Companion Returns: Vector, Iresso, Akaavi & Mako

More than two years ago I wrote about the first four Alliance alert missions that Bioware released to return more of the then still-missing class companions post-KotET. I found their shortness a bit disappointing, but was nonetheless excited for the first bits of class-specific content in years and looked forward to seeing the other four that were scheduled to come out soon after.

Would you believe that it actually took me until recently to see the last of those, as I only completed KotET on my bounty hunter the other week? At this point, talking about these companion returns isn't news anymore and I doubt anyone else really cares what I thought about them, but I've had this post sitting in my draft folder for almost two years so I'm going to finish and publish it, damn it!

Vector

This was probably the one I was looking forward to the most, considering that Vector is my favourite romance from the original class stories. He's also someone who actually manages to deliver the pathos of how heartbroken he was without his partner convincingly (in my opinion), unlike some other companions.

The only thing that made me raise an eyebrow a little was his story of how the Empire apparently "conscripted" the killiks to use as cannon fodder? That sounded odd to me, considering that I always got the impression that they were a pretty powerful faction, so I'm not sure how an already extremely weakened Empire would have been able to get them under its thumb just like that, but whatever I guess.

Lieutenant Iresso

Basically, Felix had a horrible time, the Republic abandoned him in his time of greatest need, and he'd like to just stick with you again if that's alright, kplzthx? I felt pretty neutral about this one, probably because I've always felt kinda lukewarm about Felix Iresso as a companion. I don't dislike him, but he's not one of my favourites either... I just didn't find him all that memorable.

The only thing that I was curious about was whether I'd be able to romance him if I hadn't romanced him before - my Sage actually kissed him once back in the day since I'd somehow manoeuvred myself into a companion conversation where my only options were 1) kiss him, 2) kiss him, or 3) say something mean, so I went for the kiss just to have her back out immediately afterwards because "oh noes, the Jedi code". This was apparently not sufficiently relevant to bring up again though, and having turned him down back then, there was no option to flirt with him this time around.

Akaavi & Mako

Now this is the one that held this post back, because while I did the smuggler version quite some time ago, I also wanted to see the quest from a bounty hunter's point of view and well... refer to what I said in the intro paragraph. It was also the most disappointing mission out of this lot of companion returns.

There wasn't actually that much difference between how the two classes experience it either: You get an alert that one of your missing companions has been spotted doing some bounty hunting on Tatooine, so you go there and find them in the company of the other companion. They quickly go from "hey, it's you" to "I met this other gal and she helped me out" to "let's hang out again just like old times" and it all goes by so fast it feels a bit like you could blink and miss it. I hope/assume it's a bit more interesting if you were in a romance...

I didn't mind the brevity so much on my smuggler since she honestly wasn't that close to Akaavi to begin with, but my bounty hunter had always been close to Mako, treating her like a little sister and encouraging her to hook up with Torian, and there was no reference to any of that. You also aren't really told anything about the other class companion other than that they are a friend and will want to come along. It was just a remarkably unmemorable affair.

I'm glad that from Ossus onwards Bioware went back to incorporating the returning companions into the main storyline again, even if it was in minor ways sometimes, as I feel that those returns have all been a lot more satisfying than these super short and rather disconnected Alliance alerts.