Jade Empire

[Golden Arms]

Has anyone played this game yet? I've been thinking about picking it up. Can you play with a shaolin Monk? Are there lots of different fighting styles to choose from?

[mikeszekely]

I've actually already beat it once. If you have the limited edition version, you can play as a monk, but not necessarily a Shoalin monk. While the game is heavily influenced by Chinese myth, you're not actually in China (sort of like how say Lord of the Rings is influenced by medievil times in Europe, but it doesn't take place in Europe).

Reguardless of which character you decide to play as, the story is the same. Also, when you level up, you can customize your character however you like. Any of the characters can learn any style.

But the important thing to remember is that Jade Empire is a role-playing game, not a fighting game or action game. You will spend most of your time talking to people, doing sub-quests, recruiting followers, and gaining points toward the Way of the Open Palm (Light Side) or Way of the Closed Fist (Dark Side), just like Bioware's other Xbox RPG epic, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

Combat does take place in real time. You can switch styles in the middle of a fight quickly by mapping your favorite styles to the d-pad. Styles fall into one of five catagories:

Martial: Basic combat styles that can be used against almost any enemy. You'll use these the most.

Support: These styles don't normally do damage, but they may add negative status effects like slow or poison to an enemy. They can also be used to with Martial styles to create Harmonic combos.

Weapon: Weapon styles do more damage than martial styles, but they can't be used against spirits. Also, weapons drain Focus.

Magic: Magic styles do elemental damage, as well as projectile attacks. Magic can't be used on demons, though, and magic drains Chi.

Transformation: Transformation styles allow you to transform into something else, like say a Horse Demon. Tranformation styles usually do more damage and are immune to negative status effects, but they only last as long as your chi does.

In combat, you can use the R and L triggers to target different enemies. The A button is your regular attack button. X is for power attack- power attacks are slow and leave you open to be attacked, but they can break through an enemy block. B is for blocking, and if you push a direction on the analog stick, you'll flip or roll. Y puts you in focus mode... that's kinda like bullet time. Black uses chi to add extra damage to your attacks. And white uses chi to heal.

As I said before, the important thing to remember is that Jade Empire is not an action game or a fighting game. If that's what you're looking for, you might want to way until the Episode III game comes out. But if you liked KOTOR or RPGs in general, Jade Empire is an excellent game with a solid story if short story, interesting characters, and some action thrown into the mix.

[eugimon]

Yup... if you liked KOTR and hong kong kung fu flicks.. this is a great game.

The fighting engine is a little more real time than KOTR, where KOTR had you que up your moves and then you could sit back and watch, JE is real time with you selecting different styles on the fly.

The story and voice acting are all pretty good and seems to be a pretty good mix of the old cheesey and campy goodness of the old style HK flicks with some of the newer visuals and seriousness of this new crop of crouching tiger/hero/house of flying daggers type movies.

[Golden Arms]

I loved KOTOR and when I heard that Bioware was making this game I had to inquire about it. BTW what are some of the styles one can choose from? Is there Drunken style or any animal forms, such as monkey or snake fist?

[David Hingtgen]

On my second run currently.

Anyways---you can use Drunken style, but it's more like a special ability. If you really want, you can use it for 90% of the game.

BTW, any particular style only has like 5 moves, once you pick a style, you'll be seeing the same sequence 1,000 times.

I still like KOTOR better. Jade Empire seems very linear and short compared to it. KOTOR seems to have more "action" in the plot, and better ending(s).

Still, better than 95% of what's out there.

[mikeszekely]

I still like KOTOR better. Jade Empire seems very linear and short compared to it. KOTOR seems to have more "action" in the plot, and better ending(s).

Still, better than 95% of what's out there.

Absolutely, except for the action part.

KOTOR was epic is size and ambition, and you could really tackle the different planets in any order.

Jade Empire can be completed in just over 20 hours, and the only thing non-linear about it is the order that you tackle the subquests.

I disagree about the action, though, because while the plot of KOTOR moved along at a faster pace, the combat itself still boiled down to point-and-click. Same animations over and over or not, the fact that the combat was in real time sucked me in a little more.

In any case, saying that one excellent game isn't quite as good as another excellent game is like saying a Porsche isn't quite as fun to drive as a Ferrari. Both cars are a lot more exciting than your average Toyota Corolla and what not, and both KOTOR and Jade Empire are much better than your average Xbox game (or videogame on any console, for that matter).

[JELEINEN]

Is this console only or available for PCs?

[mikeszekely]

Is this console only or available for PCs?

So far, Xbox only. And while KOTOR eventually made it to PC, since it was published by LucasArts, Microsoft Game Studios published Jade Empire, so I don't know if it'll ever make it to PC.

[David Hingtgen]

Umm, what does "Absolutely, except for the Action part" mean? It kinda sounds like you're disagreeing with agreeing with me or something--I specifically said the PLOT has more action, and didn't say a word about the combat. You agreed with me about plot, and disagreed about fighting action--which I didn't mention. Which I suppose I should now:

Actually, I found Jade Empire incredibly easy compared to KOTOR. Final boss hit me ONCE. Focus is overwhelmingly powerful. Have a lot of it, and you can take on anyone without ever changing to magic styles nor using support styles etc. On the occasional chance I'm "caught" without a nice Focus supply, fights can take like 10 times as long. But that's usually because I felt too lazy to run back to a Focus Shrine. Focus makes that much of a difference. Despite JE being real-time, KOTOR seemed more interesting, due to number of options, Force powers, difficulty, etc. In JE, I can just slaughter even high end bosses by simply leaping behind them, active Focus and Chi strikes, and mashing A. So while it may be real-time, it seems a lot less interesting than KOTOR because my character is just so overwhelmingly powerful at the end. It gets easier as you go along, at least in my experience. Your power grows much faster than the enemies.

[mikeszekely]

Umm, what does "Absolutely, except for the Action part" mean? It kinda sounds like you're disagreeing with agreeing with me or something--I specifically said the PLOT has more action, and didn't say a word about the combat. You agreed with me about plot, and disagreed about fighting action--which I didn't mention. Which I suppose I should now:

Actually, I found Jade Empire incredibly easy compared to KOTOR. Final boss hit me ONCE. Focus is overwhelmingly powerful. Have a lot of it, and you can take on anyone without ever changing to magic styles nor using support styles etc. On the occasional chance I'm "caught" without a nice Focus supply, fights can take like 10 times as long. But that's usually because I felt too lazy to run back to a Focus Shrine. Focus makes that much of a difference. Despite JE being real-time, KOTOR seemed more interesting, due to number of options, Force powers, difficulty, etc. In JE, I can just slaughter even high end bosses by simply leaping behind them, active Focus and Chi strikes, and mashing A. So while it may be real-time, it seems a lot less interesting than KOTOR because my character is just so overwhelmingly powerful at the end. It gets easier as you go along, at least in my experience. Your power grows much faster than the enemies.

I'm agreeing with everything you said except the part about the plot... or anything else... being more action-oriented in KOTOR than Jade Empire. Near the end of KOTOR, things are happening faster and faster as the game builds to a conclusion, but the game starts off slow as molassass. Jade Empire lacked the epic do-or-die conclusion, but events unfolded in time to keep the story moving.

I will agree that Jade Empire was easier. The d20 rules meant that you could try a few different ways of approaching a fight, but if your stats sucked, you were in for a time. In Jade Empire, as long as you were fast enough and good enough at rolling and dodging (standing still and blocking was fairly useless), you were going to be alright. I only had trouble with one boss, and that was in Chapter 4, if I recall correctly.

I have to give credit to Jade Empire for allowing for different ways of playing. I mean, you said you emphasized Focus... that was actually the attribute I gave the least to (body being the most). My idea was to pick one style and stick with it... that would be my starting martial style, Leaping Tiger. I maximized my spead and damage, and that was enough for just about any situation. I did occasionally use my longsword weapon style from time to time, and Jade Golem helped in a pinch, but for the most part, especially when an enemy/boss was fighting me solo, I'd just get in their face and go to town.

It also helped that Silk Fox's support style gives a bonus to damage with martial styles.