Jade Empire (SE) - the best game BioWARE made to date

[KIrving]

SPOILERS

 

 

 

 

 

I really enjoyed JE too.(played it on the xbox) I've replayed it once, just to see another of the female pc builds and the Silk Fox romance with a female pc(very tame, kind of boring romance but then so is Sky(the male npc romanceable). Yeah.... I wanted Zu too.*sigh*

Actually on my second play through I had him with me a bit in the Imperial City and found him annoying. All his comments tend towards closed fist moral judgements. Since I can never play evil/thuggish he didn't like many of my pc's decisions.

 

The thing I didn't like about it. It's not very replayable. Once you've seen all the interparty banter on one play through, you've seen it all. Also you have to get very good at the flying mini game if you want the full information on one of the npcs and some of the techniques. I grew to hate the mini games. It is quite combat orientated but you can fight with some use of tactics once you get used to it. (I have to keep reminding myself to evade, evade, evade and block those darn magic attacks!)

All in all, it is a good game, one of the better Action/RPGs to come out in a while. The extra romance options for the male pc vs the female pc really annoyed me. (A male pc gets an extra one(he has three choices all up) and the option of a concurrent romance with the two ladies.) For the style of game I still prefer KOTOR over JE though. As far as comparing it to other, earlier, BioWare games I think it's like apples to oranges.(For me anyway, earlier BioWare games, vastly improved in some cases through mods, continue to hold my favour. )

[Domi]

The thing I didn't like about it. It's not very replayable. Once you've seen all the interparty banter on one play through, you've seen it all.

 

Yeah, but I feel the same way about Baldur's Gate 2, only it's far tougher to replay imo because it's so much longer, and so much less engaging as far as its main storyline is concerned. I mean, only today, I once gain toyed with that oh, so good concept for BG2, and as usual got discouraged at the very thought of having to play BG2 again, lol.

 

And, Ice, congrats!

[Salk]

After reading your enthusiastic review, I decided to buy Jade Empire second hand for Xbox. The game for the console had been realeased already in the 2005 and probably the PC version looks better and all of that but I prefer to play the game on the platform it originally have been conceived.

 

Among the negatives side, I read mostly complaints for a hollow and repetitive combat system.

 

Would you agree with that, Domi?

 

Regards!

[Domi]

I didn't actually play myself, but I was fascinated by what my husband was doing switching the styles around, darting out of the way, blocking... and I am actually quite interested in doing it myself at least a bit to see if I *can*.

 

If I was the one designing the game, I'd eliminated the necessity to click the mouth button for every kick. What I would have done, is leaving up to the player to use all the style-switching, healing, chi power-ups, focus mode, blocking, magic and transformation, but for the actual character to close up and kick, unless you interrupt him or her to evade. I do not know though, if it would have been more successful than what it is in now.

 

Now, what I do not mind (and actually welcome), is that the variety of enemies is not that great. Ie in a D&D game you would go through a huge collection of monsters, in JE there are just a few types of enemies; I actually *like* that, because imo the worst opponent should always be the being of the same kind, appart from a unique mythological creature, perhaps. I am less happy about the combat mostly being solo, with NPCs being far more useful as supports who do not partticipate in a battle, but then again, the latest 'strategic' gamnes like NWN2 do not feature the Auto-Pause, so controlling more than one character is also problematic.

 

But, there are a few cool tricks to the opponents, first is that every enemy type is immune to this or that, and second is that there is a way to snatch more experience from killing the certain type of enemy if you can guess in advance whom you will be mostly fighting.

 

Er... no, I suppose I didn't find the combat repetitive. As a viewer I was entertained a lot. Even by the flyer missions! As a player - I simply cannot tell yet, though I think my character looked pretty neat with the long claws showing up....

 

EDIT: I think one should also take into account that it took us half a year to finish the game, so we didn't really do it in one gulp, having a week or so between each session.

[Caedwyr]

Due to how support styles work, the hardest enemies for me were the demon types. They were frequently immune to magical styles and support styles, leaving them only vulernable to martial and weapon styles. Horse demons, Toad demons, and Elephant demons are the hardest I found. Combat certainly starts out easy enough, but becomes more and more complex as the game goes on. Learning when to evade, block, and reposition are fairly important, and harmonic combos become crucuial to pull off in the late game against hordes of high damage enemies.

 

In Jade Master mode, you won't survive long if you can't pull off a harmonic combo. Correct style selection and quickly shifting between different styles keeps the combat fresh enough. Each style has its strengths and weaknesses, and you can upgrade them in different ways. The combat system is definately more than a button masher, though you can get away with just doing that near the start.

 

One thing I really liked was how the bulk of experience in the game did not come from combat, but rahter from quest experience and scrollstands. (Make sure to put on the Gem of the Frail Scholar before reading anything.)

[Domi]

Oh, yes, the GoFS was a lovely thing. I *loved* how they did the scroll-stands

 

and harmonic combos become crucuial to pull off in the late game against hordes of high damage enemies.

 

We found that Jade Golem was basically a kill-all machine in the end of the game - never managed a harmonic combo, or of we did, we didn't notice it (we went Legendary Strike-->Iron Palm/Crimsion Tears --> Jade Golem, though we did have full set in the Axes as well by the end); also, the style value changes as your character progresses. For example, weapons or transformations were impossible to support in the beginning of the game; by the end of the game, when you go over 1000 points on chi and focus, you can last through the battle easily with a support NPC.

 

With my chi/focus character, I am thinking Sword-Horse Demon as main styles, till I get the Jade Golem.... I am not sure I will last through the full Arena.

[Kulyok]

What you describe sounds a lot like Diablo II, which is cool. Are these games' playing styles really similar, I wonder?

[Ajnos]

In Jade Master mode, you won't survive long if you can't pull off a harmonic combo. Correct style selection and quickly shifting between different styles keeps the combat fresh enough. Each style has its strengths and weaknesses, and you can upgrade them in different ways. The combat system is definately more than a button masher, though you can get away with just doing that near the start.

 

I don't know, it took me forever to get the hang of the combos and I didn't die.. all that much. I started to write how much I liked the Imperial City, then I remembered Tien's Landing and... yeah, it's a great game. (Though I crack up every time I have to "open" a vase. *SMASH* The PC must have been frightened terribly by a vase or jar in her youth to react as she does.)

[Caedwyr]

No, not really. The only major similarity is that they both feature some aspects of twitch gaming.

 

@Domi: Yep, the Jade Golem is very powerful, but I like being able to evade more. Plus, if you try to play on Jade Master mode you just take too much damage to use it constantly. Jade Master mod is a newgame+, where you start a new game from a final save with all the styles, techniques, stats you gained in the previous game, but at level 1 without any gems. Enemies do double? damage and you do half? damage. Plus, enemies are much smarter and use blocks and timed attacks more often.

 

May favourite combo of cheesy victory is Storm Dragon style (area or single target attacks) alternated with Tiger Claw style, and the chi-draining style who's name I forget at the moment when I need more chi for heals. Unfortunately, this only works on humanoids, but can make a lot of battles much easier.

 

One thing I wished was a epilogue that touched on what became of doctor An and the girl she takes in (depending on how you complete one of the quests in the Imperial City).

 

 

@Ajanos: Lets just say the quick kills and free health/focus/chi refills made it much easier for me when enemies can carve a huge chunk out of my health with each hit.

[Domi]

One thing I wished was a epilogue that touched on what became of doctor An and the girl she takes in (depending on how you complete one of the quests in the Imperial City).

 

We went with redeeming the evil undead there and it sort of had its own epilogue that way.

[Avenger]

Calling nwn2 a strategic game is an insult to bg2

But, i think i'll buy JE for Windows, though i don't like twitch games.

NWN2 so sucks, i didn't play it till the end, but i need something to play with.

[Domi]

Really? I am replaying NWN2 now for the second time, modding Bishop's romance in, and it actually feels better than the first time 'round. I did skip almost the whole of Act 1, so no tedious beginner quests, and I am kind of grew impervious to Shandra's presence due to some clever tweaks in the Glade, and Bishop actually noticing my PC much more than he does her or Casavir now, and I am actually looking forward to Act 3 (well, appart from the coding.) Act 3 was always my favorite, I think, because it had a very different sequence than any other game I played, with the defense of the Keep.

 

But no, NWN2 is definetly not JE.

 

I am curious though to see what MoTB has to offer, and I am kind of happy now that I am actually capable to make areas now, something I could never do in Infinity. Can't wait to finish Bishop, play MoTB and work on the Deathstalkers. Mmmgh... my own plot (well, almost!)... finally!

[Avenger]

Oh well, i bought JE.

First disappointment: there IS a hungarian translation.

Reading only a few screenfuls of text, I believe I know english better than the translators.

It would be nice if i could install it in english

 

[edit]

And a noob question: is there any patch or unofficial fixpack?

I looked around but it seems there is none.

I don't believe there are no bugs in a BioWare game, or any game...

[Domi]

There are no patches; the only bug that crops up is that sometimes the camera starts looking directly into the gorund after a reload. Save and reload; repeat till the camera smartened up Condolences on the Hungarian translation; I uhm... starting to feel bad about us talking you into buying it because well, the dialogues are likely to be spoiled.

 

EDIT: English dialogue.tlk is only 4 Megs, do you think it will help? Or did they do the full revoicing as well?

[Avenger]

I already got the camera screwup.

And sometimes the game does a CTD after reload as well.

 

Action RPG's are not my favourite, and the hungarian translation entirely fucks the game. Sometimes i pick the 'wrong dialog option' just because of the lame translation (it really makes the game tougher). The few places with voiceover are good, but i have to listen very carefully. I understand written english better than spoken.

 

A dialog.tlk would help me greatly.

Btw, is there a structure definition?

I noticed some .are files similar to the IE. I probably will make a tool similar to IElister (maybe more, if modding JE is interesting).