I heavily agree with [member="Tamara"] as we were just speaking about it last night and I agree with all her points.
The engine was better, the amount of personalization options, the more balanced and unique direction to character and skill building were all great.
However, like Tamara said already. The plot was a mess, the characters were less interesting, and the worlds were never as fun to explore and visit.
- For me the only characters I liked were Handmaiden, Atton, and Visas (a little different from Tamara there). Handmaiden overall was just a more engaging character to interact with and you always wanted to bring her along. I pretty much immediately downloaded the mod to let me have her as a companion when playing Fem!Exile because the Disciple was just so boring and worthless. Atton had a very intriguing backstory and coaxing it out of him was very rewarding. I liked Visas more because she was a very unique character that could have actually worked well if properly fleshed out, though she sadly wasn't. I felt so bad for Canderous (Mandalore), T-3, and HK-47 because they were nowhere near as interesting as they used to be in kotor 1. In fact without a mod you won't get HK till later on, nor would you get his storyline involving the HK-50s. And seriously, anyone actually really remember much of Go-To or Bao-Dur? They did so little. And Kreia. . . .
- Adding her to my complaints on the villains. She was just so. . .bitchy as a party member. She was never any fun to interact with unless you were going darkside. Her constant complaints over your actions and sheer difficulty to please made it too hard to earn her rewards, especially if you were also working to further plots with the other characters because she so often had problems with it. So picking between her, when she was so annoying, and the rest of the party certainly didn't help. Sion. . . don't get me started on him! He was such a crybaby and so pathetic. All he was constantly looking for was Kreia's approval. At first it seemed he might have an interesting story, but when he just becomes her little errand boy in the end and how often he kept complaining about her while submitting to her just shows how much of a lame villain he was when literally his role could have been filled by any competent lackey. While standard, at least Malek was a workable villain. He was power hungry and his sheer strength made him more interesting. Darth Nilhilus was the only Sith in Kotor 2 I thought had potential. The whole concept of his need to feed, driving him to destroy the galaxy slowly as he consumed. That was interesting. I would have loved them to have taken some direction with him! Instead he just is a boss fight thrown at you without much substance.
- Other worlds. . . .ok they've been pointed out, I'll keep it brief. Peragus was horrible. I dread playing Kotor 2 for this alone. Taris was an amazing new world to explore as a first opening to the game. It was big, populated, filled with characters to interact with and interesting plots. The Swoop gangs like the Beks and then the Dueling arena with Starkiller. Those were amazing! And the Rak-ghoul and undercity were just perfect. They both creeped me out and made me feel bad for the people there. The rest of the worlds just disappointed me. Korriban wasn't nearly as amazing to visit as Kotor 1. I understand it was abandoned, but it was just boring rather than presenting an atmosphere. The lack of characters is not a plus, just like how Taris performed better than Peragus, Kotor 1 Korriban was superior because of the interactions and the activity on the world. The loss of the teachers, the other students you competed with, all of that was better than the barren wasteland. You also got to visit more tombs in Kotor 1. You'd think I liked Nar Shadda then? Well I was meh. I enjoyed the life the world had, and I enjoyed the refugee sector work and taking down Go-To. . . .before I realized what he was up to. Seriously, Go-To's plans were as bad as Kreia's and honestly he made a better enemy than ally. And I'll say it now, playing as Mira was a queen! It is too damn irritating and hard playing as her fighting Hanharr and the powerful enemies in the JekJek Tar tunnels. Speaking of which, those tunnels were my last reason I hated Nar Shadda. I spent too damn long navigating them, that really broke my enjoyment level. Let's mention what was done right though. Telos, Dxun/Onderon, and Dantooine. In all honesty I loved visiting Telos, going down on the ground, exploring the droid factory, visiting the academy, and the working on the station. By far the Academy was my favorite part and I'll actually talk about Atris in a moment. Dantooine meanwhile was as good as the original. So I won't drag on for it. Khoonda was just as interesting, and exploring the Jedi temple was very much what I wanted from it. At the same time the rest of the world worked like it had before so I have no complaints at all. The real jem though in the worlds we got to visit was Dxun and Onderon. I loved the Mandalorians you run into on Dxun, getting to see them, getting to explore the jungle, getting to see the history. And I loved getting to Iziz on Onderon and exploring there, experiencing the city, seeing the people, and I absolutely enjoyed the big battle fighting to get to the palace and then once inside saving the Queen. All in all The Iziz Palace battle and Khoonda battle were my favorite moments to fight. And I admit, Manaan was my least favorite world in Kotor 1, but even at its worst it was better than Kotor 2's Peragus, Korriban, and Nar Shadda. The zombie Selkath plot was really fun to run into and learn the effects of, infiltrating the embassy was fun, playing diplomat was a nice break from the combat, but the water suit was just murderously slow and the pacing was just too off kilter from the other worlds. For Kotor 1 Tatooine was a fun place to experience because Anchorhead was a cool town, you met HK-47 there, the Sandpeople plot was good, and finding the star map was a blast. And Kashyyyk, OMG! Kashyyyk was terrifying when you reached the Shadowlands! Jolee was awesome, fighting the Terentatek was epic, and the open sub-plots for party members was great!
- Shortening the last paragraph. Peragus, Korriban, and Nar Shadda bad. Telos, Dantooine, and Dxun/Onderon good. Kotor 1 were all great.
So I said a lot of bad. And I mentioned what was some of what I liked when I got to some characters and worlds. But I wanted to mention again what good things I thought the game had again. Graphics and engine, personalization and customization, balancing. Worlds like Telos, Dantooine, and Dxun/Onderon. But the best part is definitely the characters like The Handmaiden and Atton who have engaging characters, interesting backstories, and were fun to work with. However, there is one last good thing I never mentioned. Atris. Plain and simple, Atris is by far a character I think is highly overlooked, but who should have been focused on more. HEr past relationship with the Exile was interesting. Her personality was interesting, as was her goal. Mostly because of the corruption you can see in her. Her relationship with the Echani Handmaidens was compelling and different. Her ideas on how things should have worked were new. And most of all, she could have worked in so many ways. Now what they did with her was fine, it worked and there was nothing wrong with that. However, I honestly think she would have made a superior villain to Treya in every way. Imagine her killing the council after her slow corruption she was in denial of, having asked the Exile to bring them together in the first place. Imagine her being the one pulling those strings on Sion and Nilhilus without their knowledge, imagine her a twisted outsider jedi breaking Sion rather than Treya. Throw in a past backstory/relationship of some kinda with the Exile and she would have been an amazing foe, sympathetic, powerful threatening, cunning, and not even quite evil in the black and white sense. More lost, tortured, and misguided in doing the right thing than out to directly cause harm.
That said, Kotor 1 is the superior game to Kotor 2.
Kotor 2 shined with characters like the Handmaiden, Atton, and Atris. Worlds such as Telos, Dantooine, and Dxun/Onderon. Plus it had better balanced gameplay and graphics, and personalization/customization. However, Treya, Sion, and Nilhilus fail their jobs as engaging villains too much, Peragus alone makes me never want to play again, and the lackluster story just doesn't appeal.
Kotor 1 wasn't perfect either. Character builds were more restricted and there wasn't much to work with in creating the character that wasn't broken in some way. It also had a more predictable plot, but that plot was also written very interestingly though and executed with a decent pace and engagement. All of the worlds I was happy to visit multiple times for sub-plots and explore, even Manaan to some degree despite the slowness of it. And while anyone would agree, Mission and her wookiee pal were horribly annoying, characters like Juhani, Jolee, Canderous, HK-47, and Carth were all more interesting than many of the variants given in Kotor 2. Malek and Bastilla were very generic, but they carried their roles well and were enjoyable to watch and work with.
So my final verdict? While I'd rather play with the controls and options from 2 and see some of its more unique cast, I prefer the story and environments of 1. Both are good, but I have to go with 1. Peragus is too unplayable for one, and I tend to choose the same options despite being given so many because the worlds and characters are far less intriguing. I blow through the first half of the game, Peragus, Telos, Nar Shadda and Korriban so I can enjoy the last half even though I really liked Telos. I always work on the characters, but I hang out with Handmaiden and Atton. What I would have loved to see was a Kotor 3 over TOR, I'm biased because I don't like MMOs though so don't think I think TOR is a bad game I just don't like MMOs, and have seen it utilize intriguing environments like Kotor 1 while incorporating better gameplay and adding in different unique characters like Kotor 2. Hopefully of the sort that worked like Atris or Handmaiden instead of Treya or Bao-Dur.
Edit: And yes I did play the fully restored content. It was definitely much cooler than the original release, but flaws are still flaws and actually the HK base was on Telos so it gets added to Telos benefits.
