Was Jade Empire bad?

[lord of flies]

I felt pretty much the same about Jade Empire, but I'm very glad I gave Bio a second chance because I enjoyed ME1, and absolutely love ME2.

Yeah, except Jade Empire is the closest thing to a "good game" that Bioware ever came. You could actually make Closed Fist choices that were kind of good, and Open Palm choices that were kind of evil. And you could score a threesome; I don't mean that in a horndog way, it's a positive decision to model relationships that exist outside of our western bourgeois binary-sexuality-serial-monogamy bull****.

OK, forget your wacky views on politics, now I know you are absolute bat **** crazy. No one in their right mind would consider Jade Empire one of BioWare's best.

I remember being genuinely impressed when I played Jade Empire and saw a dialogue option which was both clearly Closed Fist and clearly a moral decision to make. I have never felt that way about the racism, insulting and needless aggression that was "Renegade" in Mass Effect, and definitely not the Dark Side in KotOR.

 

The combat was acceptable, the setting was fairly interesting and unique, and the dialogue did not require you to behave like a moron. What was so bad about it?

 

Also, two of your companions were bi, so that was nice.

[cronicler]

Settingwise? No Storywise? Yes. Despite the nice plot turns,the whole thing was too Hollywoodised. Some of the time it felt as if the devs opened up the wiki on ancient Chinese myths and just copy pasted the ones that took their fancy.

 

Game play wise? 50/50. The emphasis on meele was a nice change in good direction compared to Kotor but at the cost of cutting out the other 2 paths(Sneak and Diplomacy) completely out of the game. The Warpath wasn't as polished as it could have been too.

 

So in conclusion, I would say it was a nice step in the right direction but as it wasn't supported by a pre-existing fan base like kotor was so it was forgotten.

 

 

*Not exactly Bi btw. In ancient chinese culture being soulmates and being joined to produce next generation for the bloodline was not synonumus. The culture was / is really alien to modern day western culture in many ways. In some ways it was much much more open and understanding. In others it was a bloody dark age.

Edited February 2, 2010 by cronicler

[lord of flies]

Game play wise? 50/50. The emphasis on meele was a nice change in good direction compared to Kotor but at the cost of cutting out the other 2 paths(Sneak and Diplomacy) completely out of the game.

What was the name of the gun you could take from that European wanker? Maribelle? Heh. That thing was so imbalanced; I killed the final boss just shooting him over and over. Poor sucker never had a chance.

[cronicler]

True but it did have a horrible reload time and as you sait it was a unique weapon from far away lands. (And it was the only ranged weapon in the game if I recall correctly)

[kirottu]

I found Jade Empire to one of Bioware

[GreasyDogMeat]

Its also the only BioWare RPG that hasn't received a sequel by Bioware or otherwise. I think that speaks for itself.

 

Sonic Chronicles doesn't exist.

[cronicler]

Kirottu; I don't really agree. Sure the combat was largely unpolished but it felt better than Kotor's combat. The story on the other hand. They just took some chinese myths and steamlined them to be more accesible (read: deconstruct the story so an 8 year old can understand) which defeated the purpose of using an exotic setting.

 

Still a sequel could be much much better

 

GDM: I thought Bio didn't make any sequels except for ME2?

[Orogun01]

It was a great concept; marrying wuxia epics with RPG, wish there more games like that. Still JE left a lot to be desire (like a sequel ) combat was simple enough that it fell within the RPG's low skill requirements, so that it would be easier to grasp. The highest point was the allure of the eastern culture, the philosophies, the brawling, and the corruption. It was like seeing all my favorite B-rated kung-fu films come together on a game.

 

"GDM: I thought Bio didn't make any sequels except for ME2?"

 

BG2 begs to differ.

Edited February 2, 2010 by Orogun01

[Pop]

Baldur's Gate. What GDM means is that JE was not considered worthy of a sequel, even with Bioware's history of farming out sequels to Obsidz.

[Kaftan Barlast]

I liked JE a lot, it was entertaining and the combat was alright. Quite refreshing from the click-n-pause combat of previous games. I did play the PC version though, which was polished up compared to the original xbox release.

[HoonDing]

What was the name of the gun you could take from that European wanker? Maribelle? Heh. That thing was so imbalanced; I killed the final boss just shooting him over and over. Poor sucker never had a chance.

Mirabelle. And wasn't that Sir Fogglebottom or whatever he was called voiced by John Cleese?

 

Anyway, I like the game. Though the combat was pretty trivial with Jade Golem or Storm Dragon/Paralyzing Palm.

Edited February 2, 2010 by virumor

[Morgoth]

Jade Empire was Bio's worst RPG. But overall still a good game, considering that Bio's worst games are still better than the best games of other companies.

[RPGmasterBoo]

Jade Empire was Bio's worst RPG. But overall still a good game, considering that Bio's worst games are still better than the best games of other companies.

 

You forget NWN OC.

 

 

 

To those who say it has better combat than KOTOR - keep in mind that KOTOR is a turn based D20 so combat can't be as "interactive" as JE. Of course the combat in KOTOR wasn't much good either because there were too few companions and it was too easy...

 

The game had nice lore and an interesting if predictable storyline. Some parts had rather nice graphical design, and a few of the characters were fun to have around.

 

On the other hand, the combat sucked the same way ME's did. It was another game shoehorned into a Bio RPG, this time a third person fighting game. People are too forgiving in this respect, if you're making half a fighting game and half an RPG and the former is one of the worst examples of its type it can't be a great game overall. But RPG players are used to repetitive combat so they never took much notice.

 

Character development also sucked as did the lack of inventory. It was also too easy on all but the hardest difficulty levels. It was too linear and the locations too small and confined. And it was too short, around 10-15 hours.

 

Overall it was playable but in a fire and forget kind of way.

Edited February 2, 2010 by RPGmasterBoo

[jaguars4ever]

Why all the JE hate? At the time it was Bio's best release. Beautiful setting, addictive combat, morally ambiguous choices & consequence, epic score, charming characters, wire-fu awesomeness. JE had it all. The resolution of the quest where you return the orphanage keeper to the Tien's Landing ruins and choose to spare the fellow giving the ghost children some measure of peace, is one of the most poignant moments in gaming history, IMO. The tragedy of their watery death, the vengeance of the girl, the forgiveness of the boy...followed by the amazing theme. Even now, I'm getting warm fuzzy feelings thinking about it.

[RPGmasterBoo]

Why all the JE hate? At the time it was Bio's best release. Beautiful setting, addictive combat, morally ambiguous choices & consequence, epic score, charming characters, wire-fu awesomeness. JE had it all.

 

You're living in a dream world Neo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Besides i don't see much hate. Pointing out obvious and nagging flaws isn't hate.

Edited February 2, 2010 by RPGmasterBoo

[lord of flies]

Setting was extremely shallow and didn

[Morgoth]

The biggest weakness of JE was the fact that Bio didn't exploit it's unique setting, but instead settled with average western stereotypes, including the characters.

[Killian Kalthorne]

It was a fun little game. Worth the $20 I paid for it.

[jaguars4ever]

Why all the JE hate? At the time it was Bio's best release. Beautiful setting, addictive combat, morally ambiguous choices & consequence, epic score, charming characters, wire-fu awesomeness. JE had it all.

 

You're living in a dream world Neo.

Sour grapes. You're just wondering why you didn't take the blue pill.

 

 

Besides i don't see much hate. Pointing out obvious and nagging flaws isn't hate.

That's what all wives say.

 

Funny, how they change their position at the divorce court.

[RPGmasterBoo]

Why all the JE hate? At the time it was Bio's best release. Beautiful setting, addictive combat, morally ambiguous choices & consequence, epic score, charming characters, wire-fu awesomeness. JE had it all.

 

You're living in a dream world Neo.

Sour grapes. You're just wondering why you didn't take the blue pill.

 

 

Besides i don't see much hate. Pointing out obvious and nagging flaws isn't hate.

That's what all wives say.

 

Funny, how they change their position at the divorce court.

 

[Raithe]

There were a fair few nice visuals, and the score was damn good. Sure, some of the storyline was some ripped and streamlined from myths.. but hell, how many rpgs haven't been ripped and streamlined from myths from somewhere?

 

Sure it was surprisingly short, and there were flaws in the combat. But it was playable, it had some interesting moments. And the main bad guy did have a fair chunk of magnificent bastard about him.

[Calax]

The biggest weakness of JE was the fact that Bio didn't exploit it's unique setting, but instead settled with average western stereotypes, including the characters.

This. Chinese legends are a GREAT place to go for material if you wanna ditz around with things Hell I'd bet you could make a pretty good RPG out of the Romance of the tree kingdoms that had supernatural elements up the wazoo but it'd be accepted because the legends gloss over a few things. When I played JE I was actually surprised at how limited I felt in the maps and where I could go. The towns were only kinda three areas, and while in other rpgs' thats' fine, most of the time you were running around in the town. It felt cramped and half dead.

[Blodhemn]

Even though Jade Empire was a bit on the cheap side with the universe, the setting was still pretty fun, largly thanks to the soundtrack and cartoony characters. I liked the quests but the story wasn't so hot and the dragon lady bits were too much like Galadriel from LOTR.

 

The combat was my main gripe, too repetitive and easy. There were too many different combat forms that all fell under the same methods of execution(light attack, power attack, block). The combat is just dull after a while but from start to finish I actually felt like I've played a game unlike with Fallout 3 of which I was left with "wtf was the point of that?" after the main "story" ended.

Edited February 2, 2010 by Blodhemn

[Pidesco]

The combat wasn't only pretty awful, but also the shallowest Bioware has ever done. And that's some kind of feat.

[Diogo Ribeiro]

To its defense, Jade Empire had a certain brevity that's gone missing from recent Bioware games. The story was pretty bare bones but it was refreshing and honest of them to say you were the special one right from the start instead of obfuscating it with 20 hours of tutorial NPCs, and it's certainly more of a "small epic", which I prefer over drawn out stuff.

 

I also enjoyed the combat: slick, to the point, none of that "turn-based rules shoved into a realtime with pause engine that thinks its so clever and hardcore but we can still see you people standing around being attacked because it isn't your time yet and look at that arrow bending around the corner just to hit you don't tell anyone the system is rubbish here is a giant space hamster lulz". The invisible barriers were ****e, though.

 

The lack of inventory was tolerable - much more than The Bard's Tale - as it traded virtual pocket trash for something substantial to the character and theme.