugs. And it looked kind of weird. And sometimes I had to change a lot of things on my PC in order to, like, see it. Yeah, right. But it's still worth playing. Yes, absolutely. And the pacing, like, I think the intro area, the planet terrace, it's a little slow.

It's kind of an extended tutorial, but you might not get past the tutorial if you aren't aware of what's coming. As you said, the camera, like, you can't move it up and down, which. is weird. I mean, I know there's a first person toggle, but there's that. Like, you can't respect your characters, you know? So as you were saying, you get locked into a class and attributes and skill points and everything and you can't kind of undo it down the road. Right. And the auto save system is is pretty stingy. Like, again, product of its times, I don't know how we used to live like that. It's like when the game would occasionally crash or something, I would lose a lot of progress because auto saves were not happening that regularly.

I'm used to them happening pretty constantly these days, and I don't mind that. There are some games where obviously it's part of the challenge, but sometimes it's just tedious. It's like, I just played this. Why am I playing this again? Why didn't you save on that last loading screen? On the plus saying, this game allows you to click through a lot of the things if you are just redoing it from a long time, or from, like, you missed a lot. You're allowed to skip a lot of dialogue.

The choose your own adventure part phenomenal, because it also, it just like gives It always gives you three options. It's like, it's clearly what you need to ask, but then it also gives you like, well, if you want them to repeat it, you can have them repeat it. Or you can ask them more about the subject or you can go to the next part. Right. Yeah. There's a lot of repetition in the dialogue and the menus, right? I like it.

Yeah. I mean, not all of the writing is as great as I remember. It's kind of awkward. You know, every NPC is like immediately eager to tell you their life story and everything in that classic old school RPG way. Yeah. I was like, it's clearly an older game. It's clearly an older RPG game because they like the way they even, even like,

we're under attack, but I'm going to give you a full like five minute time. And I was like, I was like, damn, they're really shoehorning this in. I get it. I got it.

Now let's actually play like the ships under attack. Yeah. And you can save manually, to be clear. I was almost doing like a manual. Yeah. Once I lost a lot of progress, I was like save scumming almost.

I was like, save all right, save again. Oh, I saved every time. Yeah. And like the movement speed is sort of slow and there's a lot of backtracking. And the inventory, like the UI, it's kind of clunky.

It's tough to find items sometimes. Again, like these are things that we might complain about still with modern games, but it's noticeable. The combat compared to Mass Effect and Dragon Age or Final Fantasy 16 for that matter that we were talking about last time. It's a little slower. It's a little stilted. The morality system somewhat simplistic compared to similar systems that came later.

But it isn't dated to the extent that I would have any reservations about saying you should not play this or you could not play this and still get the wonder that I got from it in 2003. And I think it's refreshing. It doesn't always tell you where to go or what to do in the way that Final Fantasy 16 does or a lot of games where it's like press a button and it'll point to where you got to go. Right. Like this game makes you think, makes you work for it a little. And the characters and the story arc just still strong. And they were always the draw and they still are. 100% coming as someone that has not played the game first timer I think everyone would genuinely like it I have a very short attention span

I live off of things that are quicker in my life but it was still like I I just really liked it and this is again coming from someone that has not played the game somehow didn't get the spoiler in over 20 years when I found out the spoiler I genuinely was like how did I not know what I don't know but it's because my friends weren't playing the game like my brother played it at his friend's house So it was just like, I didn't really know the game. My friends don't play how many Star Wars games. I never got the reveal. That reveal is perfect. I'm such a mild Star Wars fan, and I loved the story. The characters were so good.

This was really good. It's so fun. And it's only like $4 on Steam right now. So go play it. And last time we talked about when remakes are justified and how soon is too soon for a remake. I think this one, it's time for a remake. On the one hand, it's not like you can't get Cotor today. It's accessible, it's affordable, but we're talking about a 3D game from the pre-HD era, right?

There were some growing pains at the time. Things have advanced since then. So when you're talking about a three-consul generation leap, yeah, I'm in for a ground-up remake. And one was announced in 2021 for PS5 and PC intended for release in 2022. And I guess in Cotor tradition, that didn't happen. It's going to take another year. Yeah. So it was supposed to be developed by.

I aspire, which has ported many Star Wars games, including Cotor 1 and 2, but it's a ground-up remake. It's more ambitious than a port. Some of the ports were buggy, too. And last year, things weren't going great. Development was halted and transferred to a new studio, Sabre Interactive. So the parent company of the studio's Embracer Group says the remake is still happening. We don't know when, but it's still in the work, supposedly.

So when and if it happens, what would you want? Would you want just a new coat of paint? It looks good now, but everything else stays the same, true to the original, or would you want some modernization, some quality of life improvements to kind of bring it into line with the expectations of a player in 2023? I wanted to do what kind of Final Fantasy did with Final Fantasy 7, where, yeah, new coat of paint added a little, it's also 2023, so make it a little more challenging. Make it a little more challenging.

I like the not handholdy stuff that they're already doing. doing literally let me go around the world figure out my stuff but i would like for the battles to be a little bit more harder to do um and just that but i would also i'm like if you just slapped on that new new that new paint i would still play this game like and it would look so good it would look i i don't care like i would still play it if you did the exact same story same battles same way and just a new coat of paint i'd still play it i don't yeah give me prettier graphics just a little facelift here fewer loading screens you know maybe yeah streamline the UI and the inventory and the save system and all of that, right?

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Maybe you could add a little nuance to the morality system, or you could offer more character customization options. Oh, they will. They will. I guess, you could spruce up the combat, maybe make it more free-flowing, or you could even add some content. I don't know, maybe the story becomes canon if a remake comes out.

Probably not, but as a fan of the story, that would be kind of cool. So if they wanted to add some embellishments, I'd be on board for that in theory. Because again, you can still access the old game, the original. So it's not like everyone will forget what was in that game, and it will wipe away our memory of that game. If you want to just spruce it up in some ways with the proper care, then I'm okay with that. But I would take a bare bones remake also. That'd be fine, too. So lastly, just some legacy, some lessons here, some takeaways.

from the Cotor's success story. So BioWare had an idea for Cotor 2. They were thinking, as you said, how do we top the Reven reveal? No pressure, right? So their idea, one of the ideas they were kicking around was what if we make your mentor

a member of Yoda's species who's always coded as benevolent and wise and good, right? And then that mentor and master turns out to be the bad guy, right? Evil Yoda. I would go off for an evil Yoda. Instead of Baby Yoda, just polar opposite, evil Yoda. So I would have wanted that. I would have ate that up.

I would have ate that up. So that idea is still out there for anyone who wants it. If Baby Yoda, if Grogu's going to do a hill turn at any point, that's still a possibility. I would eat that up. I would, that might just end Maori. I don't want that to happen just for her sake. I would love Grogu to be evil. But I also love evil characters.

I love the villains and anything. And I'm like, if Grogu just grow to be a villain, I would go nuts. I'd go crazy. I'd like to see him attempted at least. I'd like to see him dabble in the dark side. He keeps just accidentally killing like people. And he's just like, oh, well, I like this. He does like eat a lot of frog eggs and things that could be construed as dark side.

Like if that was his villain origin story was eating the eggs. You would definitely get like dark side points. I would like the idea. But by the time he's like what? because he's like 50, they assume he's like 50. When he's like 60, he starts just doing it out of anger, just doing it to betray people. Teen Rebellion phase. I'm already full, but I'm going to keep eating these.

So in the ad bioware did not develop Kotor 2. They didn't want to work on a one-year timeline. It was hard enough to get Kotor out in like three years. So one year, no thanks, right? And also they wanted to create and own their own IP instead of playing in someone else's sandbox. So they went on with the same engine to make Jade Empire. And then, of course, they created Mass Effect. So they have their own space epic and enjoyed a long run of success, although they've had a ton of turnover and retirements and cancellations and flops.

And they've faltered lately. So I think people want Bioware to get back to being the BioWare of old, right? With the upcoming Dragon Age and Mass Effect games, we'll see whether that happens. But Cotor 2 did come out from Obsidian in 2004. So really quick turnaround. It's a very good game. Similar mechanics and engine just look sort of the same, plays sort of the same,

but did improve on the original in some respects. The moral choices are more ambiguous. There's a character called Crea, who's really celebrated kind of taking things even more in the Jolie Bindo. Gray Jedi can't be pinned down in classified direction, but very rushed, very buggy, sort of unfinished, right?

Mottors kind of had to pull out unfinished portions of the game that were not actually in the product that shipped to sort of restore the true intention for the game. So that's what you're getting into. And Obsidian pitched Cotor 3, but Lucasards didn't bite. They wanted something more mass market, which turned out to be Battlefront, the first battlefront, which was a success, but went in a different direction than Kotor. But the characters and the lore from Kotor did have an afterlife, right? So Revin appeared in a novel, an Old Republic novel by the writer of Cotor. There was a Cotor comics run.

Of course, Bio Ware made the MMO, the Old Republic, which came out in 2011, and there was an expansion for that called Shadow of Reven. And these characters have taken on a life of their own in the imaginations of many Star Wars fans, you know, you see cosplayers, you're going to see a lot of Revens and Bastillas and HKs and they have action figures, right? which kind of lends an authenticity. It's like you're a real character if you are action figured regardless of whether you're in the canon or not.

So Cotor's not canon, but it's still very present in contemporary Star Wars stories. It's just cast a long shadow over the franchise to this day. And a few years ago in 2019, BuzzFeed News reported that a Cotor movie, potentially a Cotor trilogy, was being written, and Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm, acknowledged that something was in development. She said, we talk about that all the time. We haven't heard anything about that since. So it's sort of mothpalled and memory holds like a lot of Star Wars movie projects. Bob Eiger shut that down right now. Bob Eiger is probably like, give it another 12 years. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe he'll be the one to resurrect it. We'll see. But somewhere, there's a script

floating around in a vault at Lucasfilm somewhere. So even though Cotor is not canon, many of the elements of Cotor are, you know, in the way that a lot of elements of what used to be called the expanded universe and now has been rebranded as legends by Disney, all that stuff keeps creeping back into the current canon because it's cool and because a lot of fans who grew up with that stuff like me feel a fondness for it. And so Dave Faloni, who of course is totally plugged into all the legend stuff and is always looking for ways to sort of sneak legend stuff into the current canon. Revin was supposed to appear in season three of the Clone Wars and was cut, but he has been canonized his existence, at least,

if not his whole backstory. He showed up in a book last year, and there's a Revin Legion that's mentioned in the Rise of Skywalker, right? And then just a lot of other little nods and callbacks, like the planets and Manon and Terrace are in the canon now, or some of the species. the Selkath or the Rakotans get a shoutout in Andor of all things. And the company Zirka has been mentioned, the HK series, right? It's like if you played Kotor and you love HK 47 and you're a Star Wars creator, you're like, how can I get HK into the current kid? How could I be the one to resurrect HK like Thron has been resurrected, you know?

And these characters, like along with Thron and Marajade and all of these legends from legends, They're right up there when it comes to the most prominent Star Wars characters who do not originally come from the movies. Even some of the ships like the Hammerhead Corvette from this game you can see in Rebels and Rogue One. And some things are not explicit nods, but you kind of wonder like the Kylo-Rae relationship, like Shades of Reven and Bastelah or Kylo's mask kind of looks like Revens. It's like, was this sort of a spiritual inspiration, if not an explicit one? So Cotor lives on in many forms and fashions, even after 20 years. Also, yeah, when I saw the mask, I was like, oh, this looks like Hila Wren. There are a lot of things that I think they probably did purposefully.

That is genuinely like descendants of descendants of descendants, whether it's just in costume. I was like, oh, these costumes look exactly the same as these things. Yeah, it's all overlapping and sort of incestuous, right? It's like Revan and Malik are kind of inspired by Darth Vader and then Kylo is inspired by Darth Vader, but maybe he's also inspired by these intermediate Sith Lords. Who knows? So it's hard to say, but there's definitely a long legacy for Cotaur within the Star Wars universe. And I guess outside of the Star Wars universe, the lesson for any IP-based game, anything that's trying to adapt source material, is treat the license lovingly, try to port over what people love.

loved about the original, but put your own stamp on it. You know, do something different with it. Change the setting. Whatever you're going to do, make it not just a total imitation of the original, right? Strike off in your own direction. That's what Cotor did and easier said than done and obviously a talented team that did it. But if any other adaptation is looking to Cotor, how do we channel that sort of success? I think that's the model for future Star Wars games or any sort of.

sort of IP-based nerd culture kind of video game adaptation. Absolutely. 100%. I agree. Well, I'm glad you got to experience Kotor for the first time. I loved it. I'm obsessed with it. I'm so glad.

Genuinely, it's so weird how much I love this game. It's so weird, but it makes sense once you play it. You're like, yeah, the story's amazing. It's such a good story. Look, we all have holes in our video game experience. Even if we've been playing since we were kids, even if it was some legendary game, we can't play everything. We all have some legendary game that's just like, yeah, I never played that. Like, that's just a void for me, right?

But so many times if you can eventually catch up, it's like, okay, I get what all the fuss was about. So if you had hated it, that I wouldn't have wanted you to pull your punches. You could have indulged the Darth Clemens and just come in with the hater take. Oh, absolutely. I saw whatever if I didn't like it. But I genuinely, it's my across the Spider-a-verse. It's very fun. The story shouldn't have been so good.

All right. Everyone, check it out. If, like, Jess, you haven't yet. You've got to get in on this now. And I'm going to go with the light side ending to this episode. Thanks for listening. Everyone, what a pleasure it was to talk to you about Cotor today. Remember that you can email us at ringerverse gaming at gmail.com to share your Cotor memories

and nominate other great games to revisit. thanks to Cotor fan Steve Allman for producing and to Arjuna Remgapal for also loving Cotor enough to give us the go-ahead for this episode. Keep an eye on the feed for The Midnight Boys on Tom Cruise Control on Wednesday and has a far later this week on 2023's first half highlights and multiple takes on Secret Invasion Episode 4. Jess and I will be back with a new episode and perhaps a new name later this month. Until then, we will leave you with some wise words about love from a man who has loved and lost. Take it away, Jolie Bindo. The Jedi, with their damnable sense of over-caution, would tell you love is something to avoid. Thankfully, anyone who's even partially alive knows that's not true.

Love doesn't lead to the dark side. Passion can lead to rage and fear and can be controlled, but passion is not the same thing as love. Controlling your passions while being in love, that's what they should teach you to beware. But love itself will save you, not condemn you. Feels like every product claims real protein these days. But real doesn't start on a label. It starts at the source. Like real California milk from California farm families,

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