Jade Empire

Jade Empire, a BioWare game set in a world inspired by mythical China, begins at the edge of a realm in a small village called Two Rivers -- just like The Eye of the World, the first book in The Wheel of Time series. The name of the village is hardly very original and thus just a coincidence but it amused me nonetheless.

Jade Empire uses the Odyssey Engine, familiar from the Knights of the Old Republic games. In addition to the same engine (and various other stuff), the game also has a similar alignment system to the light and dark sides of the Force, called The Way of the Open Palm and The Way of the Closed Fist. Jade Empire hints the Ways are not as binary through dialog in the early game but in practice there seemed to be no difference; good deeds push you towards the Open Palm and vice versa.

Jade Empire doesn't use the d20 but a simple tri-stat system instead. Your character has three ability scores: body, spirit, mind; which increase your health, chi, and focus respectively. Each combination of two ability scores also determine the effectiveness of three conversation skills; charm, intuition, and intimidate.

Combat is much more interactive than in Knights. You have the option to use various different fighting styles. The styles are grouped under five categories; Martial, Support, Weapon, Transformation, and Magic. Each style has a faster main attack (left mouse) and a slower power attack (right mouse), which is easier to interrupt but strikes through opponent's block. Hitting both mouse buttons executes an area of effect attack, which is useful when fighting multiple opponents.

Martial and Support are unarmed fighting styles. Support styles do considerably less damage than Martial but inflict some status effects on your target or restore your Chi in the case of Spirit Thief. Weapon styles drain your focus with each hit but are the most damaging styles you can use. Transformation styles transform you into various demon and undead forms constantly draining your chi. Transformation is mostly useful against some demons and undead who are too nasty to fight in melee. Magic styles provide ranged magic attacks.

With each level up you gain points to upgrade your fighting styles' damage, speed, focus/chi consumption, and/or chi damage, which is used when you activate the Chi mode. It strengthens your attacks but also drains your chi with each hit.

There are three types of enemies in the game; human, demon, and undead. Every style works against humans but demons are immune to Magic and Support styles. Undead are even nastier as they refuse to be harmed by weapons as well. I found the most difficult fights in the game to be against undead using ranged attacks.

This is partly because all the unarmed fighting styles feel clumsy. Their reach is laughable and I found myself hitting air most of the time. Often your first attack in a combo also pushes the target away, making your next attacks miss. Later into the game I developed a style of rolling backwards after an unarmed combo and then rolling back in, which positioned my character right on the toes of the opponent.

I played Jade Empire on the default Master difficulty and found it quite challenging early on. I eventually got better, especially after becoming the champion of the Arena halfway through the game, and gaining Tang's Vengeance, a dual axes fighting style. The axe (as well as sword) style sometimes decapitates opponents, leaving them headless and spraying blood everywhere. Pretty hilarious when fighting against a mob of easier human opponents.

The double axes were an earned reward, though. Before fighting against the current arena champion you are put into an Imperial Engagement, where you fight against most of the opponents you already beat, each entering ten seconds after the previous one. You need pretty high dps to beat each opponent in ten seconds, though. I didn't have a high enough damage output and so eventually I had a whole bunch of opponents in the arena.

They wouldn't have been so hard (melee opponents are not really smart in mobs) and I would have beaten the challenge on my first try if not for the freaking elephant demon. Elephant demons hit like a truck in melee and recover from melee attacks incredibly fast. And as demons are immune to magic, I found the fight to be nigh impossible. Eventually I found the solution though: Horse Demon style, which has a pretty powerful firebolt attack that does damage over time.

During my struggles in the arena I also discovered a serious balance issue in the game; the Storm Dragon support style effectively stun locks every opponent in the game not immune to support styles, rendering many hard fights in the game trivial, including the final boss. You just keep switching between Storm Dragon and a more damaging style (longsword in my case) and you beat the enemy easily without getting hit a single time.

Ironically enough for an action-focused RPG, Jade Empire is much better on the story side, although after Sagacious Zu noted the flaw in my character's style in the first chapter, I knew where the game was going and the biggest plot twist was spoiled right there. That didn't stop me from enjoying the game, however.

The game flows forward very nicely and the quests are well placed in the world. Doing them is always an enjoyable experience. I especially liked how masterfully the companions are written into the game. And even though they follow you in-style of Knights and Neverwinter Nights 2, they never feel like a burden (unlike in those fore-mentioned games). This is partly because you don't have to manage their inventory but also because the game rarely (if ever) forces you the take a specific companion with you (there's room for only one). You can also switch your companion on the fly without returning to your camp.

All in all, Jade Empire is a good RPG but suffers from the somewhat akward combat (at least in the PC port, I don't know about the original Xbox version), which is unacceptable in a game like this. Character stat development is also slightly too shallow to be interesting and doesn't allow that many different builds. I read some review that criticized the game for its short length. My final save says 18h45min, and with reloads the total time spent is probably close to 20 hours. I think that's quite enough enjoyment for a fan of BioWare's rpgs. You can always play the game for a second time, and pick the opposite Way to follow.

Edited 2021-04-10: Fixed typos and layout.