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.

Brotherhood of Shadow

Ah, Knights of the Old Republic (Or KOTOR, for short). I don't think this is a game that needs any introduction. This is most likely the widest known Star Wars game to ever exist, and is considered by many to be one of Bioware's finest games. So it's only fitting that with such a well known game, we review one of its most well known mods...

Author: Silveredge9

Brotherhood of Shadow: Solomon's Revenge (I had to bend over backward to find a working link strangely enough, it was always readily available on FileFront in the past).

This mod is, in reality, two mods released together. And, since each is so big, I'll be reviewing them separately. This is for the first one, Brotherhood of Shadow (Which must be completed in order to move on to the next one) and its sequel, Solomon's Revenge which will be the subject of my next review. The mods become playable only after a certain part of the story is completed (Which I won't spoil in the event of anyone reading this review never having played KOTOR. Earlier this year I introduced two friends to it who had never played it before and they were blown away). This part is, oh, a bit over halfway through the game and you end up having an open slot in your party that, normally, would go unfilled for the rest of the game.

Instead with this mod, after having a spot open up, the player is tasked to go to Korriban to find a smuggler with a job for them. After a bit of sidequesting that takes you to Tatooine you have the option of throwing in with the crew of the ship called Orion to help keep them safe during a long journey through pirate controlled space. Accepting this offer, though, precludes you from continuing on with the main quest until you complete it so beware. And half of the mod can take several hours. It may seem even longer though, since there are no new gameplay mechanics to pique interest (In fact, it could be said that the gameplay is simplified since, for whatever reason, you leave all your party members on the Ebon Hawk and go through this completely alone, robbing you of party play). So this mod intends to stand tall on its story.

Anywho, you're whisked off to the run down vessel and spend a few minutes meeting with the crew and getting to know them before the ronto scrag (That's Star Wars speak for "Horse shit") hits the fan. My personal favorite is the put-upon and overworked Duros mechanic whose favorite hobbies are drinking and cursing.

But, as is inevitable, trouble finds you and things go south pretty quickly. The antagonist, the head of this mysterious "Brotherhood of Shadow" has seemingly appeared from nowhere and overtaken the ship with his mysterious cadre of Lightsaber wielding goons, and there's something not quite right about him. It's up to you, being the protagonist, to put a stop to whatever he's planning and save the ship.

I'll end the plot summary there for those interested in discovering it for themselves and just give my thoughts on it. Once it gets going it gets interesting, and while it carries on for just a little longer than it should it's overall satisfying. Plus you get some pretty swank loot from the whole ordeal, which we all know is the true goal of any half-decent RPG.

Now for the companion, the reason this mod was made. She's a Twi'lek Dark Jedi named Shadow, and former servant of Revan, the Sith Lord who kicked off the current war raging through the galaxy. Since his betrayal by his apprentice Malak she's been wandering the stars in search of a purpose since she no longer has a master to serve and decides to throw her lot in with you after the crew of the Orion gets their life-force juiced out of them by the Brotherhood.

She has quite a lot to say about her former master and the previous war fought against the Mandalorians, giving insight on how she, Revan, and Malak all fell to the Dark Side at the end of that conflict. For people who enjoy the lore of the Old Republic there is plenty to dig through, from her accounts of being a Jedi, fighting the Mandalorians, and serving Revan before Malak bumped his master off. And, like all Twi'leks, she dresses like a stripper. Hell of a culture, am I right?

Here's the downside: She has no voice actor.

Now let me specify. She's voiced, alright, and after a while you'll be wishing she was silent. But here's the thing: The mod author didn't bring in someone to actually voice her lines, and instead recycled the alien language that most of the Twi'leks in the main game speak. And Shadow has a lot to say. So you'll be hearing those same three or four lines of alien dialogue lopped continuously, over and over and over again until Jabba the friggin' Hutt dies of starvation. And then still more after that.

In fact, every character in this mod suffers the same problem. That looped alien dialogue can only be heard so many times before you'll beg for the option to stick a Lightsaber through your eardrums to make it finally stop, and in this mod that is all you will be listening to. It's maddening. Even the human character speaks it, making him the only human in the entire game not to speak in English, and it is jarring. Perhaps it would be easier to swallow if Shadow herself had actual voicing instead of this, since she's more or else the main character of this mod and especially the next, but by the Force this alien speech is enough to drive even the most patient of players to the Dark Side.

That's the only real downside of Shadow and the mod, but it's kind of a big one. And it's a problem that persists through the sequel as well, though thankfully to a lesser extent. My recommendation? If you go for this mod for the loot/lore/companion, just mute the dialogue and read the subtitles. Doing away with that damnable alien speech goes a long way to making the mod much easier to play.