Spectrometer

Well, after watching  for this mod for like 15 years, I've finally been able to play Episode One.

(Very minor spoilers ahead, you can read this review even if you haven't played the mod).

I'm glad I could, this mod is fantastic, it really feels like an official story from the Old EU, another story from the Old Republic era. It begins, naturally, with space politicians asking for help to a Jedi, just like with Ben Kenobi and Qui Gon Jinn, so just by that you can see that the writing team understands the style of Star Wars. It also has numerous references to obscure EU lore (just like the Jedi Masters mod) and, of course, to both KOTOR games (giving you choices, just like TSL, about the plot of the previous games), so that's what  what makes it's world building so great and interconnected to the saga. It also has some elements of a crime story, which surprised me and was a nice touch.

The design of the new levels is great, I feel like they did a really good job with the planets you visit. Some things could be polished a little to make the game more distinct, but overall the design is really good. Same with the skins, armors and NPCs, which all feel very polished and very diverse, but with a consistent aesthetic.

Lastly, the gameplay was correct. There were no deviations in combat and leveling from TSL as far as I know, but I appreciate that they give you decent loot and gear at the first levels, so you can make various gamplay choices with your party, and you are not stuck as a kind of weakling one trick pony that spams blaster shots or flurry at the start of the game, you can use some combat strategies and buffs. There was some use of skills and classes in dialogue that was also nice from a roleplay perspective.

The bad things? I think the writing at the first hour of gameplay or so was a little dense. It had a lot of  exposition, which is only exasperated by the lack of audio on the main characters. I think this will be improved when audio is added in the future and the dialogue can be made to have more inflections and tones, which will make the exposition much more entertaining; but I also think that they could add a little more of comical relief at the first hour of gameplay, so that the plot feels less dense. Once you get a mcguffin for the main plot, however (at roughly half of the episode), the plot catches on and begins to be much more dynamic and similar to TSL, mantaining both an entertaining story and complex plot lines in the background.

Another problem is that your party characters seem sometimes too angry, or even jerky to you. Again, this could be due to the lack of voice acting, but the dialogue can sometimes feel that way.

But overall, those problems didn't take me away from what has been a great experience, a mod worthy of being a sequel or spin off from the KOTOR saga, and a worthy part of the old EU.

Really high quality work. I've been waiting for a faithful improvement of the Ebon Hawk screens for some time (all the previous ones were somewhat different from vanilla), and this is just what I was looking for.

I tried the mod and it works perfectly, does exactly what it is supposed to do. I just had a little problem installing it first but that was because my WinRAR was malfuntioning, nothing about the mod itself.

SPOILERS BELOW

I also liked the detail of the mix between red and purple lightsabers, it gives more continuity to the Sith from SWTOR, from which the Sith from KOTOR and TSL come (partially) from.

Overall a fantastic mod, a little dream realised, thanks.