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Polished and shorter version of KOTOR

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: April 24, 2005
Author: Amazon User

First of all, the 9.9 rating that appears on the box cover is overrated. It's one of the best games to come out this year, but it's closer to a 8.5 or 9.0.

For fans who love the immersive storyline of Star Wars - Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR), this is a game certainly not to be missed. Creating a brand new set of characters in a new world is not an easy task, but this is exactly what BioWare accomplished in Jade Empire. The graphics are top-rate, making KOTOR look like a PS2 game. Real-time martial arts action replaces a turn-based fight system, creating a seamless environment. Other reviews complained that using all of the controller buttons made the game too confusing. However, this system is much better than having to memorize combos for fight moves.

Compared to KOTOR, the game feels much shorter because there are fewer locations to explore. With fewer side missions, the story felt tighter and more polished, but there wasn't a feeling of freedom as in KOTOR. At times, it feels like you're not solving puzzles as much as simply advancing the plot.

Jade Empire is a fantastic, polished, single player RPG with 20-25 hours of gameplay. The only downside is that the game makes you yearn for more. Hopefully, Bioware will release a sequel to this game with a even larger world to explore.

One of the Greatest RPGs-but very pre-mature 3 stars

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: April 14, 2005
Author: Amazon User

If you are into martial arts, as well as RPG's, this game is it, I bought it last night and would not have gone to bed if I didn't have to work at 8:00 a.m. the next morning. This game has high potential. It was so great, I woke up early the next day to get my fix in. This is an excellent game

Add-on to original: CAN'T CHANGE THE RATINGS, BUT CAN EDIT. 3 STARS: Nearly a year after I bought this, it was a fun game, but to short, which disappoints me. I feel this game might have been a little premature. If you notice they are re-releasing it, "re-release" meaning they are doing what they should have done in the first place. I would re-rate it at about 3 stars, because it was fun, but did have some problems, definately a great concept, just rushed. I just wish these guys would do something right the first time round.

Good presentation and story, lackluster combat

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: August 19, 2005
Author: Amazon User

If you're reading this review, you probably already know the basics about "Jade Empire", so I'll just spit out my impressions:

The graphics are very nicely done. I like the sense of scale that having different-sized enemies provides. The movement is fluid, and the lighting effects for magic were good without being over-done (I feel many other games over-do it with the light effects). The sound and voice acting also reflect well on the game -- they never bowled me over, but they were consistently good. The different musical pieces suited the context of the parts of the game that they were played in.

I liked the story very much too. Even though role-playing game and martial-arts cliches were present throughout, I still thought the plot had enough detail and twists to keep me interested. Scrolls and books in the game provided more detail to the history of the Empire, without making the game too "texty".

My complaint with "Jade Empire" is the combat. You spend a large amount of the game fighting through various enemies, but only on very few occasions was I forced to deviate from the same basic pattern that I could use to kill almost every enemy. (And on those occasions, I just had to develop and use a different pattern.) You gain many different fighting styles through the game -- some fast, some slow, some magical, some that let you turn into demons -- but I ended up relying on the same few styles over and over. The game ended up feeling fairly easy. There was one area (the Arena) that I found consistently challenging, but the rest of the game presented few memorable fights.

A good comparison to "Jade Empire" is "Ninja Gaiden". They are similar games, and "Jade" has a better story and just felt more polished. The fighting in "Ninja" felt much more rich and varied though -- there are a variety of weapons and combos and it just feels like your character grows over time. In "Jade" your character gets more fighting styles but, aside from the fun of turning into different demons, they didn't add much to the gameplaying experience. As a result, I ended up enjoying "Ninja" a lot more -- it felt like a real accomplishment to beat that game.

There are elements that make "Jade Empire" somewhat replayable. Your character can make "good" or "evil" choices, although these seem to mainly affect the dialogue responses. I played a good character, and only saw a few places where being evil would have materially changed things. Still, playing as an evil character has some novelty appeal. If I replayed the game, I would also make an effort to rely on different styles than I used the first time -- this would also change the gameplay a bit.

In summary, "Jade Empire" was good, but not great. Polish and plot are great, but the lack of depth in the gameplay left me disappointed.

Boring game ever played

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 17
Date: September 09, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I am fairly new to the xbox domain but i had played a lot of pc games earlier. I had played games like tomb raider ,max payne recoil to name a few earlier and then decided to jump into xbox since i got a job recently and i could afforf it. But once i started the game i just cudnt stick with it for long. I was bored right from the day one. I couldnot retain any damn interst. Its so damn boring. the main problems are:
The combat is very boring. The demons or whatever are way to easy to kill. Just keep hitting the A button and some where they will die for sure. No strategies nothing.
The story is kinda boring. I never got into its long verbose dialogues. You wont believe me but the dialogues run for almost like 5-7 mins and then a short combat scene and another 5-7 mins of dialogues. I m not a big fan of listening to the story when i am ther to play.
No strategies or planning required unlike many other games. When u compare it with games like Tomb Raider and Max Payne you will realise what i am talking about. You need some skill to clear the levels in those games. In this you just need patience to sit and keep listening to the dumbass crap spoken by the characters.
Fighting styles etc are no big deal. You can kill the enemy with just one or two default styles and since you get used to it from the begining of the game you dont feel like switching to the other new styles which have no better effect.
As I said earlier the game is way tooo easy for some looking for some action to play. Moreover the verbose conversation literally SUCKS!!!
ITS BY FAR THE MOST OVERRATED AND HYPED GAME OF THIS YEAR.
I bought GTA and Ghost Recon and i ended up playing the same map again and again in it. Thats the kind of interest it generated.
GHOST RECON rocks seriosuly! but if only we had more maps in it. Otherwise its awesome!

In a nutshell. If you are looking for some action better not go with this game. It sucks big time. Go for some real action packed games like medal of honor, halo etc..but definetely not jade empire !

Good but not great

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 6
Date: October 03, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Here are my points on Jade Empire:

1. Great Graphics
2. Good Sound
3. Wide range of characters
4. Lots of choices on fighting tactics
5. Dialog between too many characters is too long, some would have been okay, but they go overboard.
6. Too many loads, way too many.
7. Good voice acting
8. Personally I found the character development superficial, but to be fair that is true of most games. I don't want good versus evil. Look at the so called seven deadly sins and try to include them in some way. One simple example is have even good characters get jealous or envious. Or maybe two characters fall in love with the same person. Everything bad in the world does not just come from evil people. Another possible plot complication, is have the love interest be killed in battle, how would that affect your characters philosphy??
9. While I applaud their effort to include possible gay relationships they seem to have been half-hearted about it. If your going to be bold please have the courage of your convictions.

Jade Empire is a cool game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 7
Date: April 14, 2005
Author: Amazon User

the graphics are good the story line was good i thought it be too short but when its this good who cares.

Disappointing

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 7
Date: May 26, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This game has some beatiful scenery, and...well, that's about it. This game commits the cardinal sin of video games: it's very boring. And I'm a huge fan of KOTOR, so I'm not averse to talky talkiness, but the generic story, tedious combat, and uninteresting stat/ability system caused me to sell this game quicker than any game I've ever had. Just beware.

AWESOME game to play on the XBOX game system

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 2
Date: April 17, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Jade Empire is a really total awesome game to play

I give it a 5 Stars "Highly Recommended" really total worth it to buy & play this game on the Xbox game system

This is a must have game to buy & play it got AWESOME review for Jade Empire

Enjoyable

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 5
Date: April 27, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I really enjoyed this game, but can only give it four stars because it might have been better.

First off, very important: if you like open-ended non-linear games, don't expect too much here. My husband is an Elder Scrolls/GTA fan and wanted more play within the game. I personally like being guided a bit more so I don't get lost.

Good points: the combat system is much better than KOTOR, which shares a lot of similarities with Jade Empire, because you actually FIGHT people instead of simply pointing and letting the game take over. The graphics are beautiful. The story is fairly interesting.

Mediocre points: you'll get a BUNCH of fighting styles in this game, most of which you won't use, which is irritating. There are a lot of techniques that you can easily get by without--why put them in if you never use them? I beat the entire game without ever bothering to use focus mode, chi strike, or harmonic combos. Also, there are places mentioned that you never see in the game, which can be frustrating for people who want more open-ended travel options. Why mention Phoenix Gate when I'll never see it? And load times can get irritating, especially when your XBox freezes up in the middle of them. There isn't much real difference between the character classes, especially since you can customize and choose your initial martial style, so you may as well decide on looks as much as anything.

I found the game satisfying, even though I beat it fairly quickly and without too much effort. There's nothing bad about it, but I probably would have waited until the price went down knowing what I know now. It's definitely worth owning and has decent replay options, but it's so linear that there aren't a lot of choices to make beyond opting for a different gender or philosophical path.

I love this Game !!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: May 06, 2005
Author: Amazon User

It's so hard to find game's like this , it actually has girl characters that you can play , it's really hard to find that . It also has an awesome storyline to it . To my opinion yes it could be better if they come out with a Jade Empire 2 .

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