Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic on Nintendo Switch sucked me right back in

Commentary: The best Star Wars game of all time is getting a remake, but the original remains a glorious RPG experience… despite some creaky elements.

Darth Malak has made a mess of the galaxy in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

I absolutely shouldn’t get sucked into Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic again. I’ve played it before, it’s pretty dated, it’s getting a fancy remake in a few years and there are newer games I should get through.

Yet here I am, staying up late to save the galaxy from the Sith like it’s 2003, playing the Nintendo Switch version ahead of its release on Thursday. The new games can wait.

Knights of the Old Republic (affectionately known as KOTOR) dr martens boots was a dream Star Wars game when it came out on Xbox and PC 18 years ago — developer Bioware crafted a totally immersive RPG set thousands of years before the Original Trilogy. Unshackled from those events, it was free to tell an epic tale of a galaxy ruined by the forces of Darth Malak, his seemingly slain master Darth Revan and a Jedi Order driven close to extinction.

In the years since its original release, KOTOR has come out on MacOS as well as iOS and Android devices. The original Xbox version is also playable on Xbox Series X and Series S via backward compatibility.

Developer Aspyr, which is also handling the upcoming remake, hasn’t made many visual tweaks or quality-of-life improvements for the Switch version, so this $15 port is essentially the same as the previous releases. But loading times are nippy and it’s the first version to offer an easy jump from TV to portable play.

Fate of the galaxy

You play as a customizable character suffering from amnesia (always a great way to create a blank slate) and ultimately unlock your Force potential. Like many Star Wars games before and since, you can then bring light and cuddles to the galaxy as a Jedi or make everyone miserable and look increasingly badass by turning to the dark side.

Your alignment is determined by dialogue choices, a signature Bioware gameplay element that it’d refine further in post-KOTOR games such as steve madden shoes Mass Effect and Dragon Age. After experiencing the nuanced moral decisions in those series in the years since, KOTOR’s options feel delightfully unsophisticated. A typical dialog with someone you’ve just saved from thugs might have you choose, “Here are some credits to help you out as you escape these criminals,” (?) “You’re welcome, be free,” (neutral) or, “No witnesses, I’ll have to kill you.” (?)

Since I went full baddie on my original playthrough and remember feeling like a corrupted (but cool looking) monster by the end, I decided to be super nice to everyone this time. I only got a few hours in and it’s been a delight to revisit this era of Star Wars, but there were definitely a few hiccups along the way.