Review: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (Nintendo Switch)

I didn’t grow up playing Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, or KOTOR for short, but I played it for the first time about five years ago on a friend’s PlayStation 2. But how does this iconic Star Wars game fair on the Switch? Fairly well, I’d say.

As a quick KOTOR opening game summary, after customizing your player character, you wake up on a crumbling Ender Spire. Greeted by a tutorial man, Trask Ulgo, he tells you the controls and gives exposition and details of your life up until now. The rest of the game consists of gathering companions, doing story or side quests, learning more about the characters and story, and battling enemies. Speaking of companions, some of my favorites are Carth (your first companion and possible love-interest), Bastelia (the overconfident Jedi and possible love-interest), and HK-47 (a trigger-happy assassin droid that calls humans ‘meat bags’).

There are two main weapons; blasters and swords. The difference battle wise with them is how close you come into contact with your opponent. Some blasters require both hands and pistols you can dual wield. Combat’s turn-based and there are battle stimulants to boost stats, medpacks, and grenades you can use as well. When you level up, you can add points to skills and attributes. In the beginning, you pick to be either a male or female soldier, scout, or scoundrel, each with its own advantages and disadvantages, like what weight of armor they start out wearing. Later on, you train to become a Jedi and get to use Jedi powers with a little bar that gets used up when you use the Force and refills. My favorite Force Power (despite being a Dark Side move) is Force Drain. It’s basically the Giga Drain of KOTOR, which is my favorite Pokemon move, draining an enemy’s health to boost your own.

The graphics…are PS2 graphics. The voice acting is fairly good, and the music is great. The voice-acted dialogue help sells each delivery’s mood. I was most worried about finding bugs when playing, but so far, I only experienced one. I was going to the Jedi Temple, and Bastila and Carth were running ahead to meet with the council…only they were running into an invisible wall blocking their path to the hallway. I tried to go through, but I too got stuck. So I went in the ship and out again, and that fixed the bug.

Another issue I’ve had, despite how good the controls are, is whenever you use one medpack and go to use another, the cursor moves back to the interactive button automatically. So if your hp had gotten really low after a battle, you have to click on the medpack and then move your cursor to click on it again for another one. I can’t remember if it was like that before this port, but it was something that bugged me.

Overall, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is a classic RPG with one of the best Star Wars stories in the franchise. It is priced at $14.99, and I say it is worth it! There is plenty of replay value, trying for different endings and seeing different responses in your dialogue choices. Will you go Dark, Light, or Neutral? Will you bully your way through quests or try to be diplomatic? Play it, you ‘meatbag’!