Released in 2004, Star Wars: Knights of The Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords (KOTOR 2: TSL) is a CRPG developed by Obsidian Entertainment. Upon release, it left a lot of content on the cutting room floor which was subsequently re-introduced by fans via the TSLRCM, or The Sith Lord Restored Content Mod, which also resolved a number of technical issues the plagued the game such as stability problems and broken in-game quests.
This is the second in a series of articles detailing specific choices made in the design of KOTOR 2. The first article can be found here.
One of the most important aspects of CRPGs is the party composition. You'll spend tens of hours with these characters, and how they are portrayed is important to not only enjoyment of the game, but how the narrative interfaces with the gameplay and immersing the player in that world. When done poorly, it can jerk the player out of the experience with jarring dialogue, poor characterization, and bad mechanical implementation. When properly used, however, it can enhance both story and gameplay with interesting use of abilities, and insight into the story from a character who lives in that world.
The party members you encounter in KOTOR 2 are well done for the most part, with motivations and interesting input about the galaxy in which they live, with only a few cases of falling short. In this, we will be looking at a few examples of how the design choices made with these characters influence the game as a whole.
One of the first characters you encounter is Atton Rand, a Han Solo/Rogue archetype found imprisoned in the Peragus Administration Level. If the main character is a woman, he can come off as a bit of a slime ball, remarking on the state of undress the character is in. He also continues to make a couple more advances as the tutorial progresses. Atton continues to present as a somewhat common portrayal of a smuggler in the Star Wars fiction, and hurdling toward comic relief status. It isn't until toward the end of the first world proper, Telos, that it is hinted he has a much more sordid past, with Kreia calling him "murderer", which she then proceeds to blackmail him to further serve her purposes and the main character.
It is not till exploring Nar Shaddaa that the player will learn the final portion of his past, when a twi'lek approaches the main character telling them that "That one came to the smuggler's moon years into the Jedi Civil War, claimed he had been displaced by the war. Don't trust him. He is not a soldier—he is a killer, tried and true." You can then press Atton to reveal his history as not only a fellow Mandalorian War veteran, but also a former assassin and Jedi-hunter of the Sith Empire under Revan. He will attempt to justify what he had done in the past by referencing the main character's actions during the Mandalorian Wars, and will also detail how he managed to effectively combat and capture Jedi by acting the fool-- which had also been doing up till this point, saying "Yeah, maybe you'll believe this - that when fighting a Jedi, you wound the Padawan first, then let the rest take care of itself. Not only will the master move to protect the student, but the Force bond between the two will mess up the master's head better than any stab wound." With this new information, it shows that Atton is more than just the token rogue and butt of many insults, instead showing a character with deep guilt and self-loathing trying to do better for himself and others.
One character who is not as well implemented is the assassin droid HK-47, a fan favorite (and mine), who has a somewhat strange position in terms of party and story. HK-47 is a character brought from the first game, and is technically optional due to being hidden behind a quest to gather parts and rebuild them. When reactivated, the droid serves mostly as a vehicle to deliver quips and observations through their blood-red-tinted photoreceptors. While their dialogue is very entertaining, with a highlight being a unique description of love, they don't serve much in terms of function to either the greater plot or much in anyone else's arc aside from occasionally interjecting in the conversations of other party members. Even with the TSLRCM, the originally planned content for finding the HK-50 factory does call for more of HK-47's involvement, this does not tie into the main narrative, instead tying up a loose end that does not necessarily need it, however cool it may be. HK-47 is likely a top contender for the designated comic relief role in KOTOR 2, and that isn't by itself a bad thing, but what we ended up with is a one-note character that does not serve a greater purpose.
One of the more interesting choices in party design is making a number of potential companions available based on who your character is. The two ways that you can affect who is available is choosing gender in character creation, and alignment on the Light side/ Dark side axis.
• Based on the main character's gender, either the Disciple(Mical) or Handmaiden(Brianna) will join your crew.
• Depending on which side of the alignment scale you follow, you will either get Mira(Light), a human bounty hunter, or Hanharr(Dark), a wookie berserker.
Alternate characters can be troublesome, as the designers cannot guarantee whether or not a player will encounter those characters, so they can't reasonably put critical content in their arcs. That said, three of the four companions mentioned above are well written and portrayed, with Hanharr being the weakest of the four. Mira has good interaction with the greater party, interacting in conversations frequently; Disciple shows a growing awareness of the greater plot, along side interesting dialogues with Kreia about such things; and Handmaiden has a rather involved personal quest line with the main character, including an implied romantic sub-text.
Hanharr, on the other hand, is present regardless of whether or not he is recruited, and his characterization in both cases is written for this. Should you recruit Mira in his stead, Kreia will "save" him, and bind him to her service to test the main character, occurring in a cutscene after the raid on the Jekk'Jekk Tarr on Nar Shaddaa-- not seeing him again until the end of the game. Alternatively, he instead kills Mira, and is attacked by Zez-Kai-Ell during his escape, leaving him to still be saved by Kreia, who uses his servitude to her to serve the main character. He falls into the same trap as HK-47, being a one-note character who can say a few interesting things, but ultimately has not much to say or do in the bigger plot, and is notably not a hilarious assassin droid.
Aside from individuals, one of the best facets of the party in KOTOR 2 is the fact that the party members actually talk to each other, separate from the main character; Kreia will antagonize Atton and Disciple, Bao-Dur will have full conversations with the droids on your crew, and characters who are implied romantic interests will bicker about you (and fail the Bechdel Test if you are male main character). While none of this is groundbreaking, nor was it even back in 2004, it still does a lot to bring the characters to life as they are doing something other than waiting for your character to interact with them, and actually having something resembling agency and individuality.
The companions in Knights of The Old Republic 2 are good examples of effective characterization of people in a realized setting, complete with their own points of view on the galaxy and recent history. Even if their weaker instances don't have great interactivity or good arcs, they are still capable of providing niche insight from their limited roles and involvement. While they may not be the best written in gaming, their plots and pathos as flawed individuals are still worth experiencing nearly 20 years later.
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