Jade Empire Review

Character Development

Another area where Jade Empire is a big step backwards instead of forward is in character advancement. When you earn enough experience to level up, you can assign points to your health, chi, and focus. You also get points you can use to enhance your various styles. The problem with all of this is that none of it really has a big impact on your character. Getting more health and making your styles do more damage is all you really need to do and it isn’t nearly as satisfying as the skills systems from other RPGs. There also isn’t really any sort of an inventory system in Jade Empire. You collect items and automatically use them when the time comes and that is pretty much it. You also have an amulet that can be equipped with different gems you find that will boost your stats, but it ultimately doesn’t make that big of a difference. You constantly get new fighting styles which keeps the game interesting and you meet new companions pretty regularly, but some more in-depth character development would have been appreciated.

Issues

I also want to touch on the overall clunky feel of Jade Empire. The world is filled with vases and crates you can break open to find goodies, but when you press the “A” button to break them your character has to slowly get right into the perfect position to do it. I have had characters circle around boxes two or three times before they finally break it. Whats up with that? All of the other interactive items such as doors and switches behave the same way. Another annoyance is that the load times are even longer in JE than they were in KOTOR. Conversation sequences are bookended by load times and it is very annoying. Also, before and after each battle there is a pause in the action as the game switches back to explore mode. This just kills the flow of the game. The one positive thing about this is that it isn’t as buggy and crash happy as the KOTOR games. In fact, the game hasn’t ever crashed on me and that is a definite improvement. Overall, though, Jade Empire is anything but a smooth experience and I find that a little bit disappointing.

Graphics and Sound

Graphically, Jade Empire is absolutely gorgeous. Everything has a sort of soft glow that gives the game a dreamlike feel and it works incredibly well. The environments you explore are filled with details such as thick, waving grass that just looks really great. All of the characters look really good as well. Even random NPCs you find wandering around all have a unique look and are very detailed. The animation is also very good. Your moves flow together nicely and the combat generally looks realistic and very nice. This is just a great looking game.

The sound is also very well done. All of the dialogue uses full voice work and it sounds really great. The story is well written and the voice actors did a great job of delivering it. The music is also absolutely perfect and fits the setting very well.

Bottom Line

Despite a few hiccups, Jade Empire is still a very good game that is among the best on the Xbox. I’m a little hard on the combat system and character development, but they are by no means bad, just not as good as I had hoped. Everything else about Jade Empire is absolutely wonderful, though, and it is still well worth playing through multiple times even if the combat system isn’t all that great. There is so much here and it offers a ton of replay value, so I highly recommend Jade Empire for a purchase.