Kotor 1 vs Kotor 2

Sums it up really.

I think this is what bugged most people about 2. I really like both although it's absolutely not my kind of game, but I had a blast playing both. 2, however, certainly has an incomplete feel to it. Coming from the first one to the second one straight away might have fatigued me on the game play, but I didn't notice a massive difference in how both games are played. I also think Kotor 1 had a more interesting and intense story.

Is there a strict standard for a finished game? Most games I look into have some content left on the cutting room floor from indie to the most polished and popular AAAs

A good rule of thumb is, if it's fucking broken and glaringly missing half of the third act, it's probably unfinished you retard.

>more than double the amount of feats
>more than double the amount of Force Powers
>the addition of a new influence system that makes character interaction much more interesting, including the ability to train companions into Jedi or Sith and teach them Force Powers
>various other improvements, such as the addition of unarmed combat, prestige classes, force forms and lightsaber stances
>companions actually have unique abilities and feats, unlike Kotor 1 where every companion is completely generic from a gameplay standpoint
All of which is completely pointless, because the combat is ridiculously easy. If it weren't, it would be impossible, because companion control is completely fucked and they never do what you tell them to do in combat.

>12 companions, an increase compared to Kotor 1's 9 companions
And they all have far less dialogue than any of KOTOR 1's companions.

>much more variety in gameplay and level design; there is nothing in Kotor 1 like the defense of Khoonda or the vision quest on Korriban
KOTOR 2's environments are ugly as hell compared to KOTOR 1.

>all this with a development time of barely a year and made by a newly formed studio and a tiny development team; by comparison, Kotor 1 had a development time of more than 3 years with an experienced studio and a big development team
Yeah, because KOTOR 1 had to be built from scratch.

KOTOR 1 is the better game if you want a Star Wars adventure. KOTOR 2 is the better game if you want to shit on people who want Star Wars adventures.

Maxed Battle Meditation, Master Valor, and Master Flurry is a good way to trivialize most of the game

why not just fucking spam force lightning

I didn't go all-out on a doublesaber to refresh lightning all the time

I like both. 2 has some undeniable improvements over 1 but 1 is more of a complete experience since 2 was rushed.

>Then you have influence, where you can shift your companions from the dark side or light side and train them to be force users
So it's good writing for characters to have no strong opinions or beliefs of their own, and for the player to be able completely change their personalities?

I've never understood why people thought that aspect of KOTOR 2 was so good. I thought it seemed really contrived that all of your companions just so happened to be Force-sensitives. Yes, I know they tried to justify it with some lore bullshit about the PC, but I don't buy it.

>Like, 3x as many lightsaber colors, Silver, Viridian, Bronze, Orange, etc.
Yeah, but if you actually want one of those colors specifically, you're probably completely fucked, because *all* the items in the game are determined by RNG. Oh, you want a silver lightsaber? Good fucking luck. A silver crystal has about a 2% drop rate. Oh, you thought you could get around that by saying what color saber you want at the beginning, when Atton asks you about your old saber? LOL, fuck you, you never actually get your old saber back, even though having you find it and take it up again would be a great way to start the character's journey back to the Jedi ways instead of making you use a blaster for half of the game.

>more than double the amount of Force Powers
Which doesn't matter much when you can get through the entire game by Force Storming everything.

Don't use force storm then?

>Good fucking luck. A silver crystal has about a 2% drop rate.
They're either a guaranteed drop somewhere or a vendor always sells them because I've literally never had a playthrough where I didn't get the unique lightsaber colors.

That is because Kotor 1 was a commercialized production akin to TFA that stood alone in its own lore. It was like the original trilogy of Star Wars in that any world building outside of the main cast was irrelevant as the movie focused on presenting its characters. Kotor 2 rather was an ambiguous game that presented itself as an intermediary sequel to another possible game in a Kotor trilogy. I'd agree with you unless we're talking about the Restoration mod also being included into Kotor 2. That mod fixes the loose ends of the stories (Atris, HK47) that left unnoticed cause disappointment. With the mod, KOTOR 2's ending becomes way more filling and intense in the conclusion as the conflict feels bigger.

Or, you know, they could have designed the game not to be trivialized by a single power.

I played with the restoration mod, and the game still felt really unfinished and empty.

Of course, if they'd done that, you'd be fucked over by the inability to use actual tactics due to the broken AI.

There's always one person who gets lucky with RNG.