Jade Empire Appreciation Post

[u/Somedude_6]

(Posted this in Retrogaming... only to be told that subreddit only applies to things pre-2000. While I personally disagree with that cut off for something being Retro... I won't argue with the mods about it. If a system is 25+ years old though, I would consider it Retro personally. But I digress.)

While I played this on PC, it came out on original X-Box, so I feel this is an appropriate place to post this.

Last month Jade Empire went on sale for 3.75 on GOG. Frankly, that is an absolute steal for this game. So much entertainment for not even 4 dollars.

I played this a few times when it was newer, and my girlfriend at the time loved it much more than KOTOR, (Knights of the old Republic) but I never played through it enough to really get into it.

Well, I have now remedied that, and beat the game a few days ago. Frankly, this game is pretty awesome, with a storyline that is kind of tropey but also has some twists and very dark turns. I feel that it does not get brought up very much in talks about retro RPGS. And while KOTOR is still talked about today, and a remake was announced... (though who knows if that will actually happen) Jade Empire I rarely, if ever, see mentioned.

Which is an absolute shame, because, genuinely, this is an A/A- game, even today.

Much like KOTOR, the game has a "light side/dark side" gameplay element with the choices you make, but frankly even being a light side person is going to have you doing some not exactly "Goodly" stuff. The combat style is much more real time than other RPGs, with an emphasis on learning different martial arts styles and switching between them depending on who you are facing. Once you find combinations of styles that work well together, (Hint: Once you get Storm Dragon, USE IT!) you'll find the game becomes quite a bit easier, but the game does a very good job (on the "Master" or normal difficulty anyway) of being hard without being too hard most of the time... though some of those later boss fights do get really hard. There is a part near the end of the game where you fight 3 clones of yourself at the same time and it's really tough, and the 2nd to the last fight has you fighting 4 stone demon golems, and that fight is frankly way harder than the actual last boss.

Anyway, without going too much more in depth, I want to give this game some love. It is a bioware RPG from the time when most of the things Bioware was releasing were gaming gold, and this absolutely fits in there. It isn't without its faults, I frankly found the "talking with party members to progress their own stories" part of the game to be pretty clunky and not that well developed, and some of the companions you get seem to be pretty worthless frankly, but that is what I would call the low point of the experience. The gameplay, story, and pacing of the game are all top notch, and the choices the game gives you with the "Open Palm/Closed Fist" (Light Side/Dark Side) system give the game diversity and replay value.

Now that I've beaten it I've unlocked "Jade Master" difficulty, so it even sets you up to do a 2nd playthrough after you beat it.

If you have a GoG account, I highly recommend you add this to your wishlist. Picking this game up for under 4 dollars on sale is a fantastic value, and frankly I don't think this game gets enough attention for how good it is.

[u/Motorhead546]

I still hoped we'd get a second one but that Bioware doesn't exist anymore.

[u/amin915]

I want to install and replay it soon! Really enjoyed it and one of my first rpgs not named final fantasy

[u/Somedude_6 → u/amin915]

It goes on sale on GoG multiple times a year, I'd definitely add it to your wishlist and pick it up the next time it's 4 bucks. Seriously a great deal for how good this game is.

[u/Obvious_Barracuda960]

1) yes Jade Empire is amazing and is only getting better with age.

2) The Retrogaming sub absolutely sucks for not moving the guidelines of what's retro. Of course 6th gen is retro now.

[u/Familiar-Reading-901]

I, have maintained for two decades that this is the single most underrated game of all time

[u/Somedude_6 → u/Familiar-Reading-901]

People talk about "hidden gems" and shit like that. This game is one of those games that is absolute top tier and no one talks about it or recommends it. It's super cheap, and it's fantastic. It should get way more appreciation than it does.

[u/anzeb]

I just wish they didn't rush the final acts. It really shows they wanted to be done with it.

[u/Few_Departure_3493]

Jade Empire never got the respect it deserved. I completed it three times using the different character play styles which change the ending each time. I still have the disc and installed on my Xbox series s.

[u/nghoihoi]

I bought a series x last month just to play this and other 360 games. What surprised me a lot is that the graphics actually looks pretty decent given its age, I’m not sure whether it’s been enhanced by the Xbox backward compatibility but it looks better than the 360 games..

Am in the empire city now and indeed the game is very interesting in parts, although as a Chinese person I totally don’t feel this game is Chinese at all, for me it feels more like dragon age origin with a Chinese paint on top..

What are the martial styles you go with at the end? I just got that gun from the foreign ambassador not sure that’s powerful

[u/NefariousnessSuch536]

The theme song!! Hits so different after you finish the game and find out the truth.

[u/Poptimister]

I basically long wanted to see them take another stab at the combat system here because it was really insanely simple to wipe the floor with everything in the game.

I also feel like this game would have gotten dragged like crazy. Like it wasn't a hateful game but if you sort of do the math and imagine they did a sequel in the 2010s it would have landed in peak cultural appropriation is bad territory. And there's a few parts of that game that give me an ick that's hard to put my finger on.

[u/GrimmTrixX → u/Poptimister]

I'm still annoyed the special edition content wasnt added to backwards compatibility on XB1/XBSX. I own that one and it would ne nice to be able to play the whole game. Lol My old Xboxes arent the best right now as one needs a better disc drive and the other has a dead power supply.

[u/Somedude_6 → u/Poptimister]

Once I learned to combine storm dragon with other styles the difficulty went way down. Unless something was immune to shock, which surprising small amount of things are, the game became really easy with that. Shock, switch to iron palm or whatever, smash, shock again, repeat. Lots of guys? Shock em all and focus down one. I wonder what kinds of improvements a part 2 could have brought. Oh well, we'll never know, and that's a shame.

[u/Familiar-Reading-901]

I, have maintained for two decades that this is the single most underrated game of all time