SW The Old Republic: Sith Inquisitor

[hammerofglass]

The option where you just Force Persuade the Veil to join your cult is also funny.

[SabreMau]

Where I feel it falls down is the villain. Thanaton isn't particularly memorable. Maybe it's because he doesn't interact with you that much, or he sounds almost exactly like my old Geography teacher but when he's finally defeated it doesn't feel like some kind of epic revenge has been settled. It felt like Random Authority Figure B has been removed from obstructing you.

Yeah, come to think of it, I didn't even remember Thanaton was the big villain for this until watching this review series. I mean, I think I remember that he was involved in the story (there was a brief mention of him during Rex-Dart's video when he's on Corellia) but I didn't remember fighting him. Zash was memorable, but I also still knew she wasn't the final boss of the story campaign. The Warrior's endgame nemesis combines partial aspects of both Darths into a single character but still stood out.

[Fixer]

I think this is that dialogue option, though I haven't played it myself in enough years that I'm not entirely sure.

youtu.be/hUd8cmDecIs

There's actually another option, I tried to find it in another youtube vid and I can see it where it says Persuade/Shock/Kill. However nobody chooses that shock option.

If you choose shock, you can force the Veil into revealing that they were trying to scam you.

So there's 4 different options there. Sell the cult for the CN-12 chip. Murder the Veil, Force persuade them to join the cult, or shock them into submission. Plus Palladius can be alive or dead.

It's only a small side-quest for the inquisitor but there's so many different options for it to play out. Makes me nostalgic for BioWare at their best.

[Zefram Mann]

Where I feel it falls down is the villain. Thanaton isn't particularly memorable. Maybe it's because he doesn't interact with you that much, or he sounds almost exactly like my old Geography teacher but when he's finally defeated it doesn't feel like some kind of epic revenge has been settled. It felt like Random Authority Figure B has been removed from obstructing you.

Yeah, come to think of it, I didn't even remember Thanaton was the big villain for this until watching this review series. I mean, I think I remember that he was involved in the story (there was a brief mention of him during Rex-Dart's video when he's on Corellia) but I didn't remember fighting him. Zash was memorable, but I also still knew she wasn't the final boss of the story campaign. The Warrior's endgame nemesis combines partial aspects of both Darths into a single character but still stood out.

I've always said that it felt like in every story Act 1 was done by one, extremely talented writing team, and Acts 2 and 3 by the B-Squad. The exception to this was the Sith Warrior, whose tale is the only one that felt to me like one cohesive story from beginning to end. The main villain is someone you meet and interact with in Act 1 and everything that happens there is paid off down the road. Also helping is that he also manages to deliver some of the most consistently well-written lines in the game, making him probably the most memorable antagonist in the game.

[hammerofglass]

I've always said that it felt like in every story Act 1 was done by one, extremely talented writing team, and Acts 2 and 3 by the B-Squad. The exception to this was the Sith Warrior, whose tale is the only one that felt to me like one cohesive story from beginning to end. The main villain is someone you meet and interact with in Act 1 and everything that happens there is paid off down the road. Also helping is that he also manages to deliver some of the most consistently well-written lines in the game, making him probably the most memorable antagonist in the game.

The only one where I thought act 1 was distinctly better was the Trooper, where the second half is just a disconnected series of missions with no real plot beyond getting ready for Corellia. The Consular, on the other hand, has a first act that's downright painful to get through but an excellent second half. The other six I liked both.

I do agree about the warrior, though. Most of them feel like a standalone movie and it's sequel.

[Trooper924]

I personally prefer taking the third option in the resolution to the Khem/Zash quest: you don't help either one. You let them duke it out and you take the winner. The Sith way.

Sure, it means Khem wins, but I think he's the better choice anyways. I don't trust Zash to not try and overthrow the Inquisitor at some point, plus she has the brains to actually pull it off. Besides, all good Sith need a reliable henchman and Khem fits that bill quite nicely.

[Jonathan101]

Where I feel it falls down is the villain. Thanaton isn't particularly memorable. Maybe it's because he doesn't interact with you that much, or he sounds almost exactly like my old Geography teacher but when he's finally defeated it doesn't feel like some kind of epic revenge has been settled. It felt like Random Authority Figure B has been removed from obstructing you.

Yeah, come to think of it, I didn't even remember Thanaton was the big villain for this until watching this review series. I mean, I think I remember that he was involved in the story (there was a brief mention of him during Rex-Dart's video when he's on Corellia) but I didn't remember fighting him. Zash was memorable, but I also still knew she wasn't the final boss of the story campaign. The Warrior's endgame nemesis combines partial aspects of both Darths into a single character but still stood out.

I've always said that it felt like in every story Act 1 was done by one, extremely talented writing team, and Acts 2 and 3 by the B-Squad. The exception to this was the Sith Warrior, whose tale is the only one that felt to me like one cohesive story from beginning to end. The main villain is someone you meet and interact with in Act 1 and everything that happens there is paid off down the road. Also helping is that he also manages to deliver some of the most consistently well-written lines in the game, making him probably the most memorable antagonist in the game.

Haven't played the game, but from this review it looked more like there was no Act 3 for the Inquisitor- the problem with Thanaton is that he felt like an Act 2 villain, with Zash as the Act 1 villain.

I get that the actual Act 2 ending was probably fighting Thanaton only to be overwhelmed by your ghostly companions, but the fact that you would have won had this not happened only made Thanaton look even more pathetic an adversary, especially for a Dark Council member (none of whom are particularly memorable either- too bad this is after Darth Jadus faked his death, especially since he and the Inquisitor has somewhat similar goals).

Honestly, other than Vitiate and Malgus, none of the bad guys in this game have really made much of a mark on Star Wars lore. It did occur to me that since they kept bringing up Turak Horde and his artifacts and servants, and Horde IS an established SW villain in the lore, then a resurrected Horde would have been a great final villain, being the undefeated Dark Lord of the Sith of his era and all.

And if these are meant to be KOTOR 3-10, then KOTOR got progressively worse and less impressive with each sequel.

[Jonathan101]

Here's the question I've had since KOTOR 1:

Is the dark side an external force that imposes its will upon the Sith? Or is it a moral choice made by people who choose the dark side? If it's the latter, why do so many Jedi go full Evil Overlord the second they stray the slightest bit from the Jedi path?

There's is absolutely nothing in the Sith code that says you have to be an omnicidal maniac - or that embracing your emotions should lead you to abandon your empathy. In fact, the latter should probably lead to the opposite. So why then should feeling strong emotions inevitably lead to falling to the dark side? The way it plays out seems more consistent with the dark side being an external entity that either corrupts or breaks people to its will.

It'd be one thing if it followed the French Revolution model, where a desire to promote equality gradually leads to murdering everyone in the way of progress. Except... that actually seems more in line with being an extreme interpretation of Jedi philosophy, where you reject all emotion in favor purity of thought. At that point, it is merely practical to prune society of all the dangerous elements that threaten your utopia of justice and peace.

(yes, months old, but thought I'd respond anyway)

Both the Light Side and the Dark Side have their own will, and influence things to their own inscrutable ends. As far as the Jedi are concerned, every single Sith and every single Dark Jedi is a pawn of the Dark Side, allowing themselves to be seduced by passion and power and corrupted and twisted by it's essence until it tires of and destroys them.

The Sith don't disagree with the Jedi on this per say, they just think it's a gamble worth risking. The Sith Code teaches that the Dark Side is something to be controlled and mastered, to be bent to their own will, to serve them, while the Jedi see the Light Side as an ally. In reality it is likely that the Dark Side is far too powerful to be controlled by anyone- and some Sith seem to more or less concede this and develop their own ideas (e.g. Legends Palpatine sometimes side-stepped the issue by implying that he thought he WAS the Dark Side incarnate; a new character called Lord Momin thought that the Dark Side could only be served, etc.)

The Jedi - at least of certain eras-don't think that every emotion is bad; they just came to believe that they were risky. Allowing their Padawans, Knights and Masters to fall in love, form attachments etc. might not be bad in and of itself, but it made it more likely that they would experience more dangerous emotions like anger, fear, aggression or hate, and those emotions powered the Dark Side, so better to cut them off entirely and aim for internal peace.

The Dark Side is not just powered by strong negative emotions, it is also accessed by it, and it is further highly addictive, so the Jedi case is that while individual Jedi might find this approach rough, the alternative is disastrous. You might think that the likes of Dooku or Anakin disprove their case, that they repressed their emotions and fell anyway, but you need to remember that a) they likely would not have fallen had Palpatine not been influencing them, and b) the Jedi had enjoyed 1,000 years of peace with this approach, and previous eras- which didn't adhere to this, and allowed Jedi to be married etc.- were a lot more war ridden, albeit for different reasons.

In Legends this approach seemed to be a feature of the Ruusan era Jedi, who just came out of an entire millennia of war that culminated in something called "The One Hundred Year Darkness", which itself concluded with several Jedi defecting to the Sith group the Brotherhood of Darkness, so presumably these rules were part of an effort to prevent Jedi from falling again, and while it might have made them pretty joyless you COULD argue that it would have worked fine if the Sith had not secretly still been around the whole time.

Basically, the Jedi treat the Dark Side as the One Ring- it doesn't matter why you start using it, or whatever idealistic goals or rationalisations you use to justify accessing it, it WILL twist and corrupt you and pervert every positive goal you are trying to achieve.

As for the Sith Code, at it's heart it is not about embracing emotions or individuality in contrast to the Jedi way; it is ACTUALLY about worshipping yourself as a god and believing you are better than everyone. They embrace the Dark Side because they think that is the best and fastest way to make themselves godlike, and they absolutely embrace war, slavery, murder and all of these things because they believe these things further their goals and make them stronger. Imaging that the Sith have their moderates and extremists is like imaging that the Nazi's had THEIR moderates and extremists- it is technically true, but a moderate Nazi is still a Nazi, and if the Sith were real they would be far worse than any Nazi.

So, in other words, both- the Dark Side is definitely a corruptive influence, but the Sith Code is perverse in its own right and that is why it embraces corruption in the first place. The Sith Code might sound like it is just about freeing the individual from their restrictive bonds, but the intention behind those words were that those restrictions including morality, compassion and empathy and anything that stood in the way of the strongest Force sensitives from making an idol out of themselves, and when you look past the simplistic creed and get into their deeper writings, history and philosophy, it is easy to see that yes, they really DO condone and encourage genocide, slavery, war and all manner of other atrocities.

[Madner Kami]

Basically, the Jedi treat the Dark Side as the One Ring- it doesn't matter why you start using it, or whatever idealistic goals or rationalisations you use to justify accessing it, it WILL twist and corrupt you and pervert every positive goal you are trying to achieve.

Counter-point: Mace Windu.

[Jonathan101]

Basically, the Jedi treat the Dark Side as the One Ring- it doesn't matter why you start using it, or whatever idealistic goals or rationalisations you use to justify accessing it, it WILL twist and corrupt you and pervert every positive goal you are trying to achieve.

Counter-point: Mace Windu.

Counter-Counter point- Mace Windu.

Windu always kind of "danced" with the Dark Side but never fully embraced it; the closest he came was during the events of RotS and that was his downfall, letting Palaptine get inside his head and start thinking about overthrowing the government and taking control of the Senate to pre-empt a plot against the Jedi which was exactly what Palpatine wanted him to do (giving him the justification for Order 66).