A nostalgic classic. A classic I frankly would not enjoy as much without that nostalgia, truth be told.

There's a lot good with it, and a lot bad. Juhani's entire plot is immensely rushed and she feels more like a character I added through a fan-made restoration mod than one from a finished product. The cruelty of the council gaslighting her could have been spotlighted more to set up the later twist, but no, that depth isn't really there. It feels very first draft and then they had to ship it.

As an role-playing game, the dialogue fluctuates between giving you plenty of character building options that express multiple viewpoints and feelings, to being stuck in a binary between "The council is great and could never do wrong" and "I love killing orphans and eating puppies." It's a bit disappointing if you want to be a tad more jaded than full-on Jedi superfan, but without having to be Space Hitler.

And gameplay wise as an RPG, it's wretched. It really is. The character building is nonexistent. Blasters not scaling with dexterity but melee scaling with strength completely negates the other half of the combat tree. Blasters are good if you want to self-impose a difficult challenge on yourself, a turn-based version of a no-hit run. But as an actual character choice that won't have you pulling out your hair as the stronger melee enemies completely mop you up as you deal the same amount of damage you did on Taris? Oh, oh god. A Teras Kesai run would be easier. I truly believe Bioware giving Canderous and Zaalbar strength stats but ranged signature weapons was to trick people into handicapping themselves, as a 3-melee party makes the game difficulty insignificant at any point.

It is funny to play this and be like, "Oh, this is the start of the Bioware formula." Every post-KOTOR Bioware game is reskinned KOTOR, even moreso than BG2's influence on Bioware's future games. The non-linear 4 points to get the macguffin, the post 3rd macguffin story event, talking to party members on the ship after every planet, it all started here.

But I have to be honest with myself: How much of the game do I really like? Kashyyyk is a horrible auditory nightmare. Manaan has THREE goddamn court case quests, and eye-searing scenery. Taris has a dedicated sewer level. Tatooine is basically just a hallway city and then a desert. The companions are bare bones and one dimensional outside of a few. Zaalbar says nothing. Mission may as well have died on Taris for how much she contributes afterwards. Juhani, lol. T3 doesn't exist after seducing the door to the sith base. Carth is memetically hated on, but hey, he actually talks throughout the entire game and has an arc.

But I love the game regardless. Even on PC, where it is the worst port I have ever played. Thanks for the two decades of memories, KOTOR. I hope that remake never comes out.

Fixed a ton of issues I have with the base game. Shorter, better mission variety (with alternate playstyles with the alignment system), better character builds. I enjoyed making Tarkus melee for a while even though he is so clearly not designed to be, to the point he will yell, "Tactical Squad caught in melee!" as he does 1400 damage sword to a cultist.

Story is more fun too than simply, "We are Space Marine, we save world." A shame Eliphas' beautiful Dark Crusade voice is gone, but it is hilarious Steve Blum voices half the cast.

The deployment and infestation system are thankfully gone. They could have slapped "Chaos Cult Corruption" on there to replace it, but thankfully thought better of it.

The corruption system is deeply lacking, and I never felt pressured to go either way. The pure equipment was enough to carry me on hard, and I never was compelled to do the corrupting mission alternatives to save time or for better gear. So in a way it felt like a very nothing mechanic, even if I appreciated its existence and do think it served more than the ones I had issues with last time.

Good game, good game. A shame Space Marines are just so damn boring to play as after a while.

I haven't returned to this in well over a decade, and oh my god, I see why. It is OUTRAGEOUSLY monotonous. They seemed deeply insecure in a lot of aspects of this game as they moved on from the traditional RTS of its predecessor to a radically different Company of Heroes with RPG elements style. And it really, really shows.

First is the horrible inventory management, that I can only compare to the modern Destiny style of loot where your inventory is clogged with dozens of items that are all .3% stronger against a specific enemy type. My brain is not wired to enjoy looting when I only ever actually upgraded my gear maybe 3-4 times per character, despite picking up numerous amounts of trash.

Then the length. The game has too little mission variety, too few possible character builds (again, see the lame itemization), and too repetitive enemy types to be over 10 hours long. Maybe they felt too embarrassed to release a 5 hour game after the hype Relic came off of with Dark Crusade, but Jesus. They should have just bit the bullet.

And the final entrant for the messy mechanics that betray low confidence or general indecisiveness in what the game should be is the deployment and Tyranid infestation system. Why are days a thing, exactly? Why not just fail the mission if you die instead of miraculously being saved each time and have a day pass? The only penalty for missing out on days is optional missions, and goddamn do you not wanna do those anyway after the first 30. Tyranid infestation also feels useless. Apparently it affects how many tyranids you see on missions on the planet, but frankly, who cares? Is it worth spending hours on side quests to see a few less squads of termagaunts?

But maybe the worst thing they did was have the protagonist be a silent self-insert. The fun banter is reserved only for the four squad members, and Force Commander is just a presence they will mention to dissipate any inner-circle spats. I don't know why they moved on from the fun banter of Dark Crusade, but it was a terrible mistake they never rectified until the final entry, which was far too late.

It is a fun game despite my complaints, but it's not a game I would have finished if not for sunk cost fallacy. I desperately wanted to not launch it anymore, but I was close enough to the end that I couldn't just leave it as is. Angel Gate is the real cinematic battle of the game, and then... It just keeps going for 5+ more missions? At a certain point, enough is enough.