Solomon's Revenge

Time to pick up where we left off last time and get into the sequel to Brotherhood of Shadow and review Solomon's Revenge. Again, like BoS, the mod's main attraction is the story in lieu of interesting or new gameplay, so we'll be taking a hard look at the narrative and characters. Besides, it's a Bioware game. The story is always the main attraction. As much as I detest it, there will be SOME spoilers here

Author: silveredge9

Mod Link: In the previous review (Both mods come from the same source).

So after the player's last rousing adventure aboard the Orion, where the majority of the crew was essentially turned into Force-smoothies for the ancient abominations pacing around their cargo hold, they return to the Ebon Hawk with their new companion Shadow at their side. Soon after she has a mysterious nightmare filled with darkness and dead bodies that bids her to seek out someone from her past on Korriban, the planet of the Sith (For those unfamiliar with Star Wars, the Sith are the bad guys. Red lightsabers, like the color black, hereditary leather fetish).

Upon arriving there she meets a different person from her past, an Arkanian named Kobayashi that used to serve on the Orion before everyone became mulch, and the three of you set off to find this person that seems to be drawing Shadow into some sort of trap.

Like the previous mod, Solomon's Revenge features several new areas where your quest will take you, from Czerka mining facilities to rundown caves to the desolate and cursed Korriban Wastes and more. Some are merely reskins of old areas, but others are built from the ground up new, which is much appreciated.

As you grow closer and closer to this mystery man, he is revealed to be... Solomon. And he... is seeking Revenge. A twist worthy of Shyamalan himself. But for real, he's a former Jedi thought to be dead, an Echani who focuses his entire life on combat, and he hates Shadow. Detests her. You'll find out why through flashbacks and Shadow's stories, some of which are actually playable.

Yes, you get to look back in time and see what it was like to fight the Mandalorians. It's actually pretty cool, for a time. And, again, for those who like the lore of the Old Republic these are a real treat. You get to see Revan and Malak fall closer and closer to the Dark Side and witness the end of the War before they began their own. But speaking of the lore, there's a small section early on that requires you to answer questions to open the way and continue your journey. The questions are, as you may have guessed, about the history of the Old Republic. I was able to get through them without much fuss, but for those without an intimate knowledge of Star Wars history this part will definitely cause some hardship, so be aware of that.

And the characters this time are actually voiced. Thank the Force are they voiced. Shadow still has that problem with her unending loop of alien speech, but most of the other characters (Solomon, Kobayashi) are all voiced so the problem of hearing so much of that alien speech is significantly lessened this time around. The voice acting itself, however... well, it isn't the best. But I feel that it's important to keep in mind that these aren't professional actors, simply fans who decided to lend their voices and breathe a bit of life into this project. And, for the most part, it works.

But now it's time to talk about the biggest problem with this mod. It's length. Yes, it's too long.

I know I know, "But that just means more free content to enjoy!" I was enjoying it, until about two thirds of the way through when it looked like it was about to end... and then it just kept going. And going. And going. And goooooiiiiiinnnnggggg. Seriously. There is a lot of walking to be done, traveling to the mod's faraway end point over the course of a few hours, and a lot of talking that stretches is out even more. And as you go on those flashbacks with Shadow? They begin piling up. You see her back in her Jedi days, her soldier days, Sith days, Orion days and they just keep coming and coming. At first it was enjoyable but eventually there were just so many of them I started to forget that they were just flashbacks. I stopped caring about what was happening in the past when the mod wanted so desperately to show me when there was crap happening right now in the present to my character that I wanted to see resolved.

The mod outstays its welcome, to put it plain and simple. There is just so much going on that it seems to have been impossible to cram into a reasonable time frame, but maybe that's a sign that some things should have been cut. The work done to bring all of this about is astounding, I want to make that clear, but an important part of games, movies, or really any form of entertainment is that it needs to know when its time has come and it needs to end. Solomon's Revenge doesn't recognize that and keeps going far beyond where it should, to the point that by the end you'll breathe a sigh of relief once the credits roll. It's more akin to a test of endurance than anything else.

Toward the end the atmosphere begins to echo that of KOTOR's infamous sequel, which is actually a very good thing. It makes you feel like you're surrounded by ancient darkness that has been waiting for a thousand years, and just stopping to take it in for a bit is really nice, but that isn't enough justification for the unwieldy size of this mod.

In the end, if you really love Star Wars and KOTOR, then download this. Anything less than that and you should pass it by. There are some really great things in it, but an equal number of items that need some serious tweaking. Silveredge9 does an astounding amount of work for being just a simple modder, and that needs to be known, but sometimes you just need to know when enough is enough.