Revisiting a Classic
"Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic" (2003)
Part 2 of 11 - Taris
Hey guys! I'm back with another post on my classic KOTOR experience -- which I've switched over from iPhone to Mac desktop to play a modded Steam version of the game.
My first post was about Endar Spine and the one after that was about Steam & mods.
The second location of Star Wars: KOTOR, Taris, is a lot bigger than the initial tutorial area of Endar Spine. Taris is a full-on planet where players get to tackle their first main missions and side quests.
In the past, I've found Taris to be a bit tedious. This is probably due to the fact I'm not a big fan of swoop-racing and because of all the back-and-forth traveling you end up doing if you don't plan the completion of your quests accordingly -- but thankfully I installed a "Jedi From the Start" mod to speed things up a bit. But even with that speed-boost, I still clocked over five hours on Taris so I've included some gifs and screenshots of my gameplay to save on time.
For anyone who's curious, here's what we'll be covering:
- Main Quests on Taris
- Find Bastila
- Escape Taris
- Side Quests on Taris
- Bounty Office
- Dueling Arena
- Promised Land Journals
- Rakghoul Serum
- Final Thoughts on Taris
- Story
- Characters
- Enemies/Boss Fights
- Final Grade
As mentioned in my previous KOTOR post, I've switched over from a Scoundrel class to a Scout class since I don't plan on using blaster pistols anymore. Despite the fun of roleplaying as a Han Solo type, I decided to try a build that used implants and Scout has free access to one of the first Implant feats.
My new Scout-Consular character, who begins as a Jedi thanks to a mod, is named Varen Thard. I'll be trying to play a LS, or Light Side, aligned play-through as much as possible.
All right now that we have that out of the way, let's jump into my Jedi experience on Taris!
Main Quests on Taris
Finding & Escaping with Bastila
Taris's main mission is quite the trip. After escaping the Endar Spine and waking up in Taris's rich airy Upper City, my main character Scout-Consular Varen Thard learns from veteran Republic soldier Carth Onassis that they have to hurry up and find Jedi woman Bastila before the Sith do. This requires traveling through Taris's three levels: the rich airy Upper City, the smoggy gangland Lower City, and the ancient ruins and mutant-infested sewers of the Lowers City.
I'd love to lie and say I won my first time but the gif above is probably from my thirtieth attempt haha.
The Rakghoul mutants in the Under City have a 25% chance to poison you so I had to Force-Choke them to protect my party.
And finding Bastila requires quite a few steps: fighting sewer mutants, helping a blue alien girl save her big furry friend, stealing an engine from a bad street-gang, racing for a good street-gang, defeating the bad street-gang leader when he refuses to give you Bastila, stealing launch-codes from a military base by buying a small droid, defeating the Sith Governor, helping a mercenary kill a crime-boss so you can steal his ship and flee the planet. That might be a simplification but that's basically all your main tasks on Taris.
I've ignored Stasis, Fear, and Force Push in favor of Force-Choke and Force Lightning since they sometimes immobilize targets.
Since I'm doing a Light Side play-through, I gave up the option of betraying the good street-gang to side with the bad street-gang, even though it meant more money. Through all of this, I was pretty much 99% good except for one time where I used my Force Powers to buy the small droid for free -- but my options were: buy the droid for full price, buy it for half price, or get the droid for free. And choosing that third option, gave me Dark Side points which lowered my Light Side points. This is important because right now I'm using a lot of Force Powers, and high LS points mean LS Force Powers are cheaper to use, and vice versa for DS Force Powers.
Taris Side Quests:
The side quests on Taris were pretty easy: kill or spare bounty targets, compete in a non-lethal fighting arena, find some old books, and get the cure for virus.
Bounty Office
Playing as a Light Side Scout-Consular, I wanted to try use my Force Powers to avoid fighting and killing people which I was almost completely able to do. Every bounty was spared except for one woman, an assassin named Selven, who attacked me even when I left after she asked me to. To be fair, my character Varen didn't kill her: Carth did. He gets a little trigger happy sometimes. Other than Selven, the other reason for this side quest being incomplete was that completion required me fighting and killing Bendak Starkiller in a death match, which I refused to do. It just didn't make sense that my peaceful character would do that ... so I missed out on Dark Side points and a decent pistol from Bendak.
We tried to leave when she asked but then she attacked us so Carth just did what he does best.
Dueling Arena
This side quest was pretty straight forward: fight and beat Dead Eye Duncan, Gerlon Two Fingers, Ice, Marl, and Twitch. Duncan and Two Fingers were easy to beat in the beginning but I lost twice to Ice and had to return a few hours later to start getting victories. By that time, Marl and Twitch just got annihilated by my Force Powers. But this was left incomplete as well, because completion also meant fighting Bendak Starkiller in a death match and as I said earlier it didn't fit my Light Side play-through as a peaceful Jedi.
I kept on winning the fight against Ice in the beginning but kept losing when I got lazy and let my character use regular attacks. Now I know to only relax toward the end when in the finishing-move part of battles.
Promise Land Journals
This was a weird side quest. Basically, while helping Mission look for Zalbar and the Black Vulkar base in the Under City sewers, I had to pick up books from this crazy old man's followers. Supposedly there's a paradise deep beneath the Under City but you really find no evidence whatsoever that it exists. Your Dark Side option is to give all the books to the local shop-keeper in the Under City because he's worried the Under City people won't need him anymore if the paradise is real. Anyway, the old man takes the books you give him and convinces everyone to journey deeper underground in search of this place that might not even exist.
My character Varen talking to Rukil, a strange old man from the Under City, about the Paradise he believes might be deeper underground -- but I don't know how that type of quest would've turned out: perhaps an escort mission or one where we fought ancient droids.
Rakghoul Serum
The Under City's full of these mutants, called Rakghouls, who can turn people into mutants by attacking them. It's basically a virus. Your options here are to sell the cure for the virus to a crime-boss for a lot of money, or give it to a local doctor who'll mass-produce the cure so it's free. Being the good guy that he is, my main character Varen ... gave it to the doctor.
Is it just me or do KOTOR's Rakghoul mutants remind you of the monsters from Netflix's "Stranger Things?"
Final Thoughts
Story
Finding and rescuing Bastila was fun but some of it didn't make sense -- like how did a street gang capture a Jedi who has magic powers? Or, if the Sith are looking for Bastila and everyone on Taris knows her escape-pod landed in the Under City then why are most Sith soldiers in the Upper City? Also, if Davik is a powerful crime lord why do low-level street gangs have more minions than him? It was good to see that Bastila wasn't a complete damsel in distress but it didn't make sense that she'd be captured so long. Overall, I liked it better than Endar Spine though.
Characters
Taris is full of a lot characters--people who join your party and people you run into for main quests and side ones.
Carth
Carth Onassis the first party member you meet -- a moody, veteran Republic soldier haunted by the fact his mentor/commanding officer joined the Sith to serve under Darth Revan and Malak. He was a bit whiny but a very useful ranged character who can dual wield pistols. His commentary on Taris was a bit stale but it fits his soldier with a heart of gold type -- for him it's justice or nothing at all. I didn't really care for his character so I'll probably only include him when necessary for the story.
Mission & Zaalbrak
Mission Vao and Zaalbrak are one of those duos that wouldn't make sense without the other. You got one blue teenage chatterbox and one giant bear-man who most people can't understand. Mission's a orphan who needs protection and Zalbrak's probably someone who needs someone sensitive to protect him from himself. It was kind of funny to watch Mission tease Zaalbar about his breath or his body odor but the real joy was using Zalbar as my party's melee tank since his Strength and Constitution stats are way beyond everyone else's. I plan on using a mostly Jedi team in the future but if it's story-appropriate I'll be trying to use this duo more often.
Bastila
Bastila Shan starts as a damsel in distress but technically she frees herself after we win the swoop-race, or our attempt to rescue her wakes her up. This character's got some entertaining sass and one of the highlights about her is that she's one of the few characters, other than maybe Mission Vao, who makes Carth more bearable due to their dialogue. As a Scout-Sentinel, she's a really good in-between party member so I'll probably be using her all the time as as a white battle mage of some kind. She's famous int eh story for having killed the Sith's previous leader Darth Revan, which makes her a prime target for Revan's apprentice, Darth Malak.
Canderous
Canderous Ordo. What's there to say about this Mandalorian brute? Basically, he's who Carth thinks he is but isn't. This guy's more aligned with the Dark Side compared to the other party members, so his dialogue can be comedically ruthless at times -- but he comes from a race of mercenaries who live for fighting and killing, so he's pretty badass if not one-note at times but in a way opposite of Carth. He's almost as physically tough as a Wookie which is saying something but he comes equipped with a heavy ranged weapon but has the chops for blades as well. I feel more inclined to using him more than Carth but I haven't found anyone that he vibes well with yet.
T3-M4
T3-M4 is an astro-mech droid, so sort of like an ancestor to the popular R2D2 but so far I haven't seen a lot of personality from this machine. It's got the best Computer, Repair, and Security skills but other than that I haven't seen much emotion from it yet.
Enemies/ Boss Fights
Due to the "Jedi From the Start" mod, I've found most of the enemies and bosses on Taris to be almost easy. There's a few times where I've messed, since sometimes I try to jump into fights I want to rush through. This usually backfires since so far I've found that fighting in KOTOR is all about set-up, maintenance, and then a lot more fun is possible when you're going in for the kill with each enemy.
Here's my character, T3-M4, and Bastila taking out a red Sith soldier. One of the fun parts of KOTOR is combining different party-members' special abilities to defeat enemies. In this gif, Bastila and T3-M4 stun the soldier, while my character zaps them with Force Lightning before Bastila finishes them off.
The bosses on Taris are Kandon, Brejik, Sith Governor, Calo Nord, and Davik Kang. Kandon was a Hidden Bek gang member who flipped to the Black Vulkar side to work with Brejik the Black Vulkar leader. Calo Nord is a bountry hunter and Davik Kang is the head crime-lord on Taris.
Force-choking Kandon because he won't return the engine he stole: karma makes it hard to breathe.
I won the swoop-race but Brejik tried to cheat me: poor-sportsmanship can be suffocating.
This was a strange fight -- this Sith Governor was obsessed with T3-M4 the droid so Bastila and Varen just attacked him from behind a lot for bonus damage.
The Calo and Davik fight on Taris was the last one but was surprisingly anti-climactic since, after Davik dies, Calo tries to blow the entire hangar up. It would've been much more fun to fight some small army instead -- but it didn't happen.
~
Final Grade: 7.5/10
Taris would usually get a seven out of ten, even though some parts are a little tedious but I had a lot more fun as a Jedi: my Scout-Consular's Force Powers were just so much fun to use. But I can't exactly give it an eight because I felt like being a Jedi early made Taris more fun so it should only get a half-point difference there.
Some side-quests were left incomplete because they just didn't fit my Light Side play-through but I'm fine with that. I want to make my character Varen Thard a good a guy as possible. Until a plausible-enough situation presents itself, I want to stay away from Dark Side options ... but also if they're not more obvious then mistakes can happen. Still annoyed I got Dark Points for wanting a free droid but I guess that makes sense.
In conclusion, while it's probably obvious, I think Taris was a much better level than Endar Spine but that's just saying level-one of the game was better than the tutorial. I remember liking Dantooine and Kashykk, the two next planets, so let's see how that goes.
See you all on my next "Star Wars: KOTOR" post!
May the Force be with you!
Additional Image Sources:
Taris Poster
Carth drawing
Mission & Zalbar drawing
Bastila drawing
Canderous drawing
T3-M4
Rahkgoul images