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Cutscene after cutscene.. more like watching an animated movie.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 7 / 22
Date: May 21, 2007
Author: Amazon User

If you like watching animated movies, especially foreign Asian animation, you might like this game because that is what you do in Jade Empire. If you like some good button mashing and then watching cutscene after cutscene after cutscene, then this might be the game for you. I like SOME cutscenes in my games, but too many will take me out of the immersion factor. Also, the graphics in Jade Empire just feel cartoony.

Your character fights scripted linear enemies and then triggers another cutscene. Then your silent voiced character will have choices of dialog to select from leading eventually down the path of good or evil. Once you choose your dialog, you continue to the next cutsene. I just couldn't get into this game no matter how hard I tried.

Not recommended

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: May 13, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Jade Empire is a game that impresses at first. It presents lots of dialogue, fine graphics, and an interesting, different setting. As the game goes on, however, its problems begin to surface.

The dialogue quickly becomes an issue. Now, mind you, I'm not one to be put down by dialogue - bear in mind I'm an "old school" RPG fan - but after a while you realize that a lot of the dialogue is either redundant or just empty. Characters will almost every time use two or three lines to say something they could've easily said in one line. The seemingly never ending dialogue trees get old real quick. You'll soon notice that it really doesn't matter what you say, except for being "good" or "evil". As it's often the case, Bioware didn't put much of an effort into the "evil" storyline, and evil actions feel illogical or even counter-productive.

The interface has a very, very annoying issue: even though it's a traditional mouse and WASD, you can't look up or down. When you move the mouse up and down, your viewpoint just goes up or down a bit, but you keep looking straight forward. This might not be an issue for many, but to me it's a hideous gameplay breaker. It makes me feel stranded, as if I can't move freely. It's very annoying, it kills immersion, and it never goes away.

Character development is very simple - apparently intentionally - and there are no weapons or armor to buy. For RPG lovers like myself, that just means there's less things to do, and you feel less rewarded since there's not much you can do with the huge amounts of gold that you'll get. You can buy gems that upgrade your base stats or abilities, but that's pretty much it.

Another game breaker is how Bioware manages the group of characters. You can only have one NPC with the main character at a time. The others just hang at some point in the city or town. When you think of the classic 4-character group RPG's, or even Baldur's Gate and its 6-character groups, it makes Jade Empire, a game released a decade later, feel somewhat empty and very lazy.

The settings are graphically very interesting, even if the graphics aren't exaclty cutting edge, and the chinese mythology thing is a welcome change from your usual medieval Europe-inspired fantasy settings. Most open spaces, however, feel just like a series of corridors bordered by untouchable trees and stones. Again, Bioware manages to move a few steps back from decades old games that already featured open worlds, and its own masterpiece, Baldur's Gate. Incidentally, there's no day and night cycle and time doesn't seem to pass when you're in the same scenario.

I think what they tried to do with combat could have been very interesting. Once you really understand how it works, it gets old. Even if you're facing 10 enemies at a time, all martial styles are focused exclusively on duels. This means you pick one at a time. Then it's just hit, run, hit, run, ad infinitum.

Overall, Jade Empire is an alright game, but too often it feels like it's lacking something. There's no character development to be had, no weapons or armor to aim for, and the game world doesn't feel alive at all. The game is very short for an RPG, something like 30 hours with all the sidequests. I did have fun with it, but not for long. I can't recommend it.

Fun the first time through

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 13 / 13
Date: March 29, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Jade Empire: Special Edition is a lot of fun. The milieu is a fresh breath of air from the typical fantasy setting and the combat is certainly more dynamic. Instead of issuing commands and then waiting for the computer to resolve dice rolls behind the scenes, the combat is pure real-time martial arts. You jump your character in and out, dodge, roll, and have to actually connect when you strike. It brings out an urgency and involvement that is sometimes lacking in RPG combat.

The graphics may not be at the level of Oblivion, but they're crisp and pretty. Plus the game runs on a system that's not quite state-of-the art without issue. Apart from a few bugs (sometimes the camera angle gets stuck, easily fixed by a quick reload), Jade Empire runs smoothly.

The game has limited replay value, though. This is simply not as in-depth or large a game universe as Knights of the Old Republic or the Baldur's Gate series. You have a small starting town, which there is no point revisiting once you finish the introductory chapter. After that, there's a somewhat larger town (Tien's Landing) and then the Imperial City. Again, once you leave the town, you probably won't have any reason to ever go back. And the Imperial City is the same story: once you've wrapped up everything and head to the Imperial Palace, you won't be going back to the City.

That's a shame because the game feels so linear as a result. There's side quests in each urban location, but nothing that really makes you feel like you're forging your own destiny in another world. You won't be doing anything equivalent to rescuing Anise's castle in BG2 or acting as a hit man for the Genoharadan in KOTOR.

So my final verdict is that this is definitely a good game. But will I dust it off the shelf every few months, eager to give it another go (like I do with BG2, Kotor, and even Fallout 2)? That I can't be so sure about.

Jade Empire SE

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 10 / 10
Date: March 28, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This is a stable game with excellent graphic and a very good story line. The controls are simple and easy to learn. Unfortunately it is a bit on the short side, it took me only 14 hours to finish the game my first time.

There are a number of subplots, but they don't take long to complete. The romantic subplots for male characters are good and varied, female characters have only two options.

While the story is a bit lacking for replay, the combat options are keeping my interest. I have just started my third game. My wife completed it once and is likely to play through it again soon.

Personal Rating
Graphics: A
Stability: A
Controls: A
Combat Options: A
Character Customization: C+
Story Depth: A-
Story Length: C
Replay Value: C+

Overall I give Jade Empire SE a solid B.

I honestly found the Rhino Demon exclusive combat style to be of little value. But it is a cool little bonus that is fun to play around with once or twice.

Top-Notch Bioware

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 10 / 10
Date: May 07, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I'm a PC-only gamer, so when Jade Empire came out for Xbox I had my fingers crossed, hoping Bioware wouldn't leave me in the dust on this one. Two years later, I am not disappointed. If you've played Knights of the Old Republic, Bioware's Star Wars game, you'll find everything you liked about it here, albeit in a sometimes streamlined form.

You play as a martial-arts prodigy in a fantasy version of ancient China, the titular Jade Empire, filled with magical flyers, menacing demons, and all manner of sorcery foul and fair. But something is rotten in the Empire, and it's up to you and a band of adventurers to find out what. You can select from a number of characters, both male and female, each of whom is balanced for a specific fighting aspect - be it speed, strength, or magic use. Your character starts as a martial arts student in the sleepy little town of Two Rivers, but you soon discover that you are destined for a greater role in the Jade Empire.

The story is great - very engaging, with well-voiced characters (look for John Cleese as Sir Roderick and Firefly's Nathan Fillion as Gao the Lesser) whose elaborate backstories directly influence the game's storyline. You can choose whether to follow the altruistic Way of the Open Palm or the harsher Way of the Closed Fist through the choices you make during the game. Each philosophy opens up different subplots and abilities for your character. As in previous Bioware RPGs, the storyline features numerous side-quests and a complex series of central quests, all with multiple solutions.

The art direction is fantastic, capturing a diverse and compelling Eastern-Asia stylistic fusion. In terms of graphics, some of the environmental textures show their age, but the beautifully designed locales and characters shine through. It's the kind of game that you just want to stop and look at for a while. Bioware has significantly expanded their palette of faces, and I rarely felt that I was encountering the same character over and over.

The action-style fighting gameplay is fast-paced and engaging, though it can seem almost too easy at regular difficulty. Your character can learn a variety of different styles, from magical fire and ice attacks to double-handed swords and axes to good old-fashioned punches and kicks, and switch between them during combat for the best advantage against different opponents. I actually found myself using only a small selection of the game's numerous styles, and not switching very often. Still, the fighting looks great (Bioware used motion capture technology and professional, real-world martial artists to create the game's fighting styles) even if it lacks a bit of challenge. The game uses a simple 3-stat mechanic - there's Body, which influences Health (HP), Spirit, which influences Chi (spellcasting, replenishing health, and certain special attacks), and Mind, which influences focus (fighting with weapons and a slow-motion bullet-time ability). The give-and-take between the three stats in battle creates some interesting engagements, and each stat is also linked to the conversation skills of Charm, Intuition, and Intimidation, which can affect encounters with other characters.

In summary: If you want a great-looking game with an engaging storyline, compelling characters, and fun (if a bit easy) martial-arts combat, Jade Empire is the game for you! Highly recommended.

Definitely recommend

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: August 03, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The game is lots of fun. The only negative thing I can say is that many of the fighting styles are not very useful. You only need to develop 3 or 4.

Nice!!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: June 01, 2007
Author: Amazon User

A truly fine RPG and a real treat for anybody who played and enjoyed KOTOR 1. Jade Empire has all the Bioware trademarks: Good graphics, a fine story, great dialog, romance, challenging combat (on high settings) and interesting characters/locations. Like KOTOR, it has two paths to follow (something like good and evil), plot twists and even the opportunity to completely change your alignment near the end. Some people feel it's "cartoonish", but I definitely don't agree. Rather I think it tries to impart a sense of another culture's mythology, and it succeeds beautifully in my opinion. Think Titan Quest if you want an example (or Star Wars for that matter). I did almost everything I could find in the game (main quest, mini-games, sidequests, etc.), and it took me about 30 hours to complete. There are a lot of cut scenes, but they can be easily skipped by pressing the ESC key. If dialog screens bother you, you shouldn't be playing this type of game in the first place. It's really a shame that it took so long for Bioware to port Jade Empire to the PC. It would have been much more popular if it came out a year ago. Even so, I count Jade Empire among my favorites to be replayed many times.

easy and fun and pretty to look at

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 29, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Very beautiful game world, interesting character abilities and combat, decent little quests and storyline, and even some arcade-like fun. This was a blast.

A good immersive story

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: March 25, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I noticed on other reviews the complaints of too many cut scenes. I did not find the cut scenes bothersome at all. Its the story line. If you like first-person shooters this game is not for you. If you like real Role-playing games, this game is great. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Very good PC game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: March 27, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I bought this for my husband's birthday. He's loving it, the graphic is pretty good and the story line is quite interesting.

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