SWTOR: KotET 2/2
1 Mar 2021 22:26![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
extrapenguinRemember how I was cautiously hopeful about the latter half of KotET based on the Iokath/Nathema bits? Ha. Ha. Ha.
Though to be fair, most of my antipathy came from having to deal with Valkorion. Look, this is the second Sith who's tried to hijack my body, and I gotta say, if I'm going to have a Sith in my head, I'd rather have Zash instead of Valkorion and his insufferable monologue on how this was all part of his ~INGENIOUS MASTERPLAN~ to take over my body and erode my mind and whatever. I guess he and his family got a nice send-off, but I honestly would've been fine with them all dying for some dumb unexplained reason in chapter 1 of KotFE. They did not improve my gameplay experience, Valkorion was not an appealing villain, and someone on the dev team loved him wayyyy too much.
I suppose that on some level, the final chapter's mindscape and in-mind battle are cool – the scenes are pretty enough – but tbh, the whole thing felt like a giant plot hole. I'm the Sith Inquisitor, I know exactly how to deal with unwanted brain hitchhikers. Surely Rakata puzzle box things can't be that hard to find, considering how easily Zash found one?
On a mechanics level, I appreciate waking up in Valkorion's body temporarily and getting introduced to the skills he uses in the boss battle by using them. OTOH, bleh.
Hm – I think most of my problems with Valkorion are that he's simultaneously a copy of Zash, motivation-wise, while also being the creators' pet. Zash liked me as an apprentice and cheered on my successes, which gave a certain tragedy to the boss fight; Valkorion was just a smug jackass. I would've been thrilled to see something like the memory segments in the class story with Zash and Khem! Here, I just wanted the experience to be over so I could go back to running reputation on Yavin 4 or, like, doing literally anything else.
Also I had to use the Fleet Pass to board my ship because somehow the loading ramp didn't work properly when I tried on Odessen. I'm on my ship now, feeling grumpy about all that shit.
I forgot to complain about the walker segment in chapter 8! That sucked also. It's hideously slow. The abilities are slow to fire, too. I didn't appreciate the temp abilities I was given to defeat Valkorion (you have to "change stance" to dark or light to be able to damage him, and all your abilities get replaced), since I'd spent a whole game getting good at zapping things with lightning, and now you're telling me not to do that? Argh.
There was the requisite stupid shock value "pick one of these two companions to die!" choice, between Vette and Torian. I killed off Vette, because her voice was more annoying, though it's not like either of them was a companion I'd spent much time with. In general there was a whole lot of railroading I did not appreciate, starting with having to claim the Eternal Throne at all. Just, no. All I wanted was to be a Dark Lord of the Sith! Let me get back to my actual gig!
I looked up the spoilery "autocomplete" options (i.e., what happens if you don't do KotFE/KotET but rather start the questline for the next things to come up, namely Iokath and Ossus) and it seems okay if you're doing DS Imperial or LS Republic; "cross-alignment" characters are screwed. I've already done it with an Imperial character, and my Republic characters will probably be LS, so skipping past this to the next content actually worth doing on both sides shouldn't be a problem.
Funnily enough, the text on the loading screen after the final cutscene read "Thank you for playing Star Wars: The Old Republic." Yes, game, I, too, would like to be playing SWTOR, instead of what is at best an inferior copy of Mass Effect 2.
Next up on my SWTOR journey: an intense detox session with Kurebir's class story. I'll go to Iokath on Midwan after Kurebir's done with Chapter 2.
Though to be fair, most of my antipathy came from having to deal with Valkorion. Look, this is the second Sith who's tried to hijack my body, and I gotta say, if I'm going to have a Sith in my head, I'd rather have Zash instead of Valkorion and his insufferable monologue on how this was all part of his ~INGENIOUS MASTERPLAN~ to take over my body and erode my mind and whatever. I guess he and his family got a nice send-off, but I honestly would've been fine with them all dying for some dumb unexplained reason in chapter 1 of KotFE. They did not improve my gameplay experience, Valkorion was not an appealing villain, and someone on the dev team loved him wayyyy too much.
I suppose that on some level, the final chapter's mindscape and in-mind battle are cool – the scenes are pretty enough – but tbh, the whole thing felt like a giant plot hole. I'm the Sith Inquisitor, I know exactly how to deal with unwanted brain hitchhikers. Surely Rakata puzzle box things can't be that hard to find, considering how easily Zash found one?
On a mechanics level, I appreciate waking up in Valkorion's body temporarily and getting introduced to the skills he uses in the boss battle by using them. OTOH, bleh.
Hm – I think most of my problems with Valkorion are that he's simultaneously a copy of Zash, motivation-wise, while also being the creators' pet. Zash liked me as an apprentice and cheered on my successes, which gave a certain tragedy to the boss fight; Valkorion was just a smug jackass. I would've been thrilled to see something like the memory segments in the class story with Zash and Khem! Here, I just wanted the experience to be over so I could go back to running reputation on Yavin 4 or, like, doing literally anything else.
Also I had to use the Fleet Pass to board my ship because somehow the loading ramp didn't work properly when I tried on Odessen. I'm on my ship now, feeling grumpy about all that shit.
I forgot to complain about the walker segment in chapter 8! That sucked also. It's hideously slow. The abilities are slow to fire, too. I didn't appreciate the temp abilities I was given to defeat Valkorion (you have to "change stance" to dark or light to be able to damage him, and all your abilities get replaced), since I'd spent a whole game getting good at zapping things with lightning, and now you're telling me not to do that? Argh.
There was the requisite stupid shock value "pick one of these two companions to die!" choice, between Vette and Torian. I killed off Vette, because her voice was more annoying, though it's not like either of them was a companion I'd spent much time with. In general there was a whole lot of railroading I did not appreciate, starting with having to claim the Eternal Throne at all. Just, no. All I wanted was to be a Dark Lord of the Sith! Let me get back to my actual gig!
I looked up the spoilery "autocomplete" options (i.e., what happens if you don't do KotFE/KotET but rather start the questline for the next things to come up, namely Iokath and Ossus) and it seems okay if you're doing DS Imperial or LS Republic; "cross-alignment" characters are screwed. I've already done it with an Imperial character, and my Republic characters will probably be LS, so skipping past this to the next content actually worth doing on both sides shouldn't be a problem.
Funnily enough, the text on the loading screen after the final cutscene read "Thank you for playing Star Wars: The Old Republic." Yes, game, I, too, would like to be playing SWTOR, instead of what is at best an inferior copy of Mass Effect 2.
Next up on my SWTOR journey: an intense detox session with Kurebir's class story. I'll go to Iokath on Midwan after Kurebir's done with Chapter 2.