Kotor 2 is an ugly gem. A bastard child. It is anything but pretty looking. What is there, works, but to say it lacks polish is an understatement. It oozes ambition and what it manages to pull off despite the ludicrously short development time is just remarkable. There's stuff in there that you can't help but feel is still trickling down into today's RPGs.
The crafting system is excellent, the NPC influence system was revolutionary, The characters are memorable. The approach is about as adult as you can get with the Star Wars license. Maybe too much so for Lucasarts' tastes and that played a part in the rushed release, I don't know.
Kotor 2 is a much darker, more intimate look at the nature of the force and its influence on morality. Whether you swing light or dark, kotor 2 tries to make you sweat the big decisions (you will either love or love to hate the character Kreia, I urge you to have her in your party _all_ the time). And if you do swing dark, Kotor 2 is the place to do it. You can be a real son of a bitch in this one like nowhere else and really feel your soul blackening as you play.
Its definitely worth playing, but also worth knowing that what you're getting is a flawed masterpiece. You may really connect with the developers approach to the star wars universe, to the characters and to the nifty gameplay features introduced here (features you're likely to see in Dragon Age I'm sure) and then be all the more upset when towards the end of the game (and sometimes in the middle, too) it feels as if you've stepped back stage in the production and are doing the dress rehearsal on a hastily constructed placeholder set. Because you are.
Damn shame really.
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