A short yet inspired action RPG romp
Bioware is one of the best RPG makers in the world of gaming. Few will argue this point, as the company has a catalog that includes such hits as Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights and KOTOR. For Jade Empire, Bioware decided to build a universe based on mythic China and create a combat system revolving around classic martial arts. The result is a game that lacks depth but remains enjoyable enough for it's 20 hours of playtime.
You begin Jade Empire by selecting one of several character models each with their own strengths and weaknesses but generally classified as fast, strong, or balanced. You can choose to be either male or female, and you can name your character as you see fit. You'll notice immediately the lack of customization options, and simplicity remains the rule from character creation to ending credits.
The story of Jade Empire is enjoyable if completely predictable. As the story starts you are completing your training in a martial arts school under the guide of your Master Li. Unfortunately your training is cut short when pirates attack the school. This puts forth a series of events that has you traveling across the empire attempting to save the world from ultimate destruction by the hand of the drably named Death's Hand. The story takes some minor twists and turns but you have to be pretty daft if you can't guess the ending within the first ten minutes of the game. Although predictable, the story is well told and characters are interesting enough and have a wealth of back-story.
Jade Empire plays like an action game such as Devil May Cry or Ninja Gaiden, although the depth here is miniscule compared to those games. Combat plays out in real time and you have both a strong and weak attack, as well as a blocking move. Instead of having one set of attacks that gradually expands over time, you instead learn different styles of martial arts, such as Thousand Cuts, which is your basic fist combat technique. Each of these styles falls into one specific category, such as hand-to-hand combat, weapon combat, magic, support, or demon. It might seems that with so many different categories of techniques, and with upwards of five styles in each category that the game would have a lot of depth. Sadly this is not the case.
First off, upgrading your techniques through leveling doesn't add new combos to the move, just increases the speed or strength of the attack, or some such attribute. You only have two weapons in the game, the sword and the staff. The look and strength of these weapons will change over time but you will see the exact same animation over and over again. In addition, you can't stream combos together by mixing and matching the weak and strong attacks. A strong attack takes several seconds to charge and is only useful when an opponent is blocking, as weak attacks cannot break a block. There are a couple twists to combat, both of which involve your Focus and Chi.
Chi is basically your magic energy in Jade Empire, and of course, magical attacks require chi to perform. This would be fine and dandy if magic had any use in the game. As it stands, it is infinitely easier to charge into combat at close range than it is to shoot enemies from afar, as magic strikes do very little damage compared to more physical forms of destruction. The other use of chi is called a chi strike. Basically, by hitting a button you can do extra damage with any attack for a percentage of your chi. This is most valuable when using support styles which normally don't do any damage. A support style may, for example, drain an enemy's chi in normal mode, but in chi strike mode it would both drain an enemy's chi and deal damage. On the harder difficulty settings it is imperative to use chi strikes, but more on that later.
Focus in Jade Empire is similar to stamina in other games. It allows you to wield weapons and enter focus mode. Focus mode essentially is a form of bullet time where you remain at normal speeds while everyone else slows down. Again, this mode is important in higher difficulty levels when the smallest thing can give you an edge.
All this may sound great on paper but in actuality adding chi strikes or focus modes doesn't change the fact that combat boils down to hitting one button over and over until an enemy blocks, hitting another button and then returning to mashing. In a game where combat is such a large focus the system should have been deeper and more enjoyable. As it stands, combat often feels like a grind.
This is especially true for higher difficulty settings, where many enemies can kill you in only a couple hits. The problem is that easy difficulty is a breeze- you wont even die to the hardest boss on easy. Meanwhile bumping the difficulty up to normal makes some fights frustratingly difficult. It would have been nice to have a middle ground where inexperienced players could still find a challenge while not dying to every enemy they face.
You might be wondering about weapons, armor, trinkets, or other items that you can use to buff your stats, as you would find in all other Bioware RPG's. Well here there is no armor just jewelry, and only two weapons. You essentially have an amulet that you can fill with gems that boost your stats. Only a couple have any ability beyond this, though one that gives you a damage shield is a nice touch.
Again, simplicity is key here, but like combat and character creation, sometimes the simplicity is too much. You can choose what styles to use and improve when you level up, and how you spend your skill points (either on Chi, Focus or Health) but almost everyone will want to make a balanced character. This makes leveling up a rather dull experience. Still, many gamers who are turned off by advanced skill trees will find Jade Empire refreshing and for this it must be commended. While hardcore RPG nuts will find themselves wishing there was more to almost every aspect of the game, the casual player will find that there is just enough here to satisfy their needs without sending them running to guides or walkthroughs.
The other main aspect of Jade Empire is its good vs. evil aspects. You can choose in the game to be a saint and save everyone you come to, and free the world from oppression, or you can do even more damage than what Death's Hand has already wrought. Unlike the other aspects of the game, you have many options in choosing the path to glory or notoriety, and many choices will definitely tug at your heartstrings. This is probably the best feature of the game, although it bears extreme similarity to KOTOR's system, without many improvements.
Jade Empire looks great. In fact I wouldn't hesitate to call it one of the best-looking Xbox games out there. This is mostly due to the great Chinese art style that is unique amongst the world of RPG's. Textures are also high quality, and little touches like swaying glass and the blue or red glow that surrounds your character really add to the immersion. While many titles overuse bloom lighting on the Xbox, Jade Empire gets it just right, giving the perfect amount of glow to your surroundings.
Voice acting is also impressive, and virtually every character is voiced, down to the urchins in the street. It is an impressive feat, and even more impressive considering the quality of the VO. The music in the game has a nice Chinese flair, but remains more serviceable than memorable. Finally, the sound effects are par with the course, with punches and kicks sounding appropriately bone shattering. Overall Jade Empire is a great audiovisual package.
One of the largest problems RPG fans will have with Jade Empire is its length. Essentially the game can be beaten in twenty hours with few side quests to speak of. Even if you were to beat every quest and play all the levels of the mini-game, it would be very easy to beat Jade Empire in under 25 hours. While this may seem like a lot for an action game, Jade Empire is still an RPG at heart, and RPG fans expect 60 hours worth of gameplay from their games. You can go back and beat the game as a villain or hero depending which path you took the first time, and there are multiple difficulty settings, but its possible to just replay the final couple hours of the game and get either ending depending on your actions.
Jade Empire is a game that will drive hardcore RPG nuts crazy. It is simple in every sense of the word. Combat consists mostly of button mashing, leveling is as simple as adding strength to your styles, and character creation is more like character selection. Casual gamers though will enjoy the low level of entry, and even hardcore fans will find the game's story and presentation reason enough to play through the whole game. Jade Empire is a serviceable RPG, and considering the meager Xbox lineup, serviceable is perfectly all right. Casual fans will also appreciate the short length and optional easy difficulty setting. Essentially, Jade Empire is highly recommendable to new players of the genre, and for any RPG starved Xbox owner, just don't expect much in the way of depth or longevity.
You begin Jade Empire by selecting one of several character models each with their own strengths and weaknesses but generally classified as fast, strong, or balanced. You can choose to be either male or female, and you can name your character as you see fit. You'll notice immediately the lack of customization options, and simplicity remains the rule from character creation to ending credits.
The story of Jade Empire is enjoyable if completely predictable. As the story starts you are completing your training in a martial arts school under the guide of your Master Li. Unfortunately your training is cut short when pirates attack the school. This puts forth a series of events that has you traveling across the empire attempting to save the world from ultimate destruction by the hand of the drably named Death's Hand. The story takes some minor twists and turns but you have to be pretty daft if you can't guess the ending within the first ten minutes of the game. Although predictable, the story is well told and characters are interesting enough and have a wealth of back-story.
Jade Empire plays like an action game such as Devil May Cry or Ninja Gaiden, although the depth here is miniscule compared to those games. Combat plays out in real time and you have both a strong and weak attack, as well as a blocking move. Instead of having one set of attacks that gradually expands over time, you instead learn different styles of martial arts, such as Thousand Cuts, which is your basic fist combat technique. Each of these styles falls into one specific category, such as hand-to-hand combat, weapon combat, magic, support, or demon. It might seems that with so many different categories of techniques, and with upwards of five styles in each category that the game would have a lot of depth. Sadly this is not the case.
First off, upgrading your techniques through leveling doesn't add new combos to the move, just increases the speed or strength of the attack, or some such attribute. You only have two weapons in the game, the sword and the staff. The look and strength of these weapons will change over time but you will see the exact same animation over and over again. In addition, you can't stream combos together by mixing and matching the weak and strong attacks. A strong attack takes several seconds to charge and is only useful when an opponent is blocking, as weak attacks cannot break a block. There are a couple twists to combat, both of which involve your Focus and Chi.
Chi is basically your magic energy in Jade Empire, and of course, magical attacks require chi to perform. This would be fine and dandy if magic had any use in the game. As it stands, it is infinitely easier to charge into combat at close range than it is to shoot enemies from afar, as magic strikes do very little damage compared to more physical forms of destruction. The other use of chi is called a chi strike. Basically, by hitting a button you can do extra damage with any attack for a percentage of your chi. This is most valuable when using support styles which normally don't do any damage. A support style may, for example, drain an enemy's chi in normal mode, but in chi strike mode it would both drain an enemy's chi and deal damage. On the harder difficulty settings it is imperative to use chi strikes, but more on that later.
Focus in Jade Empire is similar to stamina in other games. It allows you to wield weapons and enter focus mode. Focus mode essentially is a form of bullet time where you remain at normal speeds while everyone else slows down. Again, this mode is important in higher difficulty levels when the smallest thing can give you an edge.
All this may sound great on paper but in actuality adding chi strikes or focus modes doesn't change the fact that combat boils down to hitting one button over and over until an enemy blocks, hitting another button and then returning to mashing. In a game where combat is such a large focus the system should have been deeper and more enjoyable. As it stands, combat often feels like a grind.
This is especially true for higher difficulty settings, where many enemies can kill you in only a couple hits. The problem is that easy difficulty is a breeze- you wont even die to the hardest boss on easy. Meanwhile bumping the difficulty up to normal makes some fights frustratingly difficult. It would have been nice to have a middle ground where inexperienced players could still find a challenge while not dying to every enemy they face.
You might be wondering about weapons, armor, trinkets, or other items that you can use to buff your stats, as you would find in all other Bioware RPG's. Well here there is no armor just jewelry, and only two weapons. You essentially have an amulet that you can fill with gems that boost your stats. Only a couple have any ability beyond this, though one that gives you a damage shield is a nice touch.
Again, simplicity is key here, but like combat and character creation, sometimes the simplicity is too much. You can choose what styles to use and improve when you level up, and how you spend your skill points (either on Chi, Focus or Health) but almost everyone will want to make a balanced character. This makes leveling up a rather dull experience. Still, many gamers who are turned off by advanced skill trees will find Jade Empire refreshing and for this it must be commended. While hardcore RPG nuts will find themselves wishing there was more to almost every aspect of the game, the casual player will find that there is just enough here to satisfy their needs without sending them running to guides or walkthroughs.
The other main aspect of Jade Empire is its good vs. evil aspects. You can choose in the game to be a saint and save everyone you come to, and free the world from oppression, or you can do even more damage than what Death's Hand has already wrought. Unlike the other aspects of the game, you have many options in choosing the path to glory or notoriety, and many choices will definitely tug at your heartstrings. This is probably the best feature of the game, although it bears extreme similarity to KOTOR's system, without many improvements.
Jade Empire looks great. In fact I wouldn't hesitate to call it one of the best-looking Xbox games out there. This is mostly due to the great Chinese art style that is unique amongst the world of RPG's. Textures are also high quality, and little touches like swaying glass and the blue or red glow that surrounds your character really add to the immersion. While many titles overuse bloom lighting on the Xbox, Jade Empire gets it just right, giving the perfect amount of glow to your surroundings.
Voice acting is also impressive, and virtually every character is voiced, down to the urchins in the street. It is an impressive feat, and even more impressive considering the quality of the VO. The music in the game has a nice Chinese flair, but remains more serviceable than memorable. Finally, the sound effects are par with the course, with punches and kicks sounding appropriately bone shattering. Overall Jade Empire is a great audiovisual package.
One of the largest problems RPG fans will have with Jade Empire is its length. Essentially the game can be beaten in twenty hours with few side quests to speak of. Even if you were to beat every quest and play all the levels of the mini-game, it would be very easy to beat Jade Empire in under 25 hours. While this may seem like a lot for an action game, Jade Empire is still an RPG at heart, and RPG fans expect 60 hours worth of gameplay from their games. You can go back and beat the game as a villain or hero depending which path you took the first time, and there are multiple difficulty settings, but its possible to just replay the final couple hours of the game and get either ending depending on your actions.
Jade Empire is a game that will drive hardcore RPG nuts crazy. It is simple in every sense of the word. Combat consists mostly of button mashing, leveling is as simple as adding strength to your styles, and character creation is more like character selection. Casual gamers though will enjoy the low level of entry, and even hardcore fans will find the game's story and presentation reason enough to play through the whole game. Jade Empire is a serviceable RPG, and considering the meager Xbox lineup, serviceable is perfectly all right. Casual fans will also appreciate the short length and optional easy difficulty setting. Essentially, Jade Empire is highly recommendable to new players of the genre, and for any RPG starved Xbox owner, just don't expect much in the way of depth or longevity.
