Jade Empire (Xbox) > Reviews (6)

So lately I've gone to game stores to buy used Xbox games because 360 games are really expensive. I'm about to borrow Mass Effect from my friend so I've decided to finish KoTOR (which was a fantastic and I'll probably write a review on it one I have enought time) and buy Jade Empire. These two games were both developed by Bioware and I felt it would be cool to play though the entire Bioware saga. Well KoTOR was too epic for me to write a review on at this moment so I'm going to write about Jade Empire.

Jade Empire is a martial arts RPG where you play as this martial arts student who has to save the Jade Empire. Pretty classic RPG story right? Suprisingly the story is the selling point of this game. It's extremely well done and Bioware throws that curveball right in your face when you are about to beat the game which is highly unexpected and give you that "whoa, aha" feeling. Of course like all choice driven RPGs you can choose between the way of the open palm and the way of the closed fist and there are techniques available to both sides. I feel that the decisions of your actions don't impact the game that much so whether you choose either path depends on personal preference. The voice work is really well done and there are probably hundreds of lines that can be spoken by other characters (your character remains silent) and it's nice to have a game with full voiceovers, though that's becoming standard nowadays. Music and sound also fits into this game perfectly as it has that Asian theme sound. Visually this game is better than KoTOR and runs very smoothly but when combat gets intense, the game tends to slow down a little.

You start out by choosing one of I think 6 prerendered characters. This was kind of a dissappointment because I wanted to make my own character but you can still alter his/her stats to your liking. Each of the 6 character are broken into 3 groups, one male one female per group. You can choose either a character that's balanced, fast, or strong. The character customization are extremely limited too. You can't buy clothes for your characters to wear which I found kind of weird. Nomrally in RPGs you can buy clothes to increase stats and stuff but in Jade all you can buy are these gems that increase stats. You can also learn techniques to permanently increase stats which I thought was interesting. As a whole there's not a lot of character customization and that's one of the downsides of this game if you like to make your character uber awesome.

The combat is the other dissappointment. All the combat is in real time and basically all you do is mash the A-button until your opponent is beaten. You can guard by holding B and you can dodge around by tilting the analog stick while holding B, but that's basically all there is to combat. Pressing the X-button charges up an attack that can break your opponent's shields but you'll discover it does suprisingly little damage. You can switch martial arts styles on the fly by mapping a style to a D-pad direction and pressing the direction in combat for a little variety.

Also pressing A and X together does an area attack that knocks your foes back. You can heal yourself with chi using the white (?) button (on the 360 controller its LB) and power up attack using black (?) button (on the 360 controller its RB) and there's a focus mode but focusing is very useless. I didn't use focus for 99% of the game. Combat is exremely shallow but experimenting with styles is kind of cool. You can power up your styles when you level up to give it more of a punch. Attacks are basically split into 4 types, weapon, attack, support, and magic but choosing one style and mashing the A-button usually gets the job done. There are enemies immune to certain types of attacks which makes defeating certain enemies more difficult but really it's not too diverse. Combat is dissappointing and sometimes frustrating when you're being attacked from all sides by monsters that deal major damage to you. Combat would've been so much better if it was like God of War's timed button counter and combo attacks. However if you suck it up through the combat you'll discover a very deep and satisfying adventure.

My last complaint about this game is there are very few places to explore. In KoTOR, Bioware gave us 5 planets to run around in. In Jade you get one town and one city (there's a little bit more but not much). Sure the city is pretty big (very big actually) but it would've been nice to see more of the Jade Empire. The game only takes around 20-25 hours (assuming you attempt to accomplish 80% of the side quests) so it's not punishingly long. There's also a Space Invader like minigame that diverts your attention away from the main quest but its not that long. I think Bioware intended people to play it over multiple times and try to go on both the way of the open palm and way of the closed fist.

Side quests are basically what will keep you playing this past 15 hours. The main quest is short but the side quests are good diversions that will help your character level up and gain new styles/techniqes. It's also possible to build relationships with members of your party and you get interesting backstories on each of them if you try and pry the information out of them. You can also read a lot about the demons/monsters and history of the Jade Empire.

Being Asian, I find the setting of Jade Empire to be extremely interesting. I love the idea of having a game set in a place like ancient China. Combat and character customization hold this game back a little but from start to finish the story is extremely engaging. I beat this game once (I plan to do it again soon) in 26 hours (over 4 days) going through many of the sidequests and reading a lof of the history of the Jade Empire. I would really like to see a sequel to this game with more polished combat and bigger environments (Bioware has put a lot of effort and fleshed out the history of the Jade Empire). But Bioware has their hands full with the Mass Effect trilogy, rumored KoTOR sequel (MMO? I'll pee myself if it is), and Sonic RPG for the DS so a sequel will likely not come out anytime soon (they are owned by EA now and EA is giant). It's a shame because I feel this game had such a great story in such an interesting setting. This game had the potential to be so much more but what you get is an amazing story in a very interesting place. Combat may feel clunky but this game is still engaging and fun. At less than 10 USD (used) it's hard to find a game more worth getting than a Bioware RPG such as Jade Empire.