Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 (Switch) – Review: Old, but good?

Another purposeful port of a Star Wars classic by Aspyr. Fun, but not a must-buy on the Switch.

After the first part of BioWare, the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords developed by Obsidian Entertainment has now made it to the Nintendo Switch. A game for which it would have been better to have taken a little more time instead of throwing it onto the market as quickly as possible after its predecessor. The story is well known, due to the harsh deadline KotOR 2 is not perfect.

Many years later, fans tinkered with it and created the comprehensive Restored Content mod. The special thing about the Switch version of the role-playing game is that developer Aspyr is officially delivering this restored content as DLC – for free! Unfortunately only with a considerable delay, the third quarter is being targeted. That means whoever buys KotOR 2 now will play the original version. And once the Restored Content is there later, your previous saves will not be compatible with it. Not exactly ideal, but good now. It is like it is.

The imperfect version

So what you have here on the switch for the time being is first of all the original, let’s call it imperfect version of Knights of the Old Republic 2. The story picks up on the predecessor a few years later and there aren’t that big differences in terms of play either first part. You travel through the galaxy, solving quests and puzzles, gathering fellow combatants around you and fighting the Sith.

Each character basically fights for himself, although you are primarily responsible for the positioning and the selection of special attacks and force attacks. The fights are based on a classic RPG system, in which parameters such as accuracy and damage play an important role. This makes them strategic, and it’s well worth investigating all the skills and stats, and of course the gear, to perfect your characters and get them ready for the clashes.

KotOR 2 is still fun today

It’s still fun today. Aside from the well-functioning game core, Aspyr is again limited to the bare minimum when porting. As with many other Star Wars classics that the company brought to Switch and Co., the primary changes are the resolution of the textures, the frame rate, which largely remains at 60 fps, and a few other optimizations are also included board. It’s the least you can expect, although KotOR 2 is far from exhausting modern hardware.

The porting is definitely not perfect. Here and there the music suddenly disappears and is replaced by a kind of background noise. Only a restart helps. In some areas, the frame rate drops significantly, which to be honest shouldn’t happen with such an old game with marginal changes on modern hardware.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 (Switch) Review – Conclusion

In terms of gameplay, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 still works quite well today, despite the weaknesses caused by the hasty development at the time. Technically, this is another useful port with a few tweaks that don’t turn out to be earth-shattering. It’s enough to make KotOR 2 playable on the Switch. But nothing more. The Restored Content DLC should be exciting as soon as it appears. It’s a shame that it was delivered with a delay. I would have liked to see both available together. He will once again enhance KotOR 2 on the Switch. Basically, it’s not a bad game, but don’t expect miracles from the port. If you want to play it on the Switch – whether it’s your first time or again – you can buy it with a clear conscience.