Jade Empire Review - XBX

With the exception of the Final Fantasy franchise, Americans have taken to RPGs like cats to a swimming pool. BioWare is probably more aware of this than anyone. Even after receiving numerous Game of the Year honors back in 2003, its stellar Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic didn't exactly set the sales charts on fire. So now the fabled developer is back at it with Jade Empire, a simplified, action-oriented RPG that it's hoping will find a wider audience.

We're off to See the Empire

Well, the story isn't going to help with that much, but at least the main character doesn't start the game washed up on a beach with a case of amnesia. Regardless of which of the six available characters you choose to play as, the story remains the same. You're a young prodigy at Master Li's dojo who is thrust into unforeseen drama when you kill a rival student.

Unsurprisingly, Master Li turns out to be much more than he seems, and is kidnapped and taken to the distant imperial city. The same can be said of the rival student you kill, who, as it turns out, is the son of a powerful politician. So your avatar sets off to rescue Master Li and ultimately becomes embroiled in more than a few messes along the way.

The story moves along at a nice clip, but some goals that are presented to you as epic, ultimately take only an hour or two to complete. It's like having filet mignon for an appetizer. Each character you talk to during the game provides a wealth of dialogue options to steer the conversation. Sometimes you'll be presented with what you believe are do-or-die choices, but they're ultimately exposed as primarily inconsequential if you go back to an old save and take the other path.

Style Wars

While the story and dialogue trees do a decent job of fooling the player into believing that the choices he/she makes molds the story, gameplay is something that either works or it doesn't. In Jade Empire it works, for the most part. Instead of waiting your turn to attack and defend, all the action takes place in real-time. You can map up to four different disciplines to the directional pad for easy access, which is essential, because some enemies are completely immune to some styles.

When you really start trying to dig into each style, you realize that there are just three different attacks for each one. This can make combat rather repetitive after the first few hours if you rely on just a couple styles. The game doesn't discourage against this, either. Two maxed-out styles are generally enough to get you through the entire game. You can level up each style as you see fit, and once a couple styles have reached a certain level there's little reason to even bother boosting the others. This brings up the biggest issue with Jade Empire. It's simply too easy.

A Walk in the Park

Sure, you can adjust the difficulty setting just about any time, but taking the next step up is too much and the default setting is a cake walk. For instance, the father of the fellow student that you kill in the beginning of the game is built up to be a force to be reckoned with for the first eight hours of the game. Yet, when the showdown finally occurs, with just a few swipes of your sword it's over. One nice twist is that firing off combos of two different styles in a row will allow you to unleash an impressive finishing move. Then again, there's rarely a need to use it.

Making things even easier, you'll come across several companions throughout the game who will jump to arms when you're confronted. Some use melee attacks, some use magic, and others will transform into new creatures altogether, but none of them are controllable by the player. Even so, the extra healing and attacking these party members dish out makes an already easy game even less challenging.

Finding Middle Earth

Despite the lack of strife, Jade Empire does an excellent job of finding a nice middle ground between action games and RPGs. You can level up your character in several categories, but not so many that the layman gets lost. The game also has a good guy/bad guy system just like in Knights of the Old Republic, so playing the game a couple times is recommended. Toss in a simple slot system for character upgrades and you have a near-perfect mix of depth and accessibility.

A Beautiful Empire

Jade Empire is one gorgeous game. While the art style seems a bit unorthodox, there's no denying the game's technical prowess. The horizon stretches on for what seems like forever, and everything has a fuzzy, ethereal look to it. The creatures are smartly and consistently designed, though the human characters can be difficult to discern from one another--primarily because there are literally hundreds of them scattered around each area. The game also gets bogged down from time to time, though it rarely happens during combat.

The sound fares just as well. The orchestral, interactive soundtrack solos in new instruments when the action gets intense. And despite, literally, reams of spoken dialogue, all the voice actors have done a great job of bringing each character to life. It doesn't hurt that the script writing is so strong.

Achieve a Balance

Jade Empire is a good game that a few hiccups keep from being great. Yet, the foundation laid down here is more than enough to keep us excited over the prospect of a sequel. The game is so well balanced between genres that fans of both RPGs and action games should definitely give it a look, but aficionados of either genre will find the compromises to be a little too much.