When playing this game, it's hard to not draw comparisons to BioWare's other Xbox RPG, Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic. And to be honest, the prospect of playing a game set in ancient China didn't really excite me. While I can say that this game is more polished that SW: KOTOR, it takes a few step backwards as far as gameplay goes.
First off, like I said, I didn't really get into the ancient China storyline or setting. It didn't really detract from the game, but it wouldn't have been my choice for a game. In fact, I would have tried to avoid it completely. But to BioWare's credit, they have made a very good RPG in spite of what I think is a poor development choice. The gameplay here is quite similar to SW: KOTOR. Except you no longer fight in any turn-based battles. All fights are pure real-time and that has it's advantages and downfalls. Sure, it gives the game more of an action game feel, but it also turns combat into a button-masher of sorts. The battles in this game tend to be the worst part of the game experience. It's way too simple, repetitive, and just kinda boring.
Another design change from SW: KOTOR, is that you only have one companion with you during most of the game. Any other party members wait for you at some 'base' of some sort, depending on what city you are in. This is my biggest problem with the game. Each character can either be set to attack or support mode. While it sounds great in theory to have your other character attack, they are so weak in battle that it makes no sense to have them do so. Then it all goes into what support each character can give you. And most of the support skills aren't all that useful. In essence, you will spend most of the time running around and fighting battles by yourself.
Not only that, you cannot level up your party members whatsoever. This is absolutely mind-boggling to me. It's like BioWare heard some people who played SW: KOTOR saying, "God, I hate the time it takes to actually use my brain to customize & level up my other characters. I just want to run around and press the A button to kill things!!" So in other words, having the other characters in the game is purely unneccesary, except for storyling purposes. Even when you level up your own character, it isn't all that deep. "Oooo, I get to choose between three areas to spend my lousy four level points?!!" Ugh. You also are granted skill points to spend on your weapon, martial fighting, chi (magic), or summon skills. Now I prettty much did everything in the game and leveled my character up very well. At the end of the game, I only had four skills leveled up completely.
To make it worse, you can get through the game without even using most of them. I just finished the game while basically only using my main marial skill (Legendary Strike) and my main weapon skill. That's it. I think I used my chi attacks a few times. I never used the summon characters skills at all. Chi comes in handy to have, however, because there are no healing items in the game whatsoever!!! Yes, I said that correctly. The only way you can heal is to find a focus shrine or to use your chi. This can get beyond annoying and I don't understand the purpose of having the game designed this way.
Other than all of that, I really did enjoy playing this game. The storyline is pretty good but starts of slow. The conversations are quite boring at the beginning, but along with the storyline improves as the game goes on. You still get to choose whether to be good or evil, which I always like. Of course, it is more fun to be evil, but it does give the game replay value. And I must admit it is about time that there is a kung-fu RPG!!!
The graphics are quite an improvement over SW: KOTOR, but that isn't saying much. The character models all look very nice and the backgrounds are well done. The cut-scenes are also quite nice. It's not going to be a game you show off to your friends, but you won't complain too much. My main problem with the visuals is that the same character skins are used WAY too often in the game, to the point where it is jarring. You will do a quest for a character in the game and later on, in a different area, you will do a quest for a different person, but with the same exact character skin.
What music there is, isn't all that memorable. The key here is the voice acting. With a TON of spoken dialogue, this is obviously a key and BioWare got a nice cast of actors to make sure this area is top notch. The game has a ton of replay value due to the nature of the game. You can play as a female character and have a different 'love interest' in the game, obviously. You can play the game as a good or bad character, etc. Not only that, you can find the game new for $20 now.
If you are going into this game expecting another SW: KOTOR, you will be sorely disappointed. While the game does make some improvments over that great game, it takes a few step backwards (in my opinion) and most of them I don't have any idea why they would even try. If you love RPG's and own an Xbox, you gotta check this game out. I know most of my review was negative, but this is still a very good RPG that any Xbox owner should at least rent.
Create an Account
Member Login
