The following article will include SPOILERS for Star Wars: The Old Republic Online´expansion, Knights of the Fallen Empire.
The last months two other chapters for Knights of the Fallen Empire have been released. I have decided to merge my review of Chapter XI: Disavowed and Chapter XII: Visions in the Dark.
Chapter XI: Disavowed
There is not much to say about that chapter. I feared that it wouldn’t be more than another extended companion quest and it turned out to be true.
You basically get in touch with Aric Jorgan and Havoc Squad, rescue some civilians, talk some, rescue some other civilians, sabotage a transmitter and that’s it. The game throws some mobs at you to prolong that “process” and calls it Chapter XI. You are kinda forced to go along with all that “lawful good” stuff, even if you want to play an evil character. So much for choices in that matter.
Boring.
Chapter XII: Visions in the Dark
There I felt that the actual story returned. It starts with a conflict between the player’s character and Valkorion, which in my opinion appears very scripted. Even if you always made pro-Valkorion decisions, he suddenly is “disappointed” by you, for whatever reasons, resulting in him leaving you “for now”.
I thought that development was a bit off for the characters I decided to go pure pro-Valkorion with.
Shifting away from Valkorion you get in touch with Satele Shan and the Force ghost of Darth Marr, who developed a new approach to the Force by analysing the Force users of the Eternal Empire. You learn a new and more “neutral” theory about the Force, which works differently than Light Side or Dark Side.
It is an interesting approach, even though I personally am not a big fan of “gray” Force-concepts.
The chapter ends with creating a new weapon based on the new Force-theories you have learned. There you have several decisions that influence the buffs the weapon will give you in future confrontations with Arcann. Even though it feels a bit strange to create a profane weapon like a blaster with the help of Satele and Marr, the overall atmosphere of Chapter XII is very nice. The small differences you can find in the dialogues, when you compare Force-user-classes with non-Force-user-classes, are also supporting the atmosphere, so you can overlook the parts that appear to be a little bit off.
What I was very sad about, even though I didn’t expect anything else, was a Dark Side decision at the end of the chapter, giving me the choice to kill Satele Shan. Even though I decided for that option, my character didn’t kill her. Not even a fight, just a “no can do”. Boring.
Yes, there are some downsides of Chapter XII, but overall it’s fun and interesting to play because you get the feeling of something more happening than getting back some random companion. The story isn’t huuuuuge and not logical in all details, but it feels good to play through it, to have those conversations with Valkorion, Satele and Marr, to get a new perspective on the Knights of Zakuul and the Eternal Empire as such.
The chapter ends with a cliffhanger for the upcoming Chapter XIII, which is also a nice thing. And there is a new companion quest, which unlocks the Dashade Akghal Usar. That companion quest is quite okay because you have to solve a small riddle. Whether it is smart to give us another Dashade instead of Khem Val can be discussed.
Tom is an Austrian actor and director, working in theaters since 2001. He studied acting in Salzburg and currently lives in Germany. He loves being creative, putting the crazy thoughts in his head out into the world and dreaming of being a Star Wars character. In addition he is also studying Media-Management, but only if his thoughts don’t drift to galaxies far, far away.
Website, Facebook, Twitter
