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http://forum.blackintel.org/index.php/topic,1290.0.htmlWarning, the review contains major spoilers! Read at your own risk!Now, the day has finally come... and I ain't happy about it. Star Wars: The Old Republic, the MMO, has gone live one or two or three or I-don't-really-give-a-cent days ago. This is going to be about the overall story of The Old Republic, but not the MMO. Which I'm not getting. Also, I'll be talking more official canon here, so possibly some of the choices you've made actually aren't official stuff.
So, you know KotOR was awesome, KotOR II was good (not the fault of the devs... stupid LucasArts), KotOR III was canceled, but it wasn't just the game that made it a great half-finished series. It was the story. You care about the characters, a lot. Especially the main character, whom you control, Revan, in the original KotOR. The first game was basically about remembering who you were/are, stopping the Sith Empire, and ultimately, redemption. The second was pretty much about finding Revan, since the first "quest" of KotOR II fails in a sad and abrupt way. So people wanted to know what happened to the Champion of the Force, Lord of the Sith, and Champion of the Light redeemed (lots of stuff happened to Revan
) We were left hanging for years. And now we know the truth...
Rage time.
So, LucasArts decided to collaborate with Bioware again (they made the first game) to make an MMO of the same era as the KotOR series (4000 years before episode 4 roughly), but set about 300 years after the events of the KotOR series. To make the most profit (LucasArts that is), we kind of guessed the we wouldn't know the truth about the KotOR characters for a long time, or it'd be shattered in some horrible and cheesy way. I would have been happier with the first option sad to say.
Okay, enough with the teasers, here's what happened really.
Drew Karpyshyn was the one the one who made the KotOR story, for the original game, and he also ends it, with
one book, which is rather
short. Not very promising for a dude who left known space, and for a chick who went off in search of him, and a bunch of other people waiting for him to comeback. The book starts off between the first and second games.
Key parts are; this is two years after the first game, about three of four years before the second; Revan has been having dreams about a storm covered planet; he is married to Bastila, she is pregant; he gets Canderous, still a mercenary, to come with him; they find Mandalore's mask, Revan tells Canderous his plan, tells him to be Mandalore and gather the Mandalorians; Revan leaves to the unknown regions, gets captured by Sith; jump forward three or four years, after KotOR II; Exile meets with Bastila, who has a son; Bastila gives mask Revan used to wear, hopes memories will return, Exile leaves; Exile works with Sith, frees Revan; They fight Emperor, Exile dies, Revan is captured, T3-M4 explodes. The end. Sith don't attack the Republic for another 300 years (see, MMO
)
Now the book is more or less ok, but it's ending was crap, made purely for the MMO. I'll explain in detail, not necessarily coherent about it though. We might as well forget about the point of the second game too. So, the entire story, games and book included, was pretty amazing for most of the time, then gets gutted. People wanted to see Revan come back, do we get that? No. Only a filler, with a side of bad ending. Did the powerful Jedi Exile, Meetra Surik (that's her name), find him? Yes. Bring him back? No. Does she die in the lamest possible manner? Yes. Not even granted a good death. Simply put, bad writing. What does Canderous, who is now Mandalore, do with the army he built for Revan? Nothing. Oh, 300 years later they side with the Empire, and are not allies for the Republic, like they were supposed to be. When the Exile, after freeing Revan, gives him his mask back, does he remember tons of stuff? Yes, he even faints from it for a bit. Does he get a purpose? Yes. Do they fail mere hours later, after such an important plot point? Yes. Didn't HK-47 get blown to bits trying to find Revan prior to the events of KotOR II, and still tries to find him? Yes.
Ok, that's very incoherent. Lets just say, KotOR left off with so many things that were going to happen, and never did. The story wouldn't be hurt in any way at all if KotOR II didn't even exist, due to the lame ending we got. A bit more info: It was the Emperor (he's like a thousand years old
) who corrupted Revan and Malak prior to KotOR. Also, it's the same one from the MMO. Meetra, despite being a powerful Jedi, gets betrayed by a Sith (she would have never, author seems to not know her) and get cut down from behind while fighting the Emperor. T3-M4 simply is a bunch of shrapnel now. Revan is captured and kept in a stasis away from space AND time... Guess what? You kill him as Sith in a flashpoint in the MMO.
Looking back at this, this is a jumble. The worst I've ever written so far. I cannot explain all the details of how bad it was ended. I'm just so mad. They finally ruined something I've loved for many years, they ruined my childhood.
So, sound away in the comments. Anything really, lets have a discussion. And I'll continue with more frequent and friendlier reviews, this one just hurt a lot to think about, that's why it took so long to write.
Author
Topic: Slyfox Reviews: Star Wars: The Old Republic: Revan (book) (Read 17276 times)