[mikhael]

Ah, the Final Confrontation.

Spoiler:

So there I was without a serious offensive force power. Just Stun Droid, Force Wave and Stasis Field. You know what that means, boys and girls?

That's right. Malak gets to keep all his happy get out of death free cards.

I beat him by being cheap. I saved every time it looked like I was doing well, and returned to that save when ever I got my ass handed to me. I did this a lot. I planted mines near every one of his get out of death free cards. We played the Ken-vs-Ryu game. His lighsaber throw (worth about 34hp) vs my thermal detonators (worth about 25 of his hp). My thermal detonators knocked him down long enough that I could sometimes heal and throw another while he was getting up.

Interestingly, Malak was pretty dumb: I'd hit him a few times, say for 20 or 30 pts, and he'd run for a recharge. I was shocked. He burned through them pretty frivolously, until the last one, which he waited until he was about half way worn down for. Then he got really serious. Hardest fight in the game.

My next time through the game, I'll know how to spend my powers, feats, skills and attributes better. And I'm going to save all my mines, thermal detonators, etc, for the end.

[Fury]

Hahaha, gotcha mikhael. We told you Malak is difficult.

Spoiler:

My jedi guardian was better in 1 vs. 1 fight against Malak. First I used master flurry and gave him serious beating, then he goes off and uses the first captured jedi. Then I used Kill on rest of the jedis. Ran off from Malak to heal, then used master flurry again to beat his ass. Won in the first try.

Although I have to admit that I was this succesful only because this was my third time through the game, so I knew pretty well how I should progress my characters, and especially my own char. When I was playing the first time, it wasn't all that easy. My jedi sentinel was like jack-of-all-trades but wasn't particularly good in anything. Had to ran off from Malak quite often and heal myself. Never used mines, grenades or stims though, although that would have made it a lot easier. I just consider using those cheap, even in the final fight.

[Su-tehp]

I haven't read Mikhael's or Mr. Fury's spoilers in the previous two posts so as not to spoil (no pun intended) any surprises; I haven't finished the game yet.

But I do have one question: What are the Heart of the Guardian and the Mantle of the Force? Special quest items or what? And where can I find them?

[mikhael]

The Heart of the Guardian and the Mantle of the Force are special color crystals that enhance your sabers and give them special colors. To the best of my knowledge, they are only available in the PC version of the game. Each of them alters the effects of the "effect" crystals you put in your saber (for instance, an Upari and a Solari crystal give slightly bigger bonuses when attacking dark side targets than they otherwise would have).

To get them, you have to visit Yavin after you find your first Starmap. Talk to the Rodian there and learn everything he has to say about Trandoshans. After you have two or three Starmaps, go back and you'll chase of some Trandoshans. Later, after you've collected all four Starmaps, you visit Yavin again and this time the Trandoshans ambush you. If you save the Rodian from the Trandoshans, he will sell you stuff from his secret stash. Trust me on this: if you use HK47 or even TM34, you can turn them into absolute killing machines with the gear this guy sells. He also sells the Heart of the Guardian and the Mantle of the Force. The two total out to about 45k credits. You'lll get from the Trandoshans you just killed, but you'll also need to be carrying some cash when you arrive.

Also, the Rodian on Yavin will give you the absolute best prices on EVERYTHING you can sell him. Racing bonds that get you 60cr on other planets will get you 150cr on Yavin. You can make a huge fortune selling him gear.

[Su-tehp]

Originally posted by mikhael
The Heart of the Guardian and the Mantle of the Force are special color crystals that enhance your sabers and give them special colors. To the best of my knowledge, they are only available in the PC version of the game. Each of them alters the effects of the "effect" crystals you put in your saber (for instance, an Upari and a Solari crystal give slightly bigger bonuses when attacking dark side targets than they otherwise would have).

To get them, you have to visit Yavin after you find your first Starmap. Talk to the Rodian there and learn everything he has to say about Trandoshans. After you have two or three Starmaps, go back and you'll chase of some Trandoshans. Later, after you've collected all four Starmaps, you visit Yavin again and this time the Trandoshans ambush you. If you save the Rodian from the Trandoshans, he will sell you stuff from his secret stash. Trust me on this: if you use HK47 or even TM34, you can turn them into absolute killing machines with the gear this guy sells. He also sells the Heart of the Guardian and the Mantle of the Force. The two total out to about 45k credits. You'lll get from the Trandoshans you just killed, but you'll also need to be carrying some cash when you arrive.

Also, the Rodian on Yavin will give you the absolute best prices on EVERYTHING you can sell him. Racing bonds that get you 60cr on other planets will get you 150cr on Yavin. You can make a huge fortune selling him gear.

To quote a phrase: whoah!

I knew about the Rodian; I visited him after getting 4 of the 5 StarMaps, but I didn't have NEARLY enough money to get both crystals...but then I didn't try to sell the Rodian all of my stuff.

I'll be sure to do this on my next game of KOTOR. I gotta try going the Jedi Sentinel or Jedi Guardian routes...

[Stunaep]

Right. I've been playing this game for a while now. I actually came to the decision of buying it, after Mikhael said something about a huge plot twist.

Now, not reading everything that you guys have spoken about the last two pages or so, I just want to say the following:

This is the best voice acting I've heard in games. Ever.

and its a pretty fine game anyway.

[mikhael]

There's some places where the sound balance is off, or the voice actors slip a bit, but you can tell they put some serious effort into making it a quality game.

I especially like Carth. He's can get annoying sometimes, but the voice actor really went all out to try to get across what the guy was feeling.

[aldo_14]

What's pretty neat is that the dialog actually changes to reflect the character you play as - i.e. different events & conversations can happen depending on whether you're male or female, a soldier or not, etc.

[Stunaep]

And the fact that they voiced *everything* is just plain awesome. I mean, this is really, extraordinary.

[mikhael]

Dialogue options are different for Scouts vs Soldiers vs Scoundrels? I didn't know that.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by mikhael
Dialogue options are different for Scouts vs Soldiers vs Scoundrels? I didn't know that.

I think so.  Hard to tell, cos i just restarted and i'm (in the game!)both a different sex & type this time round.  But it seems to - IIRC a few characters talk to you based on your,er, job type.

Guess they'll be no shagging Bastilla this time round, though.........

[Fury]

There's minimal dialogua difference between classes. A few sentences here and there, mainly in Carth and Bastila dialogue.

[Stunaep]

This is one screenshotable game.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

I love what you did with those red X's Stun

[Martinus]

[color=66ff00]I've finished it twice now, once doing the extreme light side and once doing the extreme dark side. I have to admit that I had an exceptionally hard time doing the dark side route from a moral standpoint. I think it's a testament to how well this game draws me in.  I also messed with the bastilla romance plot (ultimately cheesy but funny when you wind her up) but somehow I don't quite have the experimental nature to play female and do the Carth romance sub-plot. Also I was rather stunned by the main plot 'revelation' I never saw it coming at all.

BTW I seem to be in an extreme minority here as I thought both mantle and gardian of the force saber colours were excellent. Going properly evil, wearing darth malak's robes and handling the blue saber (guardian?) looks really cool.

Definately an adviseable buy from my point of view.

For any of you that missed any of the side quests on your first time through take a look here for a rather excellent walkthrough to almost every facet of the game.
[/color]

[mikhael]

How did you miss the plot twist? They telegraphed it in great big glowing green letters.

[Stunaep]

Originally posted by Crazy_Ivan80
I love what you did with those red X's Stun

*aehm* as I was saying...

[mikhael]

I need a newer, better graphics card. My game didn't look nearly that good.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by mikhael
I need a newer, better graphics card. My game didn't look nearly that good.

I get big slowdown if i turn the res > 800x600 and turn on anti-aliasing & interapolation..... annoying as hell, cos I'd have though my gfx card* would have handled it fine.

(GF5600 - not great, but still ok with everything else)

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Originally posted by Stunaep


*aehm* as I was saying...

nice screenies