"Delve Deep Into the Jade Empire."

Chinese mythology is one of the most immersive of any kind of mythos out there, which begs the question: Why don't we have any really good game based on it? Well now, thanks to the great minds at Bioware, we can now say that we do in Jade Empire. Bioware is now widely known for their previous games, the most notable two being the Baldur's Gate series and the game which won multiple Game of the Year awards, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Will Bioware "wow" us once again with Jade Empire? Or will it fall on it's face and disgrace it's Master? We shall see...

As mentioned before, Jade Empire is an open-ended, plot driven RPG set in a place of the same name. Although you can clearly see that the environment is one reminiscent of ancient China, the Jade Empire and China are not one in the same. The story will disappoint at first, seeming a Kung Fu movie cliche, but will quickly pick up as you will see there is more to meet the eye. Much more, in fact. The game's story is rich, and follows in KoToR's footsteps with the open-ended dialogue choices. Once again, the player is given the option to choose between good and evil, although now instead of the Dark Side or Light Side in KoToR, you follow the Way of the Closed Fist, or Open Palm, respectively. The dialogue trees for each interaction branch out and connect well, although at times the inflection of a person's voice will change from REALLY angry to deceptively calm in one statement. The player's choice of Open Palm/Closed Fist will also affect a couple of different things such as how NPCs will react to you, how you will complete side quests, and of course the overall plot. One thing that sets this title aside from others is you truly get the feeling that your actions will determine the fate of the Jade Empire, which is because they will. Whichever path you walk, the story adapts and always gives the player the chance to receive praise from his followers, justify his actions, or totally dismiss the opinions of others, whatever the case may be. Your actions will also have consequences that you must face, sometimes making your choices a bit more difficult to make. Bioware has done a good job of making these choices less totally good or totally evil, but it's still painfully apparent which philosophy you will lean toward when making said choices. The "good job" part of that statement comes with how each action can be justified. For instance, in one part of the game you encounter a little girl who drowned in a flood's ghost. She is attempting to escape from a cave, but her drowning has left her with an immense fear of water, leaving the puddle she has to cross to escape a bigger obstacle than it may seem. She begs you to place some wood over the water so she may escape. You obviously have two choices: place the wood there, or tell her you refuse. Now its obvious which choices will net you points for which philosophy, but the Closed Fist response can be justified as more than meets the eye. By not putting the wood there for her to cross, you force the child to either come to terms with her fear, or face the consequences until she can cross it herself which will make her stronger in the long run. Many choices in the game require thought like this to make, which makes you think more about which path is right, or if either is totally right. To sum it up, the story and Open/Closed system are excellent for Jade Empire, and are on par with what we've come to expect from developer's like Bioware.

Unlike KoToR, Jade Empire does not use the D&D turn based system to determine battles. It instead, utilizes a real time combat system which, while not a first for RPG games, has never been that great of an idea (save Kingdom Hearts <3). Jade Empire is one title to have success with this though, by creating diversity in their system. Although for each style there are only three basic maneuvers, there are 5 different types of styles to choose from, and different choices to be made within each type of style. You have the Martial style which is your basic martial arts, the Magic styles which are the different elements (fire, ice, earth, lightning, etc., etc.), the weapon styles where you can utilize a single sword, twin axes, a spear, and other weapons, the support styles which inflict status ailments, and the transformation styles which allow you to transform into different types of creatures you have defeated in the past. The diversity in styles is what keeps Jade Empire from falling flat in combat, because each style has its own attacks and animations, and in some cases effects. For the dedicated player you also have the ability to compose Harmonic Combos by switching between styles mid combo to kill an enemy instantly, and in some cases gruesomely. Also, not all enemies can be hurt by all styles. Demons for instance are immune to magical attacks, ghosts immune to weapon strikes, and Golems immune to martial attacks. Although the combat is not as deep as you may come in expecting, it won't leave you wanting for too much more.

The difficulty however, may. Although it may be a ploy to attract other gamers besides RPG regulars to Jade Empire, Bioware has made this game easy. Too easy. A first time play through will take you anywhere from 12-14 hours to complete, depending on your chosen philosophy. The enemy AI is easily predictable and most battles will follow the same equation of weak attack, strong attack against enemy block, and then either another weak attack or a quick roll to avoid an enemy strong attack. Rinse and repeat. The diversity in enemies is also a bit weak, but just a bit. You will face things like bandits, ghosts, and assassins...but all of them follow the same basic patterns. Only one boss really has a trick to it, and that boss comes in the second town and the "trick" is easily figured out. This may appeal to some, but for me I like to be challenged, and am amazed I enjoyed the story so much with it only being about 10 hours long (the other time is filled with side quests). Upping the game it it's highest difficulty will make it harder, but not impossible. This is one point where I wish Jade Empire would have scored higher, because difficulty is a big deciding point when you come to replayability.

Or at least in most cases it is. Jade Empire's massive amount of replayability comes from it's philosophy system and different styles. Unless you are lazy and just save at the critical moment to determine your ending and start from there to see all three, the game will give you at least two good playthroughs because some dialogue is exclusive for it's respective philosophy, and can only be seen when that philosophy is followed. Which basically means you will never see everything that Jade Empire has to offer in one playthrough. Also, each of the different fighting styles cannot all be mastered in one playthrough, so if you want to go back and use another one you enjoyed the fighting still feels relatively fresh. This adds another reason to play back through the story and explore other fighting styles and magics.

One of the few flaws critics harped on with KoToR, was the less-than-stellar graphically quality of the title. Jade Empire, while not being a complete turnaround, gets a much better score in this category. The environments will amaze you, and more often than not you will find yourself stopping to admire a tree, statue, or an entire valley you can see below you. It is a far cry from the flat environments seen in KoToR, although not with much more interactivity. I would have liked to have seen more than just your standard bamboo cask, vase, or chest to open/break and loot. Been there, done that. Although the environments have their flaws, you really will have trouble finding one in the character design and implementation. Seemingly every character (speaking, at least) is unique in his or her own way, which is a breathe of fresh air for a game of this genre. Too often you see recycled character models or people who only look slightly different populating the world. Too put this in better perspective for what seems to be a great effort by Bioware, there are over 250 characters with speaking roles, so to assign each their own look and personality is a very daunting task, indeed. Graphically this game won't amaze, but by no means will it disappoint.

Now we come to what could be the best part of this game, the sound. I've already mentioned before the superfantastical fantasticalness of the voice acting, but do the music and sound effects hold up as well as it does? The answer is a resounding yes, with just a bit of no. The music that plays during the your usual movements is a very nice, light and breezy Chinese tune full of chimes and drums and everything you expect from music from this country. You won't notice it at first, but once you do you'll see that's a good thing in retrospect. A horribly done OST will immediately catch your attention as horribly done, but a well done OST blends itself into the game that its hardly noticeable. Jade Empire is more of the latter. Once you get into battle, the light and breezy is replaced with deep and heavy, with a higher tempo sound full of drums and horns and everything you would expect. You just wouldn't it expect to be done this well. The sound effects, while being exceptionally done and having a huge amount of variety, will get old eventually. After the thousandth time your characters screams hi-yah! in battle you tend to stop caring. All in all though, the sound in this game is beautiful and fits the game's setting to a tee.

Now to the final score. I'm sure if you've been paying attention this far then you realize I will be giving this game a high score, but does it deserve the coveted 10? I want to so bad, but just can't overlook the flaws in the game. If it were longer, harder, or just set that indescribable hook a little better, then I wouldn't hesitate to score it perfect. All things considered, I feel very confident in giving it a 9.5 to Jade Empire and would definitely support a choice to buy this title because despite the short playthrough time, the replayability makes up for it. And if you see the Limited Edition still on shelves, be sure to grab that. It's the same price, has an extra character and style, a "making of" feature originally aired on G4TechTV, and will only be offered in the first pressing of the game, which will soon be sold out, I imagine. Buy it. You'll dig it.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 04/18/05