Star Wars has always had a presence in gaming, dating all the way back to the days of the Atari VCS. The franchise touched on multiple genres, such as arcade shooters, racing games, platformers and more. In 2003 though, The Star Wars license was given to Bioware to work with and the conception of what could be done with Star Wars was changed forever. Knights of the Old was an incredible experience and along with The Elder Scrolls III Morrowind, was a breakthrough game that bridged the gap between consoles and PC for western RPGs. While the genre had some presence on consoles, the best games were still primarily confined to computers until the release of KOTOR and Morrowind on the first Xbox.
As good as the game was though, there were issues with the original Xbox version. This is not to say that the game was bad of course, but that the Xbox port was held back by the system’s limitations. But that was then and this is now, and the Xbox One X has changed things considerably. Knights of the Old Republic played on the Xbox One via backwards compatibility is a very different scenario than the original release. When I played on Xbox One X and compared it to the original Xbox, I was amazed how much better the game performed in almost all aspects compared to how the game was on its first release. The game now runs at nearly 60 FPS in most areas, but does drop down to 50 fps at times. This is almost double the framerate of the original Xbox release and everything feels a lot smoother now.
Loading times are also much quicker now on the Xbox One X and things move at a brisk pace. The game is also much more appealing visually in many ways, as the game now has sharper graphics and polished effects. When I looked at Morrowind’s Xbox One X port, I noted it felt much closer to the original PC release. But while Morrowind was only able to come close to that PC version, KOTOR is not held back by having been an inferior port, and now feels like a true remaster of the classic.. The controls remain as on point as ever, and the overall experience is not only fully retained but improved on. This is the best example of what Backwards Compatibility could do, and made a classic experience even better
This port makes me hopeful for Backwards Compatibility on Xbox Series X and the potential improvements ports can have there. I recommend checking this out, and may the force be with you.
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