I'm happy to know that I'm not the only one that becomes stupefied concerning Kova and Kiyone inter dialogues/chats.
It is the same when I read poetry, I have to read it more than 2 times to really get what they are talking about. The words by themselves make sense and each particular sentence makes sense, but put together, they're talking about something I don't really understand.
Kova acts very suspicious at first and is almost passively hostile to the PC and Kiyone, which I thought was amusing. You often get
NPC characters that love to join your party, almost for the flimsiest of reasons. Loyalty to the PC is nice, but in game terms it doesn't really mean anything because they almost never turn hostile on you in a middle of a battle, and
battles are the only thing that matters to me concerning loyalty as a player. I like Viconia's dialogue concerning her relationship with the PC precisely because of the loyalty issue with a complex character, but Kova and Kiyone and the mod itself takes the concept of loyalty farther I think. In that Kova is not actually directly loyal to the PC in the beginning. The feelings Kova has for the PC is developed over the entire course of the game. Like Planescape Torment, the ability to protect a character or the loyalty of a character to the PC must depend upon their availablity to fight with the player. Meaning anyone that has played Torment understands some of the tricks used to test the player's loyalty to certain party members, test the loyalty of certain party members to the PC, and so forth. In order to "test" such loyalty and personal relationships however, requires you to give up the character. It requires some kind of temptation, some kind of deal that says "give me her and I'll give you a game reward". Resisting that temptation cements a player's loyalty to the character more, because it actually
matters in game terms and a game is what we are playing. Dialogue alone cannot connect us emotionally to characters we see and hear.
So that being said, Kova's relationship with the PC is entirely different from Kiyone's, and I loved that. It is a deal more than anything else, Kova brings new enemies, but I like new enemies. And if Kova prefers to have his enemies slaughtered by me, well I'm fine with that, more
xp and loot for me! Kova's enemies became my enemies, and that is a very nice touch concerning how I view his character.
As a personal sentiment, however, I find most notable Kova's ethical dilemma situation. In his heart he says he feels a need to do good, yet the situation he has been brought up in requires him to do evil. Kova has walked a balance, but eventually he fell one way or the other, and in this case he fell during the village attack. In losing his balance, however, he obtained the help of a Bhaalspawn, and in return for trials and tribulations of the Bhaalspawn Saga, Kova obtained inner peace and harmony for he no longer needed to worry about the balance between good and evil. He could finally be what his heart told him was right, without fear of the law, due to powerful friends.
This like any underdog story about good triumphing over harsh and unbeatable odds, is a very powerful and enticing story for people like me. While Kiyone drew me to her strong sense of ethics right off, Kova only showed his true strength at the very end, and like Dakkon, that strength was truly powerful.
I want to congratulate Zyraen on the battle/ambush component of his mod. I really think that such hard battles (using Tactics mod) made me appreciate Kova and Kiyone more. Since after all, I could get rid of the hassles by just booting them from the party, or booting only Kova and keeping Kiyone through debug shortcuts. It was a temptation. But when I decided to keep Kova, I made the conscious choice to also face some of the frustrations that the battles put on my game play. So when Kova eventually says thanks for my efforts, I actually appreciated it more than if I had had no problems in game with him. This really brings out the role play in "Role Play Games" for me.
I didn't mention this before, but the Romance trigger was 2, but I think I missed out on a lot of the romance dialogue at the end game due to details I've already mentioned in another post. I had at least two reiterations of my recent BGII experience, because I spliced my Bag of holding (global variables were deleted) back into a new
SOA game through the use of some mod tools. So I was able to replay Beyond the Law, but since there were still a lot of quests and NPCs to play through, it wasn't entirely consistent. Some stuff I say in the first reiteration, I didn't see in the second.
Edited by Ymarsakar, 25 June 2007 - 07:00 PM.
Think of it as the reverse of an "Ask" thread - instead I'm asking the Player to describe his impression of my NPC. By the way, it is likely that opinions may differ to varying extents, so it is probably a good idea to type your own views and opinions before reading the other Notes in this thread 
