Haven’t I written about this game enough? I mean, I wrote a post for the 10th anniversary, and it’s not like the game has changed since then. I have. (I’ve become a better writer, for one thing.) And the world certainly has!

But the game is… the game. It’s the same one it always was. So why am I once again writing about it?

Well, part of it is of course the urge to share it with other people. In my opinion, the more people play KotOR II, the better off the world will be. I mean, I even got my mother to play it. My mother is not a gamer, to put it mildly. (But she did work on a science fiction magazine in the 1970s, and was aware of Star Wars before it was cool. She saw this trailer at a convention in 1976.) And she loves this game almost as much as I do.

But there’s more to it than just my desire to indoctrinate as many people as possible into the cult of KotOR II. As the world changes, things in the game take on new relevance. You can’t live through an election year in the U.S. and then play the Onderon section of the game and not notice… things. But this is not, and will not, be a political post. It would be a disservice to the greatness of KotOR II to drag it down into that cesspool.

I also will not bother to compare and contrast it with other installments in the Star Wars universe. Let it suffice to say that I appreciate the irony that KotOR II is both a sequel and a story which, to use the popular phrase, “subverts audience expectations.” These are both things which I typically dislike. It only goes to show that greatness lies not in “what” but rather in “how.” If sequels and subversion strike us as bad, it is because the ones we are familiar with have been badly done.

But the fact is, what makes KotOR II a story people still remember decades after its release lies not in any comparison to either current events or to other works of fiction. No, it’s because of the richness of its characters, the weight of its story, and the stark, haunting world it creates: the war-ravaged republic, shuddering under the weight of its own expansionary ambitions and fractured by wounds still raw from the recent conflicts, now facing a threat from enemies born of past atrocities. Into this swirling maelstrom comes a lone former Jedi, tormented by the demons of uncountable past horrors, and guided by a mysterious old woman…

Enough! I will not bore you to death by saying again all the things I’ve said before. If you are new to this place, or you just can’t get enough of hearing my thoughts on this thing, you can read my retrospective here, or my other retrospective here, or just listen to my thoughts here. Moreover, I encourage you to watch SulMatul’s magisterial analysis here, or Jake Norton’s playthrough here. If you’re in a hurry and want a quick overview, Geetsly’s video here is a good one. For those who prefer to read rather than watch or listen, try Scorchy’s Let’s Play here.

As for me, I’ll raise a glass to my favorite work of fiction; this masterpiece of the art form. I said I’ve changed since I first played this, and here is one of the ways: before, I used to try and explain why I love it, articulate what makes it special. But now I’m content to just enjoy the magic of the story. I hope you do too.

Ruined Chapel‘s regularly scheduled programming will resume next week.