[h3]One of the few games that had me stunlocked staring at the TV[/h3]
When I was a kid, we had an original Xbox, a DVD player, and thanks to my dad, a decent collection of movies. Instead of having me watch typical kids movies or disney stuff, he had me grow up on a select trilogy (plus some supplementary certified bangers like The Iron Giant and Treasure Planet).
Star Wars.
I still remember walking to the local 7-11 with my sister on a spring/summer day when Revenge of the Sith was in theaters, getting some sort of ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up Slurpee concoction like 1/3 cream soda, 1/3 coke, 1/3 mountain dew, all in one of the limited edition lenticular collab cups, then going home and playing the RotS movie game ("Scrap metal!") for hours.
Naturally, for any 4-10 year old kid, "space wizards wielding literal glowing laser swords" was a pretty cool concept, so I found myself Star Wars pilled for a significant chunk on my childhood (and I still love Star Wars to this day, see my review of Jedi: Survivor). Unfortunately for my dad, dragging him to the local Rogers Video to get him to rent me a game for the week was something I had made a habit of, so it was only a matter of time before I'd hopefully have tried every Star Wars game available on the Xbox.
Things went differently for Kotor. At the time, I was playing through Star Wars: Obi-Wan (that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Xbox exclusive game that had weird ass design philosophy like mapping lightsaber swings to the right control stick, which is a cool idea but the game ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sucked so it went to waste) and was having a decent enough time, but it was the weekend, so it was time to drag my dad out for a new game rental. For whatever reason, we found ourselves at a Blockbuster (RIP) instead, and I saw Kotor on the shelf on discount for like 15 dollars and figured "ooh, Star Wars game I don't know about, cool". I'm pretty sure rentals were about 10 dollars at the time, so it wasn't an outrageous stretch to get him to just buy me it. Thanks dad. The car ride home, as one did, had me reading the back of the box and the manual inside, excited to try it. God I miss physical media.
When I got home, I put the game in, played like 30 minutes of the intro, got completely lost and confused as to what was happening because I was expecting Star Wars and not random Republic goobers and dialogue trees and why the ♥♥♥♥ are the "Sith" just guys with swords decked out in silver armour? I simply didn't get it.
That's when my dad came downstairs for his routine "are ya winnin' son?" moment.
I'm a bad liar. So with me not understanding Kotor and being a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ rat child, I had swapped the disc out of the Xbox for that goofy Obi-Wan game I was playing before and tried to pass it off like I was in fact, enjoying the new game I got him to spend his hard earned money on. He didn't believe me, and my memory tells me he kind of sighed and left the room ever so slightly defeated. I'm sorry dad. One of these days I'll find an opportunity to tell you how much Kotor ended up meaning to me.
Eventually, I revisited the game when I had more of a brain on my shoulders. Posted up sitting criss-cross applesauce in front of our ♥♥♥♥♥♥ CRT TV, I popped the game in and gave it a real, proper go - I didn't know it at the time, but doing this would end up shaping my taste in games for the rest of my life.
Knights of the Old Republic uses a lot of weird, DnD3e-esque mechanics under the hood, and a bizarre realtime-turn based-hybrid combat system. It took me some time to wrap my head around modifiers and feats and character builds, but once I did, I was [i]hooked[/i]. The story was completely separate from the Star Wars media I was used to and existed in its own little vacuum where a lot of artistic liberty could be exercised, and Bioware (Ah, my sweet Edmontonians, your city sucks but thanks for repping our ♥♥♥♥♥♥ province) went ham on the writing. The world they made was totally interesting and such a cool take on the SW universe, using and abusing existing SW concepts but with new spins and takes that elevate the Old Republic into a world that feels truly fresh and unique. The companions start off... interesting, what with Carth being a weirdo crybaby and Mission kinda just being annoying, but as you dig into their backstories and learn why they are the way they are, and then meet more companions that also have surprising depth to their unique motivations and backstories like Jolee and Bastila, you realize how much care and thought went into designing them. You just can't help but love them all. Also, T3M4 is a great pet dog, and HK is, yep, literally just a murder robot but ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ is he fun to have around.
The main story... I don't even want to say anything. It's really just super ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ good and something you should experience spoiler-free first hand, if you can. There's a specific moment, and if you've played the game you [i]obviously[/i] know what I'm referring to, but it had me genuinely stunlocked, jawdropped, staring at the TV for a couple solid minutes. It was [b]the[/b] moment in my gaming history that had me thinking for the first time, "oh, video games can [i]do this?[/i]"
To be fair, Kotor is clunky. The aformentioned combat system is weird and borderline unenjoyable at times. The graphics are, well, from 2003. But if you can get over the initial learning curve and enjoy the dialogue and writing, this game is truly an all-timer. It kinda just plays like a old weird CRPG. I'm currently dumping hours into BG3 and it's reminding me of Kotor way more than I anticipated.
There's also a modding scene for this game 100% worth checking out.
Anyway, if you like funky CRPG-ish gameplay but more importantly, good writing, this game truly is up there. It genuinely shaped my taste in games moving forward and straight up means a lot to me. Banger city.
Oh and I really can't exaggerate how hard I hyperventilated watching the reveal for the remake. Whatever otherworldly forces are out there, please let it make it out of development hell. Do this, and my life is yours.
Mucha shaka paca.
