[Knights of the Old Republic Retrospective] The KOTOR Experience - Episode 1: Escape! From Taris 

Yea this is the best KOTOR video on RU-vid.

A criminally low viewcount for a video essay this comprehensive. Keep the series going!

Me: Oh cool a three hour retrospective on KOTOR sees "episode 1" Me: YAAAAAAAY Loving this, really looking forward to the continuation.

Seriously I know the hard work may not feel worth it, but finishing this series you’ve started will be more than worth it!

This video brought me from 0% invested in Trask Ulgo to 120% invested in about 3 hours. Marvelously done. I'll be keeping up with this series, I very much appreciate the insights! This is incredibly helpful for a KOTOR enjoyer, Star Wars fan, and player/DM like me.

Amazing video and as good a retrospective of KotOR as any to be found on RU-vid. Totally agree about Taris, I love the way it grounds you in familiar iconography. Can't wait for part 2!

Such a great retrospective, it's by far the best I ever saw. Thank you for your hard work.

I’m looking forward to the next episode. Keep up the good work!

Thank you for the time to create this. This game has always been a gem. Looking forward to the next episode

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1590">26:30</a> It is so strange you mention this because back in 2004, when I first bought KotOR, I was one of those that never knew about turn based combat and I started playing, got into the first fight on the Endar Spire, and I actually turned the game off and set it aside. KotOR sat in my game shelf for nearly a year and I was pulling out old games to sell and grabbed KotOR and as I looked at the cover, I said to myself, as a lover of all things Star Wars, let me give this game a real shot. Let me get used to it ands see if I can sell it or not. This decision literally changed my life. I found my favorite video game of all time! And to think, it sat for a year on my shelf and was nearly sold to buy some new skinned version of Call of Duty.. Thanks for the memory lane trip!

I spent many an hour playing this back in the day, I loved how characters such as Misson and Zaalbar are important at the start but then not so much (T3-34 just exists just to open a door!), but the temptaton exists just to play as Jedis....which is a mistake!

I am two minutes into the Taris section and the Taris slander is crazy. Its one of my favorite parts of the game

Very thorough. I like the observations made around the accents, and that datapad for the rancor. Keen for the next episode

This is super well done! Thanks for putting this together. Excited to see the next parts!

kotor is one of my favorite games of all time. i’ve beaten it more times than i count. such a fun and immersive experience every time. i loved the video, excellent work and deserves more views!

This is certainly the best video made yet on Kotor, I really enjoyed it. I just completed a playthrough recently, and I'd love to watch a follow-up. I also enjoyed Taris quite a bit, and I honestly wouldn't have minded if it was a bit longer. The atmosphere was good, especially the feeling of being fugitives on an enemy-held planet, and although being a sort of extended prologue it had a quite interesting self-contained story of its own.

Commenting for the algorithm, but seriously I hope you continue this series!

This was a great way to re-experience the game for me. I played it 3-4 times myself over the years and while you say this game is better experienced, I would argue once it's been experienced, it's better analysed like you do. I'm not sure if you will ever make part 2, but if you do, I'd watch it :)

This is great. Please keep it going! I've gotten through taris twice and became a Jedi once but never was able to put in the hours to get further. I missed my chance to play it as a kid. Please keep it going!

This video is exactly the kind of thing I love watching, I would love to see the full series

Please Continue this series. This was an amazing retrospective on Act 1. Considering I've been on my own nostalgia journey with this game, this game at a good time. I like star wars, but this game is why I LOVE Star Wars. I can't say I agree with every thing in the video, but I still loved it. Can't wait for the follow ups :)

Watched all the way through! Glad to see all this attention to detail on a great game. I totally agree about Taris. It's just fun to play starwars with a blaster for a little bit before getting the lightsaber. It reminds us that Jedi aren't the only characters that matter. Hope to see you make parts 2 and 3. Making me want to replay.

great video man, I hope you continue with the series.

Please tell me the part 2 is coming out soon! This came up on my recommended videos and i want more!

Love this video don’t much appreciate the jade empire joke 😂😂 on of my favorite games of all time

I have watched this multiple times, its very good.

I think I've bought this game a total of 11 times on 5 different platforms. Similarly, I've watched nearly as many retrospectives. I'm not tired of either. This is a really good video. I look forward to seeing what you produce in the future.

Fantastic video sir. Eagerly awaiting the next part!

This is a really interesting video. I picked up KOTOR on switch last year and bounced off it after spending a few hours on Taris. This video has encouraged me to try it again and give it another chance. Looking forward to part 2!

This video is underrated

The only time I find T3-M4 useful is its contribution fighting against Sith Governor in Sith Military Base that has the launch code for Ebon Hawk in Taris: Shield removal instantaneous before ion blaster will do the job and the flamethrower that do damage and even cause panic effect that prevents the govenor to use force powers so you wont have to deal with battle of attrition and makes our party unable to defend themselves after casting force stasis. Having Bastilla with you with temporal buffs works good, but alternatively you want Bastilla to have force power that stops the governor from using its power, but likely has higher resistance to Bastila than with T3-M4.

Good shit. Looking forward to the next part

Great video essay! Just wanted to let you how much I’m enjoying it and would like to see more from you. :)

Fantastic quality content- and production-wise

I’ve probably played this game as much as you so a video like this from someone seasoned with familiarity is refreshing.

this was one of the best videos i've seen in years, i can't wait for part 2! i never thought about the ulgo connection

Excellent work. Keep it up!

Thanks for the video! I've been trying to figure out what game to play for awhile and this helped remind me of my love for the Kotor games. I look forward to your next video!

Love the video man. Subscribed. Can't wait for more but please take your time.

Kotor is one of my favorites, I have played them every way and still enjoy playing it.

I had KOTOR on xbox and it was amazing!

This is a masterpiece. I love long form analysis, and love the kotor series even more. I hope you choose to keep doing what you’re doing, because you may have a bright future in the long form content genre.

This was awesome! Thank you, hope you make a part 2.

hey dude, just wanted to drop by and say this vid is great. kotor is my favorite game, and to see someone with this much passion is amazing. it’s like, violently in depth and i truly hope that you continue!

Just subbed after finding this video today. Great work, and I really hope you are working on a part 2! One thing I'll say is that I personally wouldn't have included the restored content mod, as even the main mod build that is put together by the KOTOR Discord and subreddit doesn't use it haha. Due to as you mentioned, most of the content clearly being removed for a reason. They have a mod build for the second game as well, which I highly recommend. Though probably only the TSLRCM, TSLRCM Tweaks, and Extended Enclave if you ever do a restrospective on the second game. Anyway, fantastic work so far! I appreciate how much work went into this and how thorough it is.

I loved this video and it was how I found your channel! :)

Amazing work. Wow. Instant subscribe

This was excellent. I can't wait to see your analyses on the next planets, in howevermany episodes it would take!

so glad i found this channel so early on, keep this quality up and i can def see u at 100k by next year

As someone who is a fan of Kotor and who wants to do video essays. Well done, this is a fantastic video and really gets down to the core of what makes these games great! I appreciate all your hard work and can't wait for the next one.

Amazing video. Hope you complete the retrospective of the whole game (and maybe even the second!)

Great video!!!

I hope you come back with another video. This was great and I appreciated your thoughts on how to improve it

This was an awesome listen while I worked!

I agree Taris is quite enjoyable for first time player if I remember correctly. Certainly more enjoyable then Kotor 2 Paragus station... and Telos citadel... and Telos surface... and Telos academy... Actualy Telos citadel is probably on par with Taris, it's pretty good time for the first time but I remember playing it second time and it was like... Oh geez when all of this will finally be over so I am free to play?

Great video! I started replaying kotor, because of your video.

Great video! I was surprised to find that a piece of work with this amount of detail did not have more views, hope that will change soon. Keep up the good work!

Fantastic video, commenting to hopefully juice the algo because the hard work is apparent. I 100% agree on a remake cutting the Undercity would be addition by subtraction. At a narrative level it also seems unlikely that the lawless undercity would force the outcasts to remain segregated since all sorts of people are coming and going. And the entire Rakghoul thing is an odd body-horror detour in the otherwise urban crime focused Taris. As a result the doctor quest would need to be tweaked to be about something besides the serum, maybe just a more mundane disease. The only point I'd add would be that the sewers would also benefit from downsizing because I suspect most poll respondents saying they dreaded replaying the Undercity had mentally lumped it together with the sewers. It's fine, just too much, especially right before the gang's base, just having it be a corridor with a dozen Gammoreans would again reduce that saggy middle of Taris.

LOVED this video! And I would love to hear your thoughts on the rest of the game!

Dang. This was great. I was excited for the next one.

Great video about one of the best games of all time, looking forward to part 2!

I bought this KOTOF for my buddy and still couldn't get him to spend more than 10 minutes to ac give it a shot. I loved KOTOR so much that I've spent north of a thousand hours playing SWTOR.

OBJECTION!! **slams hands on the bench** You CAN kill the Rancor normally! With Blasters, grenades, and Kiting! It's just stupidly hard, because aside from the pretty much guaranteed explosive damage, the Rancor has high AC, and a regeneration passive like most of the hostile wildlife mini bosses.

Fire video bro, love the amount of details you put into this. And I totally agree that Kotor is one of the best games of all time. Arguably one of the best pieces of Star Wars media. Edit: Also you can easily cheese the fight with the Sith governor by planting a bunch of mines in front of the door before you open it and trigger the encounter.

love this..... i"m still playing Kotor 1 and 2 in 2024

Thank you for mentioning how a lot of role-playing games go too dense into the lore too quickly. I think this is why I love KOTOR and KOTOR 2 (I started with the sequel) but I haven’t had a good experience with D&D yet. Similarly, a friend of mine suggested that I read the “Numenara” text to help me get into its fantasy universe, but I found it was absolute overload because I didn’t understand any of it, which means I didn’t connect with it.

Waiting for part 2!

This is still hands down the best game I've ever played. The story is unmatched by newer games. I really really hope the remake gets done

Loved this video, I’m always sad with how much hate Taris gets, I like your rework of Taris too, I think removing the under city and reworking Missions role would definitely streamline the whole section. I would also add expanding davik’s palace. That part always felt underwhelming to me. I think making more like jabba’s palace in ROTJ wild be cool: cram it with bounty hunters, monsters, and scum… maybe add a plot line where others are trying to steal the ebon hawk too and you have to beat them to it, or maybe add another rancor lol (that may be too on the nose). Anyway, looking forward to the next video!

5 minutes in while building a massive Ikea shelving unit and all I can say is I am excited about this! I have played through both games all the way through at least 100 times. I can say this is my fave game series of all time and I am stoked to hear your thoughts on it! 🎉

Hope you get blessed by the algorithm man, this video was insanely good and i hope you will do the whole of kotor in this style!

Like other comments say; not everything in the video might be *exactly* the way I would've done it, but there is obviously talent and the viewcount is *criminally* low for such a good piece of work. I cannot do more than like, subscribe and comment, but I'm definitely looking out for more content!

the sith governor is one reason why I brought T3 M4 (the irony) since he can't stun lock a mech. kept using the flame thrower and Bendak blaster

Great vid! Thanks

I saw this on TikTok and had to come watch the full thing, the algorithm works!

Great video. You almost lost me at “heteronormative,” but please make the subsequent videos! Taris is great. You are absolutely right.

One thing I think you got wrong about Zaalbar is the significance that being enslaved had to him. His brother, later information I know, was selling other wookies into slavery. Big Z got so angry that he used his claws to attack his brother. This is why Big Z ended up on Taris. The Kashyyk section also really shows how bad the slavery issue had gotten there. So, while he may have been there just a couple of hours. Death would have been preferable to slavery for Big Z. Mission asking you for help establishes that she could not have released him on her own. This is why Big Z swears the Life Debt to you and not Mission.

Amazing video! No joke I had been workshopping my own idea for a bit of a personalized retrospective video series down the road for not just Kotor 1, but kotor 2, swtor, and talking about the media that came before the games (the original comics) as well as some of the intermediary content (the mostly un-liked Revan book that covers the timeframe leading up to Swtor...), and found this video in my search to passively work on a script over time that doesn't hopefully step over too many other creators toes for things they've already touched on! Your narration is incredibly detailed and I really love your overall take on Taris. Making the choice to also try playing the game with the Restored Content Mod for kotor 1 is also an interesting take that most other retrospective videos haven't even touched on (although like you said, unlike with the majority of the content in the kotor 2 RCM being cut content because it was unfinished or too buggy, the cut content from kotor 1 was almost exclusively cut with purpose, because it was mostly just superfluous stuff or cut to try and limit confusion and bad game design). That being said, some of the things you brought up within part 4 onwards, like with being able to go to the swoop racing track, or talking about locals in the lower city being armed and such is actually only 'because' of the Restored Content Mod, these things aren't present in the original release of the game. There's definitely some stuff that is in the RCM for kotor 1 that I think were cut unfortunately, like the quest where you go into the guys appartment in the lower city and access his footlocker via answering 5 personalized questions from his datapad, in the original game there is no Vulkar in there, and the guys body is not present, it's just an empty apartment room, which kinda just gives the implication that you're breaking into someones home who isn't even there and robbing them blind, where as in the RCM you at least get to feel like you're at least taking stuff from someone who unfortunately won't need it anymore because they're dead. Maybe that was removed just because it was darker than they wanted it to be, but who knows. Anyway, amazing video! Can't wait to see you continue this later.

A good video! On the flashback idea... Considering Revan would have probably won but got blindsided by Malek, a better way to do it would probably be something like...Play as a Jedi Master escorting Bastila, fighting off Sith. Then once she starts her Meditation you switch to Dark Revan and you CURBSTOMP them all. That is the allure of the Dark side after all, it's power, let the player FEEL the power. But once everyone except Bastila is killed he starts to advance on her, disarms her easily...and then cut away.

Great video! I liked Taris. I agree with most of what you've said in this video, but as a prologue it can become tedious if you play the game several times. And I think the player should've been given the option to side with the Vulkars before esentially killing them all.

3 hours review on just Taris part of the game? Do I look like I don't have anything better to do? But I am just chronic procrastinator. Also I like how you probably put more time and thoughts into Trusk than developers did.

I watched this video and really enjoyed it.

I think the solution for the looting situation is simply to have one of the people who's apartments you're going through beg you not to take something that's highly valuable to them, even if it's not necessarily something useful to us. Youd still be able to take it without a fight, but the player would be more likely to think about the fact that they're essentially just robbing these people.

My issue with taris(and Paragus) is that there are no meaningful choices to be made there, making it nothing but a slog for repeat play through. That said, the first time you visit Taris, it's one of the best openings to a video game ever.

I've listened to this 3 or 4 times. I really hope you do this for all the planets

Sir, are you working on part 2? I’ve played this game at least 15-20 times, and this video was so thoroughly entertaining. Love that these games are still appreciated. Can’t wait for more

I want to bring all my companions, not just two.

They'll eventually give us KOTOR 3...right? Right guys?

You got me sitting on so much anxiety. What am I supposed to do? Wait for the next one? 🙃

I really like to min/max and try start Jedi training at lvl 2...but not when I'm a Scoundrel! I love playing a lvl 7 Scoundrel and then becoming a Jedi Guardian. OVERPOWERED Force Leap. It can be done again in KOTOR2 with a Guardian/Watchman.

Ok, so to clear this up, just recently KOTOR Remake is still in the works. It’s not cancelled, but it’s taking a long time in development, so that’s why we haven’t seen any major trailers yet.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="150">2:30</a>:00 The T3 slander will not be tolerated. Hes a good boy and he functionally does the same thing as Mission but.... Droid so different item slots. If i need getting into a computer hes my bot. Edit: dual wield sith assassin pistols.

Nice video

Rip Nemo

This was incredible! Is there an episode 2 coming out at some point? No rush, just excited

So the restored content requires you to get into the Sith party? Vanilla has the confrontation just be an alternative if you mess up/miss flirting with the officers

KotOR was great, 2 was decent. I can't understand how many people think 2 was better.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="421">7:01</a> This is false, the game is not entirely heteronormative. If you play as a female, you can romance Juhani or Carth.

I need episode 2 soon!

This was amazing, when are you going to drop the video for the next planet?