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Oh boy, this game. 2003, Bioware nailed it.
When I first played it when I was about 10 years old or so I didn't like the fighting system really. The game was available on four different CDs to install. I couldn't finish it back then because of bugged boss fight. Now, around march this year I began playing it and got super hooked and finished it the same month.

When you start you get to create your character with a set of heads different to both genders that you can choose from as well as your class, starting statistics and skills that you can hover over or smthng (by now I don't remember) so it'll tell you what they are for, so while this could be overwhelming for some people it's explained well. You play as a soldier and start on Endar Spire cruiser. The action takes place ~4000 years before our canon Star Wars movies. You serve the republic. You wake up and learn basic gameplay mechanics.

Well, about the gameplay because I said I didn't enjoy fighting in this game when I was young... the game has an active pause and it kinda plays like a paper RPG with many different stats, rolling your chance to hit a target etc. This can be considered a con if you want something like a Jedi Knight game but it works really well here and makes the gameplay strategic and all of your skill upgrades give you satisfaction when then help you win. You fight with up to 2 partners at your side at once and you can choose skills for them as well, just make sure to disable auto-promotion.

You can play melee in this game from the start in the form of vibroblade. I don't want to spoil it to you so I'll just say that there are at least 4 different fighting paths and only one of these is gunning people down. I'm not gonna say that gunning people down is boring: there are also many abilities and weapons for that! When you play you'll understand because if you want to go melee you'll have to chose one of 3 paths.

Now more about this world: Sith soldiers look dope af. Republic soldiers look authentic too. It doesn't look like Episode 4 or anything, it's new and fresh but it feels like Star Wars very much. The planets have quite a lot of story to them and you can talk to many NPCs and pick up many sidequests to complete. Your choices have some consequence and you can gain light and dark side points depending on your actions. After finishing KOTOR I can safely say that this is the best Star Wars story ever told alongside Original Trilogy (ep. 4-6). Doesn't have none of the Death Star nonsense that you and I already got bored of! The plot is very interesting and dialogues with your companions are 10/10. You can spend a lot of time talking to them and sometimes the game will prompt you saying that something is wrong with one of them and you should talk to them but it's not necessary, however these dialogues are the real icing on the cake. This game is similar to later-made Mass Effect (and is also made by Bioware). If you want a good Star Wars story then definetely buy this! However, now let's go into some technical issues...

Recently, Knights of the Old Republic II got updated on Steam with resolutions up to full HD and Steam workshop. This one on the other hand requires some outside programs for you to enjoy 1920x1080. Another problem is that the cutscenes are prerendered videos that will not play in 1920x1080 res no matter what. It isn't a big issue unless they don't play for you at all... If you don't set up your mods correctly for higher res then it might disable cutscenes, and cutscenes have also some tendency of making setting up your resolution crash the game. After you figure it out though you can get around 50h out of this game in one playthrough.

50 hours is a lot of game time for a game that is all gold. The begining can be a bit of a chore but when you get hooked you might find yourself playing for 4h straight! This game is such a classic...

Now to music: it's not John Williams', there is some hints to him eg. Bastilla's Theme has some moments sounding like Force Theme. There is a lot of interesting tunes that will get ready to battle or chill. As for graphics they are rather mediocre now, but they don't make the game any less enjoyable than if it had Battlefield 4 graphics in it. This is same stuff as Mass Effect 1: it's old age didn't have much of an impact on the great, belivable world and the story in the game.

My visit in this world was great and totally worth the time. The game's stuck in my head ever since playing in March. I'm still waiting for a right time to begin playing the sequel. If you want a good Star Wars story then it's a must-play, if you love Mass Effect then it's a must-play, if you want to play a good RPG then it's a must-fu**ing-play. Don't make the mistake of spoiling yourself this story before playing, no need to watch other reviews. Wait for some discount, get it and try it out! If you want to then bother getting higher res with mods, if you don't then play full oldschool mode and swap your monitor with your old one that you still keep in the basement.

Graphics: Slightly worse than Mass Effect 1 but they don't break the immersion or anything, the world is very belivable and badass.
Audio: Good voice acting, varied languages (as in: you get to listen to alien languages as well). Music is top notch.
Gameplay: Strategic, if you like games with active pause system and paper RPGs you will love it. If you want a fast paced game then it's not for you. Skill upgrades give satisfaction and more than make up for the lack of Jedi Knight-like combat.
Story & The World: Very belivable, you'll get hooked so hard! Best Star Wars story alongside Original Trilogy.
Characters: Your partners have a ton of dialogues, a lot more options here than Mass Effect. It's varied, they'll tell you their point of view on stuff, they'll argue with you but if they see that you have a point they will say sorry later. They are very human, as in they act like real people, they aren't all humans though.
Skills, Upgrades, Equipment & Weapon Arsenal: More than a decent amount of weapons & upgrades, the progession system of skills and abilities is very well made! Lots of replay ability in this system. Hell, you even get many different grenade types, mines, usables in form of adrenaline. Lots of different armour types that make all game styles viable, different headgears, belts, implants...

Overall the game would get a perfect 100/100 from me but it requires too much hussle to get working properely with AD 2016 standard of resolution and even X years ago when I played it as a little guy there were some bugs, and now there were some bugs too. A bit of odd gameplay decisions in some areas that don't work too well.

The payoff however, is superb! This is a hard choice for me. From the perspective of playing this over half a year ago I want to give this game a perfect score but I remember that there was some negative things in it and I even pointed them out in the review. This game definetely deserves to be a part of the Canon.
I'm gonna give it a score of 99/100. Might've increased the score slightly because of the nostalgia, but ffs: this game is so great now so imagine how great it was back when it was released in 2003! Don't get it spoiled to yourself by watching it on Youtube, IT'S DA*N WORTH PLAYING AND THAT'S IT! There is a reason why I bought it 2 times.