Jade Empire

"BioWare's can of whoopass."

I've never really thought about it before, but if I were to ever create a list of my top ten favorite games of all time, there's a chance that Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic would be on the list. It would score around the ninth or tenth spot, of course, but it would make the list nevertheless. It is easily my favorite RPG of the generation so far and one of my favorites of all time, so as you'd imagine I was looking forward to developer BioWare's next Xbox RPG project, known as Jade Empire. Their decision to tackle an all-new franchise rather than continuing with an existing one led me to a few concerns. I was worried that perhaps the second KOTOR game wouldn't live up to its predecessor without its original creator behind it (and, unfortunately, I was right – a story for another day), but more importantly, how would this new RPG relate to BioWare's other big Xbox hit? And would it be better? Well, it's good. It's very good. That much I can say.

At the very least, as an original property, Jade is not bound by walls. When the team created the magnificent KOTOR, they still had to restrict themselves to the Star Wars universe. Jade is a game that takes place in mythical, ancient China, and as such they were given the opportunity to simply go crazy and do whatever the hell they wanted to do, which is nice, I would guess. Of course, as a game with a Chinese atmosphere, they were challenged with the task of recreating ancient Chinese traditions and customs within the confines of a game. In the making-of featurette on the Limited Edition bonus disk, the guys at BioWare talk about how they watch hundreds of Asian-style kung fu movies (Jackie Chan, Jet Li, that kind of thing) and spoke with many consultants on how to create a truly genuine and authentic Chinese universe from the ground up. And I must say that they pulled it off quite nicely.

From the moment you begin playing Jade, it's evident that the game looks and feels like it's a page out of a Chinese history book. The buildings all have that reddish, curved and sort of menacing architecture that I really don't know how to accurately describe. Jade's art directors took careful pride in ensuring that every bridge, tree, sliding door, scrollstand, fountain, and article of clothing is crafted with that look that no other culture could rightly justify. I've never been to China but I know enough about it to recognize the true spirit of it that has been pumped into Jade. Characters fight with a fast and rapid agility that mirrors just about every Asian action movie ever made, and the way they run and hop about is a movement that doesn't imitate – it becomes. BioWare even created a new language for the game with the help of several Chinese advisors who aided in making the language seem more “Asian.” It works beautifully.

But when you boil it down to actual gameplay, Jade does in many ways feel a lot like KOTOR, at least in the way it's structured. You'll start off by picking one of several characters, each with their own unique starting skills and attributes. This character doesn't really have a voice, per se, as this character represents you and the choice you make. As with KOTOR, Jade is filled with thousands of lines of dialog from hundreds of various characters, and all of the dialog is spoken, either in English or occasionally in the “Tho Fan” language that BioWare crafted specifically for this game. Whenever it comes time for your character to say something, you're given a very familiar choice between several different responses, and each one is slightly different and sends the conversation in a different direction. Jade also has that familiar choice between good and evil, though rather than being called Light Side and Dark Side, it's the Way of the Open Palm and the Way of the Closed Fist.

Jade, as with its “predecessor,” is a game that stresses choices. The main character is the true star aspect of the game because he or she is completely configurable – not in appearance, unfortunately, but your character's alignment and abilities can all be tweaked to your liking and are a result of the choices you make. Anyone who played KOTOR knows that those branching conversations add a lot to the gameplay, and it gives you true freedom of choice rather than having a character that only says one particular thing. And every insightful bit of wisdom, snide remark, helpful suggestion or mean-spirited threat that comes from your character's mouth will not only influence the characters around you and their views on you, but will build a path on which you will walk to your destiny.

The game starts out in a martial arts training academy in the small town of Two Rivers. Your character is regarded as the best student at the school, as you were personally raised and taught since youth by Master Li, the school's main instructor. You'll be gradually introduced to some of the characters that will become an important part of the journey, including Dawn Star, your best friend and the first ally that you'll be given. The plot eventually evolves into a fairly typical fight-for-justice against an evil force, and does follow some very conventional RPG plot devices. (I've got fifty on the hero's town being destroyed early in the game. Any takers? And how much you wanna bet that the dark female ninja you encounter in the forest is actually a princess?) Still, the storyline does get very interesting during its last few hours and has a pretty cool finale, especially if you've chosen the evil path. And as with KOTOR, each of your allies has a deep history and through some long conversations you can really get to know them.

As you would imagine, when you begin at the academy, you're gradually introduced to the battle system and controls through a set of simple tutorials. Your character's starting abilities simply depend on which pre-made character you've chosen. I began with one of the “balanced” characters on my first play-through – he was a medium-sized guy with a blue vest, and he looked like he knew his way around. Whereas my first KOTOR quest had me on the Dark Side route, I decided that my first Jade run would have me on the Open Palm path – I was, simply put, a standard good guy. This meant that I had to help those in need of aid, give money to the poor, defend the weak, destroy evil, and blah, blah, blah. It's certainly the more costly of the two routes but sort of feels good. The Closed Fist people will do much more evil things but will be rewarded more in the process. Instead of giving, you're taking. Instead of helping, you're hurting. Instead of talking your way out of violence, you're looking for trouble. It's a lot of fun and made my second play-through almost as enjoyable as the first.

The one area of this game that really separates itself from KOTOR is the battle system. Whereas KOTOR's battles were turn-based and kind of slow, Jade's battles are fast, unforgiving, and in real-time. There are no dice rolls to speak of, but rather a quick succession of attacks while manually dodging your opponents' offensive moves. When enemies appear, you switch to “battle mode” and can target any enemy you wish, and then strike them down with a series of attacks – either quick, weak attacks, slow and powerful ones, or “area attacks.” The weak strikes are used to simply beat down an enemy before they do the same to you. Strong attacks are slower to time but can break through enemy shields, while area attacks usually don't do damage but hit a large number of enemies at once and buy you time to get out of a sticky situation. You can also block at any time (though strong attacks can't be blocked), and you can even use several dodge moves change your position quickly or escape offensive maneuvers.

While that sounds incredibly restrictive and limited for an RPG, the big draw of the battle system is the set of styles. There are dozens of different combat styles found throughout the game, ranging from basic hand-to-hand (or martial) styles and weapons to support styles, magical styles and transformations. Every style has its own unique set of attacks and moves, so not only does this open up for an almost unlimited number of possibilities when it comes to combat, it also ensures that no two players will have exactly the same strategy. Most beginners will probably want to go all-melee for their first run, meaning that they'll be focusing on using a lot of hand-to-hand styles with a few weapons thrown into the mix here and there. Most people will use the other types of styles to complement the basic combat types, though any well-developed character can hold his own with just about any style.

This is where Chi and Focus come in. Chi (which, as I learned from the Limited Edition disk, is an ancient Chinese tradition) would be like magic power in any other game. Aside from being the central driving force behind magic styles and transformations, Chi can be used with any style to either regain health (white button) or super-charge your offensive moves (black button). You have no idea how convenient it is to be able to gain health at any moment by simply holding a button, and it opens up for some strategy as you constantly try to get some distance between you and your enemies just long enough to heal yourself. Focus is something else entirely, as it allows you to, at the push of a button, slow down time and move more quickly among enemies. When enemies surround you, it can be helpful to slow down time a bit and gain some ground or possibly avoid an enemy attack. Weapons also use Focus, so if you're planning to develop your character in that sense, you should turn yourself into a big Focus user.

Adding to this, every time your character levels up (either by defeating enemies or completing quests), you're given the opportunity to upgrade not only your basic status (health, Chi and Focus), but to upgrade your styles. Whenever you receive another level, you can use the points you earn to increase certain attributes. So, for example, if you want to strengthen your Toad Demon transformation, you can increase the physical strength of the style's attacks or decrease the Chi deduction rate, meaning that you can use the transformation for longer periods of time. It's a truly customizable experience and you'll enjoy watching your character grow more and more powerful as time goes on. You can also set your four favorite styles to the four d-pad directions and quickly flip through them, making for a mostly seamless experience.

So back to my blue-vested “balanced” character. He started out with a basic martial style (Legendary Strike) and a simple support style (Heavenly Wave). When I began using these techniques, I discovered that when I battle, I could start off by using Heavenly Wave's area attack to slow all of my opponents down, and then have an automatic advantage in battle. I then quickly hit left on the d-pad to switch to Legendary Strike, and began taking out those sluggish fools one by one with a series of carefully timed punches and kicks. On my first Jade run, I wasn't a big Focus user, as I neglected the use of weapons in favor of martial techniques. So without much Focus, I put more emphasis on health and Chi. Legendary Strike became my main attack method, with a few transformation styles to back me up. A typical battle would start out with me using a transformation to narrow down the competition a bit, and then using Spirit Thief to recover some Chi from the remaining foes. Once I got down to a single enemy, I'd usually switch to Legendary Strike and take him down. Or I'd go Horse Demon all over his ass.

I in particular liked the change of pace from KOTOR's battle system. Jade's battles are much faster and more energetic, and in some ways opened up for even more possibilities. My only gripes with the battle system have to do with enemies actually staying within my line of vision. The camera system is far from perfect, and would often times go bonkers trying to get a clear view, zooming in and out and focusing behind objects in the foreground. This usually isn't a problem, and when it is I'd usually just flip around for a moment until I got a clear view of the action. The only other problem with the battle system is that when you switch to a transformation style, there's a blinding flash accompanying it, and for a moment you can't see what's going on. This is really annoying and often gives the enemies a few cheap shots.

When you put aside the battle system, Jade is in many ways structured similarly (but not identically) to other RPG's on the market. Don't expect the incredible equipment choices of KOTOR – the main character is always wearing the same thing, and there are no armor attachments or such. All status changes are made with your Dragon Amulet. As you travel throughout the world, you'll encounter many medals that can be added to your Amulet and increase (or decrease) certain attributes or give you special abilities. As with KOTOR, you can improve upon certain conversational skills (charm, intuition, and intimidation) that offer various options when talking with people, ranging from good-natured requests to dark threats. Again, the level at which to can customize you character is nearly unmatched among consoles, and you can think of these conversational skills as Jade's own persuade and Force persuade.

Jade isn't the biggest game, nor is it the most open. You'll jump from environment to another, and you'll rarely be given the ability to go back to a part of the world where you've already been. Still, there are many side quests to complete that not only lengthen the game but also give the player some opportunities to win experience. I managed to plow through Jade in about twenty to twenty-five hours on my first run, and that was with a considerable number of side quests completely. While twenty hours seems like a pretty short RPG by today's standards, I was personally a bit glad that the game wasn't overlong. Whoever said that short games do a better job of keeping the player's interest was very right, as my only problem with the game's short length was that I wasn't given enough time to level-up some of the styles I earned later on in the game. Also, given the good/evil choice you have, you've absolutely got to play through Jade at least twice just to see where the story foes each time. There were also many gameplay aspects I delved into only after playing through once.

And finally, we come to the technical aspects. The one area of KOTOR that I found extremely weak was the graphics. They were flat, drab, low-tech, jerky – in short, hideous. Jade, on the other hand, is perhaps one of the best-looking Xbox games out there right now, and that's saying something. The character models are perfectly realistic, but the environments are even more amazing, with an enormous amount of detail packed into every inch of the design. Jade is a colorful and visually stimulating game and a few jagged animations won't stop that. Jade also has one of the most beautiful and subtle soundtracks out there for any videogame. The tunes are epic and wonderful without being too overbearing, and sometimes fade into the background in a good way. The voice acting is all tops, and there's even one side quests involving a character voiced by John Cleese! It's freaking awesome.

Pros

+ A terrific RPG from the guys that made KOTOR.
+ Familiar choice of good and evil, and it's still meaningful.
+ Fully customizable main character really represents the player.
+ Amazingly intricate battle system with dozens of styles.
+ A beautifully realized fictional Chinese world.
+ Thousands of lines of dialog in branching conversations.
+ Tons of side quests.
+ John Cleese rocks!
+ Great two-disk Limited Edition sets costs the same and includes cool extras.

Cons

- The battle camera is sometimes a bit out-of-control.
- A somewhat linear world and a short main adventure.
- Some will complain that the basic battle setup is too simple.
- Some minor graphical issues and bugs.

Overall: 9/10

I really loved Jade Empire. It's one of my favorite Xbox games out there, and although I don't think it's quite up to the level of KOTOR, it's still beautiful and unique enough to hold its own in the vast RPG market. The game's striking atmospheric design gives it a look and feel that I've never experienced in another game, and while it may be fairly short for an RPG, there's enough content here for two or three play-throughs – and even then, hardcore fans could play through it multiple times and still not see everything. It's much faster and more unforgiving than BioWare's previous Xbox title, and comes off as one of the most delightfully original and enjoyable RPG's of this console generation. And don't forget that the cool Limited Edition set costs the same as the normal game, but includes an extra disk with an exclusive character, a making-of video (courtesy of G4), and game demos. Whichever version you're able to get, you'll enjoy it. Jade is one of the best current games. Don't miss it.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 11/14/05