One down; second soon

I finishd Belsavis, the first of three planets that are part of the third and final chapter of all of the class storylines with my Sith Warrior character; second to play. Only two more planets to go, and the third one doesn't even have a Bonus Series (although there's the finale and a handful of other non-planet missions to work in there.) I was a little shocked at how quickly it went down; in only two or three days—days, I'll mention where I worked full time and had some busy personal commitments in the evening too—I did all of the Belsavis Heroic missions, all of the planetary story missions, all of the class missions, even the exploration missions, and then did the Bonus Series. I feel like I just did Belsavis with my Knight only a week or so ago (which is true; I'm playing a lot right now) and the first time through it felt like it took longer, even if the missions were different. Just about the only thing that I didn't do that I did with the knight, although this only took a few minutes really, was wander around the map to uncover the whole thing as far as it could be reached.

So, yeah—I've got some experience tinkering with some of the other classes in the past too, where I studiously avoided the force-using classes for whatever reason. And I've watched an awful lot of playthrough videos over the years on Youtube. I think I can say something about what class to play and why at this point, even if I'm still a far cry away from playing all eight of them all the way through. I'll put out the order that I've chosen for my playthrough and why, I suppose, although of course, naturally I'm leapfrogging rather than playing one through non-stop and then moving on to the next. As I go through the post "main story" stuff with my first two classes, I'll start on the next two immediately.

1. Jedi Knight. This is considered the most iconic story, and this is the character that is kinda sorta "in canon" assumed to be the one who actually goes through the expansion packs. Often considered, "KotOR 3" because of this, from a story perspective, it's probably the absolute best to go through first. However, it's not perfect; given that it's a melee rather than ranged combat class, it's a little bit harder to use than some of the other classes. In addition to this, the character is so bland, boring, and lacking in personality that he's really not a great choice to be the masthead for the entire game with the most iconic of the stories. That said, I still think it's the best choice for a story-first type gamer (as opposed to a more MMO style gamer) to play through. Kira as the default love interest is a classic love interest; and let's face it, Star Wars needs to be a swashbuckling romance; a kind of Sabatini novel set in space, in order to work (this is a big problem with Luke Skywalker's story arc in the original trilogy; when they made the change to pawn Leia off on Han and not let Luke have a love interest, that was a major blow to the credibility of the story as a classic story.)

2. Sith Warrior. As kind of the dark mirror of the Jedi Knight, the Sith Warrior is an obvious second choice, and his story is also very iconic and classic Star Wars. I actually prefer to play him a little less on-the-nose petty evil and more of a pragmatist working within a corrupt system (the Sith Empire) and mostly ignoring the light/dark implications of the choices you make. (Although most of them will end up being light even so if you're not some kind of weirdo psychopath yourself, thinking that the darker choices make sense.) One way that the story doesn't work, building a bit on my comments for the Jedi Knight above is that the "default" love interest, Vette, may well be kinda cute in personality, but I just don't really like making love to aliens, so I'm working on the Jaesa angle. The dark side Jaesa is kind of interesting in a twisted, disturbing kind of way, but the light side Jaesa, which doesn't pay out until literally the very end of the game, at the end of the Onslaught expansion, is among the best romances in the game.

3. Smuggler. This fairly classic swashbuckler/pirate/crime lord style story is one of the more attractive ones, and the witty banter and dialogue seems to often be some of the best in the game. Amusingly, the smuggler character has single-planet romance options; he can leave a trail of broken hearts all through the galaxy, which is kinda sorta unique to this character, although a handful of other characters have a handful of single-planet romance options. Risha is the main love interest, however, although I recommend getting a reskin if you can. I'm qualified to buy the blond reskin in the Cartel market, so as soon as I go through her very first cut scene, I'll pop into the fleet and pick that up so I can have her run around as a prettier version of herself first. I played most of the first two planets way back when that's all you could do with this game on free-to-play (and I did it as a girl character too, gack) and it really sold me on the idea that Star Wars can actually be better without the Force and lightsbers. Although I like the way the character was written, a combination of the writing and the limitations of the medium make the character come across as just a bit too passive and beta for all the action that he's capable of getting, though.

4. Agent. I'm actually on the fence if I want to do this one as part of my leapfrog options or the bounty hunter, which I've played quite a bit of as an alt. The agent is rumored to be the first story written for the game, and in most respects, it's the most ambitious; a kind of James Bond in space type character, with three different (although related) story arcs for each major chapter of the main plot. The first one has a 24-like foil the terrorists vibe, while chapter 2 is a psychogical thriller with mad-science tones, and chapter 3 is the big-old globalist (galaxy-wide, in this case) conspiracy kind of story. While the character himself isn't nearly as dashing as the smuggler, he's got this kind of much colder, scarier vibe to him that gives him some of the charm of the darker James Bonds that we've seen; it really is quite well done. That said; again, the romance options, which is an important part of any good Star Wars story (and any good James Bond story, for that matter.) Kaliyo is the default one, and she's a hot mess of drama and baggage. Not a pleasant or attractive girl at. all. Just a horrible choice. However, much later in the story you pick up Raina Temple. Slap a customization on her (#4 is available, luckily, right after you pick her up, and #9 is great too, if you can find it.) and you're good to go. She actually seems like a likable character too, which makes the inclusion of Kaliyo all the more baffling. The only explanation I can think of is that whomever was in charge of that aspect of the story is too irreconcilably beta to have any understanding of what an attractive woman is actually like.

5. Jedi Consular. While the Jedi Knight is sometimes considered the prototypical "heroic Jedi" this one is sometimes described as an "average Jedi." Some people seem to really like this story, but I've heard a lot of others say that it's a bit slow and underwhelming. I figure by the time I come back around to it I'll be in the mood for another Force character, but I'm not expecting to really love this story so much. But we'll see; maybe it'll surprise me. Scuttlebutt is that the default romance option, Nadia Grell, while a little bit funny looking may be one of the sweetest and most likable of the girl romance options.

6. Sith Inquisitor. I don't have a lot of info on this class story either, except that it comes across as perhaps a little too passive; doing too much of someone else's step and fetchit, and supposed to be a double-crossing genius but who can't see obvious plot twists that the players can. Again; I'll play it because I'm planning on playing them all, but I don't have really high expectations on this one really. Not sure what to do with the romance either. The default is the Togruta gal, but I don't really love romancing aliens too much. Maybe I'll hold out and romance Lana Beniko with this character?

7. Trooper. Another class that is often considered one of the poorer ones; a strong start and strong finish, but an awful lot of draggin in between. Plus, the concept just doesn't appeal to me too much. I'll almost certainly not change my mind about putting this one off until nearly the end.

8. Bounty Hunter. The only reason this one is so far back is because I know so much about the story and have played a considerable amount of it with a character who I flubbed up and locked out my companion storylines before finishing them. I actually quite like almost everything about this guy; a laconic alpha of occasionally dubious morality with a very cute sidekick/romance option played by none other than Party of Five and Mean Girls star Lacey Chabert. Also, I want to have the best ability to have loads of cosmetic options, so playing it late means that I will have everything collected by all of the other classes that they didn't or couldn't use available for this bad boy to take on.