"I learned my lesson from Fable - I always rent new RPGs now. Good thing, too."

Is it me, or are RPGs just being diminished to 4 hour movies lately? That definitely seems to be the case with Jade Empire, which offers remarkably little content and attempts to make up for it with above average voice acting. In case you were wondering, yes, it fails in this task. You can't make a weak game good by throwing some good voiceovers on top.

Hopefully you've played Knights of the Old Republic, since the easiest way to describe this game is as a cheap clone of KOTOR. Essentially, you run around third-person through rather pretty landscapes and talk to people who will give you details on quests to complete. Some are optional, and some are mandatory. Like I said, having played Knights of the Old Republic will help you understand what I mean here, but if you haven't then just think of it as a 3rd person RPG. What differs between KOTOR and Jade Empire, aside from the lack of lightsabers in the latter, is the combat. Maybe Bioware took a tip from the one thing just about everybody liked in Fable - Action-oriented combat. None of this turn-based garbage, they actually implemented a fighting system. The problem is, it's not a very GOOD fighting system. There are numerous "styles" to choose from, and you can have 4 different fighting styles assigned to the directional pad so you can quickly select them in combat. Don't start getting carried away, though. See, apparently Bioware thinks that "Fighting styles" are the same things as "Moves." You basically have two moves per Fighting Style; Regular Attack, and Power Attack. You also have Area Attack, but the area attack is essentially the same throughout every fighting style. In the end you basically have 8 moves to choose from in battle, with the area attack making a total of 9. This in itself isn't that bad - 9 moves to choose from is actually a fairly decent number. The problem lies in that the moves ("styles") aren't there to be quickly switched between mid-battle. You'll rarely find yourself doing that, in fact. The "styles" are there so that you have one selected for each type of enemy. For example, weapons don't hurt ghosts, so you have to use your fists. Fists don't hurt golems, so you have to use weapons. In the end, the "fighting style" means just one thing. Most players will have one style equipped for each type of enemy in an area, and will stay in that style slamming down the A button as quickly as they can. Guess what the best part is? That's how you win EVERY battle. Smash the A button as fast as you can. Occasionally against bosses you'll roll out of the way to dodge an attack, and then it's back to mashing A. Sound fun? It loses its novelty really fast. The enemies are too accommodating, and the fighting engine is just weak. I miss KOTOR's fighting system, to be perfectly honest. One additional note about the combat is that in some areas monsters respawn, not just when you leave the area, but when you walk a certain distance from the trigger point. While doing quests in combat areas, you may find yourself fighting the same enemies over, and OVER, and OVER.

Graphics are good. People look good, movies look good. In some cases, I might even say they look "Great." No real complaints about the graphics.

The game's music is fitting, but ultimately forgettable. It serves as little more than ambient noise for most of the game. It's a shame, because the music is actually quite well done, but it just doesn't stay with you when you put the game down.

Voices are of mixed quality, some being great and others being terrible. In general, the voice acting is very well done, something that players of KOTOR should be accustomed to. The only time the voices really make me cringe are when the main character shrieks in the middle of battle, or sometimes right after battle when it makes no sense. Things like "I WILL STOP YOU!!!" and "YOU CAN'T CATCH ME!" pop out at the worst possible times, cried in the shrillest of voices. Maybe it's just my character selection.

Do you like long RPGs? I hope not, because Jade Empire most certainly is not one of them. The game is split up into 7 chapters, and the first 3 are actually of great length. A lot of people will have logged 10, maybe 15 hours by the end of chapter 3. After that, however, the chapters are maybe an hour in length apiece. In other words, once you finish Chapter 3, you're coming up on the end of the game. Additionally, most of the "play time" actually comes from listening to voice overs. If you skip the voiceovers and just speed read what most people have to say, the game is a great deal shorter. Basically, there just isn't much substance to the game. I'm all for good dialogue, and I like voice acting when it's well done. But if the majority of a game becomes speech, then it's not really a game anymore. It's a movie. That's more or less what Jade Empire is, and I think it's a nice enough movie. But I think it falls short as a video game. If you're like me and you thought Fable was a disappointment, don't buy Jade Empire. Rent it. If you liked Knights of the Old Republic and wouldn't mind a version of it that's 1/4 as long and much more linear, it might be worth checking out. But I'd still rent it before buying it. That's the main advice I give anybody looking to buy a new RPG these days, because more often than not these days, when you buy a new RPG, you will get burned. This is one of those cases.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 04/27/05