Jade Empire

"A game that is good is a good game, methinks."

Story-10
Graphics- 9
Sound- 9
Controls-9
Replay-7

This game is loved by many and hated by many. To some, this game has the value of your average: Play it once, beat it twice for both endings and then shove it to the back of your game carrier. It saddens me to say that I have thought that before about many games. (Most of the time they have been deserving of that opinion) However, in my opinion as a reviewer of games, there is no game without any value, no matter how small it is. Thankfully I don't have to look very far for good aspects of this game, because they are plentiful.

Story- Set in Ancient Asia, Jade Empire offers a choice between good and evil based on text options, just like his brother Knights of the Old Republic. If memory serves me correctly, there are 3 endings: Good, Evil, and Wimp. The third one is accessible from any alignment. The story itself follows your main character on an accidental quest: Find you master whom was kidnapped from your village, and avenge yourself upon the Empire that was responsible for the demise of every other person that lived near you. Along the way, we meet a mysterious blue lady that offers you help. You travel through the lands, fighting cannibals, the undead, and assassins. People (and creatures) join you in the hopes of making a difference. Eventually your struggle leads you to the hear of the Empire. What happens from there is up to you. For sheer depth and complexity, I give this section a 10.

Graphics- So far I have only been able to find minor faults with the graphics in this game. The most prominent is when there are a lot of enemies on the screen, and the frame rate becomes choppy. Like I said, this is a minor offense, merely a misdemeanor compared to the horrible graphics of other games. Everything looks great. The trees look treeish, the demon styles are awesome, the NPC's are pretty varied, and the background areas that you visit are pretty sweet. I have to give Bioware some cookies for the great graphics that are present in their hard made creation. When watching the documentary The Making of Jade Empire, I realized how much time and effort was put into the making of this game. A person really doesn't realize how much manpower it takes to just put those images on the screen.

Sound- Hmmm, I'd have to say that the sound in this game was, honestly, about average. The background music fit into whatever surrounding was present, the voices were good (I'm still waiting for a main character that talks. Come on Bioware!) and varied from person to person, and the sound effects just added onto the gameplay. But, in all actuality, the sound is meant to do just that: Add onto the story without actually affecting how things are actually played. The sound of the different weapons, transformations and martial styles really gave a nice transitional value to the game. But there is one weird thing: If we're in Asia, why don't the people sound Asian? That's just an interesting little extra wonder that I've often had in Asia-based games.

Controls- Jade Empire has a rock, paper, scissors fighting style: Fast beats strong, strong beats block, and block beats fast. They did a good job designing the mechanics of what button went where on the controller. It's actually pretty easy to remember which button is which: The B button, which is red, is the block button. When your block come us, it's a red disk in front of you. The X button, which is blue, is the strong attack. When you use a strong attack, it is blue. Focus is represented by the yellow bar and the yellow button, and A was the only one left, so they put it as the fast attack. Chi strike and Chi heal are the black and white buttons, and the D-pad is used for quick access to the different fighting styles that you accumulate throughout the game.

Replay- This game has a pretty fair replay value; at least more of one than people give it credit for. Okay, I realize that there is a limit to the customization, sidequests, and mainquest, but there is enough there to do to keep you occupied for at least 5 or 6 replays. This game is about 10 hours long fo me, so that would provide about 50-60 hours of gameplay. And if you try this game on another difficulty, add about and extra 3 hours per difficulty. If you don't replay it for the gameplay, prove that you can beat it on its hardest setting. After you do that, go back on easy and get a 100% completion file. That will prove that you're a true Jade Empire master.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 04/25/06