OP here,
okay after beating the game the first time, i have to say i am very impressed and shocked no one talks about it. it is the culmination and perfection of the KOTOR alignment system, the realization of the mass effect " your choices matter" shit and the best example of the mass effect dialog wheel that im aware off.
first off, i say it perfects the KOTOR alignment system because instead of having to always choose either light or dark side, or even having such a static alignment system, you instead either gain or lose the respect of other based on what you say to them, and based on your reputation which is actually modified based on what you do and how you interact with others. and having the respect or dislike of characters can benefit you in some ways, depending on what you want to do. the game even explains all this in universe and even justifies the system; youre a spy! manipulation is part of the job and what distinguishes the player character from the NPCs in particular ( in universe i mean).
secondly, your choices really do matter for once! and not just you get a different slide in the ending cutscene either. most actions you do or dont take, do have an effect on the overall narritve, be it indirectly ( act like a dick to this guy i just met to piss him off now, and it, alon with other conversations where i behave the same way, will snowball into pissing him off enough to let me get a killing blow on him, or be reasonable with him and be on the right track for aquiring his help in beating the final boss much much later) or directly ( if i rough this old faggot up, ill get what i want out of him now for free, but it might make later missions more difficult.) its quite impressive how dynamic the story in this game can be, especially in this day and age where you pretty much have to stick to one specific dialog angle to get the full story in that playthrough. thats actually one of the best parts about this game; the "good" ending isnt good because you picked all the bleeding heart faggoty choices in the dialogs, its good because it resolved to your satisfaction. same goes for bad; its not the "bad" ending because you blew up the world and killed everyone forever, its bad because you didnt get the resolution you wanted. because of the lack of an alignment bar bullshit, the player characters morality is entirely subjective and lies in what choices you make, which is pretty incredible when you look at the markets alternatives at the time of release (2010), and ill even go so far as to say that the level of player interaction in the story along with the absolute subjectivity the game has towards your actions is unparalled even today. which brings me to my next point.
as far as the dialog wheel goes, your timed in conversations, so it at least justifies only giving you a summation of that option. it also diverges in and improves in that instead of giving you the shortest version of what that option will make the PC say, it lists the emotion you want to convey ( IE "aggressive," "cautious," "suave," "professional," etc) which almost always means what you think it means. im not saying dialog wheels are good, but this is the best implementation of it ive ever seen
the story is really fucking immersive, i literally did nothing but play this game all day today, thats how invested in the story i was. i havent been this enthralled by a gmaes story since bioware's glory days. ill just say its about spies and espionage to avoid spoilers. i will say its a chris avelleone game and that should speak to the quality of the story by itself. ill also say its the only RPG ive played that has me interested enough in the story to actually make me want to replay it out of sheer enjoyment. primarily because there are things i haven't actually seen in the game off of one playthrough that arent incredibly obvious as to how they would play out,a nd because im pretty sure you cant resolve the entire story from one playthrough.