I thought not, it's not a tale the Mouse would tell you. More on why it's a tragedy later.
This is probably one of my favorite games of all time. It's a deconstruction of Star Wars about the Last of the Jedi. Despite that, it bears no relation to that trainwreck of a movie that came out 13 years later. It has, in my experience, the best writing of any piece of Star Wars media. Thematically, it has a clear vision and it sticks to it, delivering a solid, yet not exactly air tight, narrative. What do I mean by that?
The dialogue is, simply put, fantastic. It is as black and white as any piece of Star Wars media at times, but it stops to ask "why?" That one small step puts it heads and shoulders above the first KotOR, in my opinion. For one, the Sith Triumvirate has more motivation than "asshole," like Malak did. The Player Character is more observant and introspective than the Player Character in 1, often times being asked to answer for his or her actions and how they might affect others, like a rock thrown into a pond sending ripples out, which just so happens to be one of the major themes of the game. All actions, no matter how small, have consequences, especially when the Force is involved.
The cast of characters are all part of this theme. They are either affected directly or indirectly before the story begins by the PC's actions in the Mandalorian Wars a decade ago. Through the PC's actions, the PC can gain influence with the companions which causes him or her to grow more closely bonded with them. Some of the companions can even become Jedi if the PC gains enough influence with them. This leads to much more involved and in-depth characters than the first game, where it was all just sort of a funny little coincidence that half the cast joined up or one of the companions is so unimportant the game forgets she exists half the time.
However, the plot itself is... Religious. Meaning it's holy: full of holes. Most of the holes are at the beginning and the end, but they're kind of jarring, considering how excellent the dialogue is otherwise. More on that later.
Gameplay wise, there's not much to tell that hasn't been said in my KotOR 1 review. There's many quality of life improvements, such as an increased level cap, far superior menus and inventory, not directly booting you to the main menu when you die, and on the Steam version, wide screen and controller support.
Graphically the game didn't improve. I used a LOT of mods, to make the game look at least early Xbox 360 game texture wise. In some places. The animations are perhaps more jarring than they were before because the story is so much more meaningful than in in KotOR 1. KotOR 1's writing felt like baseline Star Wars. It didn't explore anything meaningful in the Star Wars universe, but it told a fun adventure. 2 explores the nuance within that black and white spectrum and portrays the Force as a living, breathing... Thing, that is in all things. It really delves into what I like to call "Deep Lore". Deep Lore is when a franchise has established a baseline. And then it shows you what it is to go even further beyond. For example, The Elder Scrolls. It has a baseline. Fantasy world. Real cool. Magic. Races. And then it slaps you with the Shivering Isles and it completely skews your perception of the original product. That is what KotOR 2 does for KotOR 1 to me. And I don't know why I call it Deep Lore, it's 4:30 in the morning and it made sense to me.
Ok, so I've talked about the story a lot now. It's incredibly well written, if a bit holey in the plot point to plot point aspect in some areas. Overall it's written so well I don't care. Sounds great right?
It's not done. The game never got finished. Without the fan patch it's a buggy mess and it's easy to get soft locked. Quite a few bits of story got cut when Obsidian's release schedule got forced up to the 2004 holiday season by LucasArts and LucasArts wouldn't let Obsidian patch them back in. Even with The Sith Lords Restored Content Mod, there's still some holes in the story where it's obvious that things got cut and weren't fully restored. And even then there are some ABSURD difficulty spikes in the game, one of them actually added by the mod. The game is a cake walk 90% of the time, whenever you are playing as the main character, because you get an absurd amount of buffs and all of your levels are Jedi levels. Your companions are typically not so lucky and if you aren't careful in your builds, can find a world of pain waiting for them in certain spots throughout the Galaxy. And that is the tragedy of Darth Obsidian. They didn't finish their game because LucasArts wanted it out months before it was ready. The Restored Content Mod (which is mandatory imo, because it fixes so many bugs) can only restore so much. It polishes the edges off a rough diamond, but it's still a rough diamond. There's parts of the game that I absolutely hate. HK Factory makes me want to rip my arms off. Despite that, the highs of the game are so high I'll take them with the lows.
TL;DR The game has a great story with fantastic and memorable characters Except G0-T0.. It improves on the first one in almost every way. The game as is, is very buggy and incomplete, but there is an extensive restoration and bug fixing mod called The Sith Lords Restoration Mod. Gameplay is roughly the same as number one. Highly recommend, just maybe read a spoiler free walkthrough for the difficulty spikes.
