Star Wars: Knights of the Fallen Empire/Eternal Throne Ranking : C
I thought I’d review the Knights expansions for The Old Republic separately from the base game since these expansions are really a single-player game attached to the MMO. In other words, they’re very, very different from the base game. I want to start by saying I love the premise: the Republic and Empire allying against a greater threat. It’s not so much that I like the alliance – honestly, the Sith allying with anyone makes no sense – but I like that they did something new. Star Wars is pretty much always the Republic fighting the Empire, so it’s refreshing to see something different. That’s the only redeeming feature of these expansions, but it’s a big one in my book.
I stand by what I said in my base game review about the story being nonsensical. I was constantly questioning things about the plot. How do I survive ramming my ship into the enemy fleet at the beginning of the game? Why didn’t Arcann just kill me rather than freezing me in carbonite for 5 years? What was even the point of being frozen in carbonite for 5 years? That has no bearing on the plot. Why do/can I waltz in and out of Zakuul after spending like 5 chapters escaping from it? You’re telling me that the Sith Emperor partitioned his consciousness into some random guy on the other side of the galaxy, had 3 kids, and rose to rule another super-technologically advanced empire out of nowhere? Why is currency in the Star Wars universe still backed by precious metals? And so on.
The plot is also fairly forgettable in terms of its details, since the expansions are pretty much just one long cinematic that occasionally lets you walk through a hallway to get from scene to scene. I found myself following quest markers, mindlessly going from place to place fighting nondescript droids, rather than taking agency and forging an adventure. And by the way, don’t get me started on the sequences where you pilot a walker in Knights of the Eternal Throne. They somehow took a sequence that should be completely badass – you’re piloting this giant war machine to lay waste to your enemies – and made it suck. HARD. The walker is slow. It’s clunky. It takes damage easily. If it explodes, you get to lumber back slowly from ALL THE WAY AT THE BEGINNING OF THE ZONE. What is with these developers and wanting to waste the player’s time?
The game also railroads you pretty hard. Playing a dark-side character makes 0 sense in these expansions. I played through them using my Dark Side character and I actually stopped part of the way through and began making neutral/Light Side dialogue choices because the role-playing aspect just completely fell apart otherwise. The people of the galaxy, suffering from the tyranny of a foreign superpower, rally to you as the Alliance Commander. If you’re a bloodthirsty maniac, why the hell would they do that? Also, if you don’t play a Force-user, the plot makes even less sense since the entire story is about fighting a family of Force-users.
It’s really a shame. I didn’t want to come down hard on these expansions. I like the alliance idea and I wanted a plot-driven Star Wars game set in all these different worlds. But…this didn’t work.
I thought I’d review the Knights expansions for The Old Republic separately from the base game since these expansions are really a single-player game attached to the MMO. In other words, they’re very, very different from the base game. I want to start by saying I love the premise: the Republic and Empire allying against a greater threat. It’s not so much that I like the alliance – honestly, the Sith allying with anyone makes no sense – but I like that they did something new. Star Wars is pretty much always the Republic fighting the Empire, so it’s refreshing to see something different. That’s the only redeeming feature of these expansions, but it’s a big one in my book.
I stand by what I said in my base game review about the story being nonsensical. I was constantly questioning things about the plot. How do I survive ramming my ship into the enemy fleet at the beginning of the game? Why didn’t Arcann just kill me rather than freezing me in carbonite for 5 years? What was even the point of being frozen in carbonite for 5 years? That has no bearing on the plot. Why do/can I waltz in and out of Zakuul after spending like 5 chapters escaping from it? You’re telling me that the Sith Emperor partitioned his consciousness into some random guy on the other side of the galaxy, had 3 kids, and rose to rule another super-technologically advanced empire out of nowhere? Why is currency in the Star Wars universe still backed by precious metals? And so on.
The plot is also fairly forgettable in terms of its details, since the expansions are pretty much just one long cinematic that occasionally lets you walk through a hallway to get from scene to scene. I found myself following quest markers, mindlessly going from place to place fighting nondescript droids, rather than taking agency and forging an adventure. And by the way, don’t get me started on the sequences where you pilot a walker in Knights of the Eternal Throne. They somehow took a sequence that should be completely badass – you’re piloting this giant war machine to lay waste to your enemies – and made it suck. HARD. The walker is slow. It’s clunky. It takes damage easily. If it explodes, you get to lumber back slowly from ALL THE WAY AT THE BEGINNING OF THE ZONE. What is with these developers and wanting to waste the player’s time?
The game also railroads you pretty hard. Playing a dark-side character makes 0 sense in these expansions. I played through them using my Dark Side character and I actually stopped part of the way through and began making neutral/Light Side dialogue choices because the role-playing aspect just completely fell apart otherwise. The people of the galaxy, suffering from the tyranny of a foreign superpower, rally to you as the Alliance Commander. If you’re a bloodthirsty maniac, why the hell would they do that? Also, if you don’t play a Force-user, the plot makes even less sense since the entire story is about fighting a family of Force-users.
It’s really a shame. I didn’t want to come down hard on these expansions. I like the alliance idea and I wanted a plot-driven Star Wars game set in all these different worlds. But…this didn’t work.