Perhaps it's Jade Empire? There's no monkey protagonist, but it's set in ancient China and your character can use spears/staves as weapons. Also there are minigames which involve airships (released in 2005).

Honestly as much as I love both KOTOR games, I feel like the gameplay doesn't hold up well anymore. Especially if you're already familiar with them you don't have that additional enticement of lore and exploration (which is the main draw of a dialogue driven RPG, right?). Jade Empire is seriously underrated- bland combat aside there are some great quests and interesting characters throughout the whole game. Fable has great production values and is just plain fun to breeze through. My recommendation: Fable if you want something enjoyable right off the bat, or Jade Empire if you don't mind dealing with some wonky mechanics.