Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2: the Sith Lords.
I have never had such mixed feelings towards a game in my life. On one hand KotOR 1 is one of my favorite games ever, and it’s the only non-Pokemon RPG that I consistently find myself enjoying. Everything that was so great about the first game is there, and most of it is at the very least more polished than the original. The new stuff was even better, tons of mechanics like character influence and lightsaber forms make the game so much better.
On the other hand there are a ton of negatives I have. The first game was never too hard, but it certainly wasn’t a pushover. But KotOR 2 has random difficulty spikes in various different places. Like a boss fight that forces you to play as a single specific character, no matter how under-leveled or ill equipped he is. You can’t have anyone else in your party, so you have to cheese your way through the battle. There are plenty of examples of this.
The characters aren’t as good either. The first game had a cast full of interesting characters to play as. Here there are 2 new characters I enjoyed (Atton, and Bao-dur).
So with all of that said, the game is still fantastic, and about as good as the original.
That is until the end when the whole thing falls apart.
Apparently the game was rushed out, because the last hour of it is just unfinished. The story has a twist villain, who you could tell wasn’t a good guy from the very start but the game insisted on saying a different character was the main antagonist. Not only did that characters henchman have more screantime than him, but he himself had a more prominent appearance on the title screen than in the actual game. Think if Zant from TP was not only replaced by a worse villain, but never had any setup to begin with despite being the prominent figure on the games cover.
Then there’s the very end. There are multiple different things wrong here. Apparently you get different missions at the end depending on what sidequests you complete. The problem is that the missions don’t amount to anything. No secret ending, no unlockables, nothing. They aren’t even set up at all. I didn’t know a certain character was dead until after I looked up why the ending sucked. Things just happen for no reason. At some point a character is searching for you in order to help you fight the final boss, you play as her, beat a boss, watch a cutscene of her continuing on the same path that you went on, and never see her again. There is absolutely nothing redeemable about this ending. After you beat the final boss (which isn’t even the final boss itself, it’s just slashing at a bunch of flying lightsabers) you just fly away with no sort of conclusion and the credits roll.
I have never wanted to like a game more than I do this. There are parts that I find awesome, there are plenty of things that I think this games did better about the original, but in the end, I just can’t make up my mind on whether I like this game or not.