Jade Empire is a game that is both great and dissapointing at the same time.
The story itself is the quality one expects from Bioware. Much like a "chose your own adventure" book, you select from dialog options that help pin your place in this epic story. The options are straight forward, if you want to be evil you know which option to select, likewise if you want to be good. The game, in fact the genre it seems, has not progressed to the level where you can be subtle in your choices, such as pretending to be evil for a short time in order to advance the greater good. There are parts of the game that forces you to pretend you are evil for a short time, but the game holds your hand through this deception and it is not of your own cleverness.
Combat itself I find to be rather lacking in many regards. The real-time combat system is overly simplistic at times. When an enemy blocks that block covers the entire 360 degree area around them. Though you can easily roll behind a blocking enemy to attack from the blind side, it will do no good as they will still block all hits even the ones from behind. You instead are forced to use your very slow "power" attack to break through their block, or wait for the enemy to let down their block. This to me removes player freedom from combat and defeats the purpose of going to a real-time combat system (as opposed to turn based combat).
The combo system is also a let down. Though the game refers to them as combos, they are really just quick button mashing. There are no moves strung together. In fact, there are really no moves in Jade Empire. You have a regular attack and a power attack.
Where the diversity comes in is in what the game refers to as fighting styles. Different fighting styles produce different attacks. Some styles are even ranged magic based attacks, or support styles that can slow or even poison enemies. By switching styles you can perform as close to a "move" or "combo" as the game gets. Some styles qualify as openers, others as finishers (these aren't the technical definitions, but for this review will suffice). An attack with an "opening" style, followed by an attack with a "closing" style can be rather powerful. However, it's a very cumbersome system to achieve what should be such a basic ability. A simple two hit combo.
The game is also rather lacking in items. Some prefer not having to hunt for items or having to worry about which of your nine swords is the best. However, I enjoy that aspect of games. Jade Empire does have a few tricks of its sleeve to replace items. There are gems you can collect to help boost you main stats (body, spirit, mind), there are training techniques you can get that boost your three main pools (health, chi, focus). And lastly, there are styles. You start with two basic styles, the rest you earn either through quests or from merchants. Styles, can also be built up via skill points you earn when leveling.
Styles, are also lacking compared to their ways to handle skills in RPG's. I feel no sense of improvement getting new styles. You could use no other styles but your two starting styles and happily complete the game. As you build up an individual style you are not opening up new, improved styles. You are just slightly making that style quicker, or more powerful. Otherwise it is unchanging. I never upgraded a style or got a new one and felt a strong desire to "try it out" as I typically do when receiving a new skill or item in most RPG's.
Load times in Jade Empire are also rather slow. No worse then their previous Xbox title Knight of the Old Republic. There are times where the load times get rather annoying such as one particular series of fights where after each one you are greeted with 30 seconds of load time, followed by 10 seconds of dialog, followed by 30 seconds of load time. This goes on for a good dozen or so fights. Over the course of 30 minutes playing this part of the game you'll have spent a majority of that 30 minutes loading, not playing. Why it was designed this way is a mystery, but someone should have caught it and made a change.
In the end, I feel Jade Empire is a good, but not a great game. I feel it falls short in game play but the story line is captivating, and at times I find the game enjoyable enough to overlook the blemishes I described earlier.
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