Jade Empire vs Other Bioware Games [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

Blueiji

2012-12-20, 03:22 AM

Steam recently offered Jade Empire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jade_Empire) at a huge discount, as part of a short midweek sale. I didn't buy it, but this got me thinking.

I'm a huge fan of the first Dragon Age, I've spent a grotesque amount of time playing it and have downloaded quite a few mods, however, I didn't like the second Dragon Age. I also enjoyed all three Mass Effect games, although I was disappointed with the third one, like many others. I also enjoyed Bioware's past games such as the Baldur's Gate series, and the Neverwinter Nights series.

Taking all this into account, might I enjoy Jade Empire? I was mainly dubious due to the fact that it got much less attention than Bioware's other games, suggesting it might not be as good. I was also not particularly interested in the setting, but that's not a big problem if it's a good game.

Has anyone played Jade Empire? Does it play similar to the first Dragon Age? Would it appeal to someone who likes Bioware's other games?

Thanks for any advice/information. :smallbiggrin:

Kitten Champion

2012-12-20, 04:30 AM

Yes, you would.

It's social interaction/morality system and dialogue are what you'd expect from Bioware. The setting is rich and imaginative, blending steampunk and wuxia into what is a fairly deep world of monsters, airships, and magic. As to the gameplay, it's action packed, simple to pick up, and fun -- very much like Mass Effect in that sense.

I suppose the biggest knock I've had against it was the simplicity of the RPG elements, developing a new character isn't that interesting once you're done.

Feytalist

2012-12-20, 04:44 AM

Strange, I was thinking about Jade Empire just earlier today.

Yeah, it's a pretty good game, and it shares many of the usual Bioware traits. It gets sometimes lost in the more famous titles though. It's got a novel combat mechanic, focusing on martial combat forms and stances and whatnot, and its morality system is rather unique, even for a Bioware game. It's similar to Mass Effect's Paragon/Renegade system, no real good or evil choices, but your dialogue choices are never as clear cut as a simple red or blue answer.

Other than that, it's got a decent story, good voice acting and an intriguing setting. But yeah, the character building RPG bits are a bit lacking. It's much more of an action-oriented than an RPG-oriented game. But it doesn't detract from the game at all.

Jayngfet

2012-12-20, 04:44 AM

Jade Empire is hands down and by a wide margin Biowares single greatest creation and I will fight anybody who says otherwise on this topic.

The writing is up there as being some of the strongest they've ever done. The plot twists at exactly the right spots, you get introduced to characters with perfect pacing, the overall morality of the wider setting isn't entirely black and white, even if it dips that way too much on the individual level. Pretty much everybody in the cast comes off as well rounded and satisfying and everything was so great that I actually bought a lot of the concepts freely that a whole lot of other games just kind of inform you are there and don't follow up on. Like, in the beginning, you aren't just told you're the best fighter, you get to straight up fight the other students three or four on one and while it's challenging, it's doable. As another good point, you rarely get thrown into random circumstances, since some locations are hinted at long before you get there.

The combat is probably some of the fastest Bioware's put out. It's more rapid fire and moment-to-moment than say, KOTOR or DA1, while being tighter and more involving than what you had to go through in DA2. The game is built so even if you didn't level individual stuff up, you can dabble in any of the two dozen different fighting styles and weapons and swap things around so things don't get boring with you falling back on a few simple tactics.

The enemies are varied enough that you don't really get bored. They're all different on such a fundamental level and fight so differently they need to be approached with each as their own individual thing instead of a series of painted over mook recolors. Admittedly the final boss fight can be disappointingly short but a lot of the other bosses are unique enough to make up for it in my perspective.

The fact that this game doesn't get more love is probably one of the greatest tragedies to ever come out of gaming as a whole. Anybody who doesn't currently own at least one copy needs to hunt it down NOW.

JustSomeGuy

2012-12-20, 05:48 AM

It is my favorite of all the bioware rpg's, it has by far the best combat AND you can play as a drunken master... what else is there to it?!

The_Shaman

2012-12-20, 06:25 AM

I have played and enjoyed it. It is not really similar to most of their other games, and if I may generalize a bit - compared to DA: Origins it trades some mechanical options for a more action-oriented gameplay. The roleplaying part is quite solid imo - it's not Planescape:Torment, but it was enjoyable enough to me.

In a nutshell, it's a wuxia-styled action-RPG done by Bioware. OP, I think that if you are prepared for something a bit different from Bioware's usual MO, you'll find it quite enjoyable.

TheDarkDM

2012-12-20, 06:59 AM

Jade Empire is hands down and by a wide margin Biowares single greatest creation and I will fight anybody who says otherwise on this topic.

Baldur's Gate 2.

Choose your weapon.

Avilan the Grey

2012-12-20, 07:17 AM

Baldur's Gate 2.

Choose your weapon.

A combination of Web, Stinking cloud and Fireballs at 20 yards? :smallbiggrin::smalltongue:

factotum

2012-12-20, 07:24 AM

Baldur's Gate 2.

Choose your weapon.

I never really got into BG2, and I think that's because it was let down by the overall D&D system--things were a lot clunkier than they could have been had they used another RPG system. Enjoyed Jade Empire lots, though, and you get to fight a character voiced by John Cleese--what more do you want? :smallsmile:

TheDarkDM

2012-12-20, 07:42 AM

I never really got into BG2, and I think that's because it was let down by the overall D&D system--things were a lot clunkier than they could have been had they used another RPG system. Enjoyed Jade Empire lots, though, and you get to fight a character voiced by John Cleese--what more do you want? :smallsmile:

Oh, don't get me wrong, I adored Jade Empire. And I can see where the BG2 mechanics could be a deterrent. However, in the contest of Bioware's magnum opus, I don't think anything they've made since has matched the tale of the Bhaalspawn.

Chen

2012-12-20, 08:16 AM

How is the loot system in Jade Empire? Is it more Mass Effect style with few upgrades but different weapons/styles or more DA/BG2 style where you find swords of awesomeness all over the place?

Eldan

2012-12-20, 08:36 AM

Not really much loot at all in general. You choose one weapon in the beginning and mostly stick with that, only getting a few small upgrades. There's gems that add small stat bonuses, and apart from that, I don't remember any loot.

sun_tzu

2012-12-20, 09:46 AM

How good is Jade Empire? Well...I've played it to completion (and I mean completionist runs, with all the sidequests) no less than three times.
The combat system may not be the most sophisticated there is, but it's still a very fun kung-fu tale in a fantasy China setting, with a solid plot.

Morbis Meh

2012-12-20, 10:47 AM

It is my favorite of all the bioware rpg's, it has by far the best combat AND you can play as a drunken master... what else is there to it?!

...Damn I decided to look on Steam last night and saw this... I just may have to pick it up for the 13 bucks it was going for.

Pronounceable

2012-12-20, 11:06 AM

Jade Empire is hands down and by a wide margin Biowares single greatest creation and I will fight anybody who says otherwise on this topic.
This poster knows the truth.Also BG2 was a fluke such as Sixth Sense and BW is the Shyamalan of gaming.
...
However it's still a BW game which means morality system with awful execution and entertaining but cliche ridden characters. It's still far superior to drabon ages and piss effects far as originality and general execution goes.

ScrambledBrains

2012-12-20, 11:32 AM

As someone who's played and beaten Jade Empire no less than seven times(Never as a bad morality character though, so I dunno about that end.), it is absolutely worth your money, OP.

The combat is fast-paced and responsive, with every form of martial arts you pick up feeling different to even the most similar style, the environments, though dated due to the hardware limitations, are very fleshed out and detailed(Not to mention being pretty damn good looking.), the plot is one that will hit you with twists at JUST the right moment to not only keep your attention, but keep your eyeballs glued to your screen of choice, and then...there's the crown jewel...the characters.

The characters are what makes it go from a servicable Wuxia/Steampunk game into, IMO, one of the best games ever made. I promise you, if you give them 5 minutes, you will love these characters. :smallsmile:

Now, if I had to mention down-sides to the game, it's be that as said above, the RPG elements aren't all that fleshed out, mostly it's just pushing your stats upward and upgrading your styles, and sometimes the moral choices feel kinda straightjacketed, which is a miss as far as I'm concerned, since a very early character makes it seem like each side can be more or less good or bad, and it depends on intent. Had Bioware delivered on that premise, it'd be an even better game. As it stands now, it's still worth your money.

Friv

2012-12-20, 11:42 AM

Jade Empire is my favorite Bioware game, hands down, for all of the reasons mentioned above. I keep hoping against hope that a sequel will be made.

Or DLC.

I would buy that game a second time so that I had it on my computer if they made a DLC pack that expanded Chapter 5.

Closet_Skeleton

2012-12-20, 12:58 PM

Baldur's Gate 2 is the shadow hanging over all Bioware games. Bioware has done everything in Baldur's Gate 2 better in their later games but at the same time failed to make a game as good.

Dragon Age bored me because it felt like Baldur's Gate 2 but not as good. NWN had the same problem but with the focus on single character rather than party gameplay and the toolset it at least felt like a different game and KotOR managed to get away with being better than NWN and the Sci Fi setting.

Mass Effect 2 is my second favourite Bioware game because its the hardest to compare to Baldur's Gate.

Jade Empire is basically too short and ultimately unsatisfying.

It also suffers from its genre mashing. It simply serviceable as a beat em-up and brings down the quality when its compared to some of the best RPGs.

The Romance element is especially terrible. You can romance each character in one of two ways which correspond to the karma meter. Every conversation that furthers a romance therefore has three choices, a open palm one, a closed fist one and one that will cause the Romance to fail. Suddenly changing tack half way through will also cause the Romance to fail. I was trying to romance one of the characters and picked the dialogue choices I wanted and that meant I had to reload half the game and slavishly follow a guide. So basically you have no choice in how you characterise your character.

Baldur's Gate 2's romances are actually worse. Jade Empire actually gives you choice if you're a female character and as unintuitive and guide requiring as Jade Empire is, I didn't even care to know BG2 had romance options until I read a guide.

I've beaten Jade Empire and KotOR more times than BG2, because they're a lot easier to replay. You can get through both quite quickly while if I think about replaying BG2 I wonder if I have time to redo something that long. I've started BG2 a lot more times than I've finished it while once you're half way through Jade Empire the second half is so spare there's no reason not to finish it. Dragon Age in a sense recaptured that in that I didn't feel motivated to finish my first play through of it but started it twice.

Yora

2012-12-20, 01:41 PM

I think Jade Empire fell flat on the whole line. Bland world, bland characters, and bland levels. I think I played all BW RPGs and except for NWN I really love all of them, and that game is more than saved by being an incredible D&D crpg editor.
Jade Empire is the only one I don't like. I'd say it's most similar to Dragon Age 2, but in DA2 I liked the characters and the setting a lot more. Jade Empire always falls outside of mainstream notice and is usually forgotten when talking about BW games, and as I think completely justified. It is forgettable without leaving a lasting impression to apparently most players.

Starbuck_II

2012-12-20, 02:15 PM

A combination of Web, Stinking cloud and Fireballs at 20 yards? :smallbiggrin::smalltongue:

Which Form can the Jade fight?
Demon, Elephant, Rhino, Jade Golem (immune to magic not magic immunity so SR: No still fails), etc.

I got it on sale for 3 dollars on Steam: special edition adds new styles, weapons, Forms, magic, NPCs, etc.

Mx.Silver

2012-12-20, 02:28 PM

Yes. Yes Jade Empire is worth getting. Do bear in mind that the version steam has can be a bit buggy in parts (although not near as much as KOTOR).

I would say it probably has the most competently done plot of any of Bioware's RPGs. Yes, more so than KOTOR, Mass Effect 1 and BG2. And is set in type of fantasy world you really don't see much of in games, which goes for quite a long way in terms of interest. The combat is serviceable, but nothing amazing (although it is basically the only Bioware game to date where shapeshifting is worth bothering with) and it's pretty light on stats in RPG terms. Any other criticism you could give it would apply to basically every other Bioware game, so if the romances and morality bars didn't annoy you with the other games they probably won't here.

ThirdEmperor

2012-12-20, 02:31 PM

Jade Empire has one of the best plot twists, maybe THE best, that I've ever seen. It's also probably the most truly unique game Bioware's ever created. Definitely worth thirteen bucks, any day of the week.

In fact, I'm kinda hoping Bioware will make a sequel one of these days. They've been trying to make their games more 'action-y' recently, and while that hasn't worked at all for Mass Effect or Dragon Age, a little more speed and flair would do wonders for Jade Empire. My sole complaint is that the combat can be a bit sluggish, especially on higher difficulty levels.

Eldan

2012-12-20, 02:37 PM

Yora

2012-12-20, 02:42 PM

Original yes, but still bland.

It had a new idea, but didn't do anything with it.

Mx.Silver

2012-12-20, 03:20 PM

Original yes, but still bland.

It had a new idea, but didn't do anything with it.

Which still puts it significantly ahead of Dragon Age :smallwink:

Tiki Snakes

2012-12-20, 06:47 PM

I found it generally enjoyable. The morality system was a bit of a let down. the initial explanations of what Open Palm and Closed Fist were supposed to entail were genuinely novel and refreshing, but once you actually get a little way in, it increasingly looks like the standard Saintly VS Puppy Kicking Evildoer scale that you always end up with.

Which felt like a bit of a wasted opportunity really.

And yes, some of the enviroments did feel a bit forgettable, but nothing terrible. Probably worth looking at. Personally I'd rate it over all a little higher than Dragon Age, but with less replayability.

Mikeavelli

2012-12-20, 06:48 PM

Jade Empire was an excellent game.

Pros:
- Interesting story, unique, and with a twist (THE TWIST) that was heavily foreshadowed, came as a shock the first time I played through it, but didn't reek of twisting-for-the-sake-of-a-twist either.
- Even though the game is essentially the same with every playthrough, it's entertaining enough that I still bring it out and replay it once in a while.
- Entertaining combat system. Easy to learn, difficult to master, with a great many (cheap) anti-frustration moves if it becomes too much of a challenge. Balance? What balance?!
- Good parts of the Karma system:

When rescuing a slave girl from slavers, the "Open palm" solution is to just kill the slavers yourself. the "Closed fist" solution is to give her a knife, and make her kill them. This is one of the few memorable moral choices which actually follows the stated philosophical split, instead of being just good/evil.

Even though it's stupid evil, you have the option to use your soul-binding powers to soul-bind the dark knight thing to be one of your followers. When your followers go WTF and are going to leave you or attack you for doing something so stupidly evil, you can soul-bind them into continued service for you! All in all just jumping off the deep end crazy evil style.

Cons:

- As mentioned, a few of the characters are flat/uninteresting. Sky stands out as really boring simply because all your other NPC's have really interesting backgrounds or connections to the story, while Sky is just some dude who tags along because **** slavers.
- The bullet hell shooter game segments aren't particularly well done. Fortunately, they're skippable.
- Despite a few really cool portions, the moral choice system still boils down to good/evil. And what's worse, most of the evil choices are stupid evil. Is there anyone who ever actually broke the dam as a role-playing decision, and not just to see what would happen?
- Romancing NPC's is basically impossible without a guide.

------------------

Overall, the points where Jade Empire is strong, it's REALLY strong. The points it's weak on, it's still pretty okay. I highly recommend it.

Zevox

2012-12-20, 07:26 PM

Jade Empire is a good game, though not one of Bioware's best in my opinion. It probably has their best main plotline, if only because of the villain and the big plot twist, and because it's perhaps their only game where the main plot doesn't revolve around beating some generic evil people/monsters. On the other hand, the characters other than the villain are largely pretty weak, though at times amusing.

The morality system has been mentioned before, and well, there's kind of a glaring problem with it. They try to set it up as not being about good vs evil, but rather about a couple of different philosophies... and they fail, miserably. For example, the Closed Fist alignment is supposed to be about individual achievement and strength through struggle, yet you earn Closed Fist points for poisoning an opponent at the game's arena, which weakens her and thus has you fight her at less than her best, which a true follower of what the Closed Fist beliefs are described as would not want. Meanwhile you get points in the opposite philosophy, Open Palm, for warning that person that others at the arena want her poisoned, even though a Closed Fist follower would logically do that, since it ensures the people who tried to get you to poison her can't just get someone else to do it anyway. And that's just one example that sticks out to me.

In combat it's their only non-shooter action game, with genuine real-time combat where you need to do things like block or dodge enemy attacks. It's actually quite fun, but it's very broken. Pick some of the more powerful styles in the game (like Leaping Tiger, the longsword, the double axes, Storm Dragon, or Jade Golem) and you can easily breeze through all but a couple of boss fights even on the hardest difficulty. And even if you're using weaker styles you'll still do well without too much trouble - I've beaten the game using mainly the Thousand Cuts style, which is possibly the weakest, more than once, including on the hardest difficulty.

Is it similar to Dragon Age? No, not really, except in the ways that all Bioware games are similar. Would it appeal to a fan of Bioware's other games? Most likely, yes, so long as you aren't opposed to action-game combat. Would I recommend it personally? Yes. It's not their best work*, but it's worth playing, and I have replayed it a few times myself (though I do that with most games I enjoy, so there's that).

* I'd rank Jade Empire around ME1 in my personal scale of Bioware-game rankings. Below KotOR, both Dragon Ages, and ME2 and 3; above NWN and Sonic Chronicles. (I have not played Baldur's Gate.) It's good, but not great.

When rescuing a slave girl from slavers, the "Open palm" solution is to just kill the slavers yourself. the "Closed fist" solution is to give her a knife, and make her kill them. This is one of the few memorable moral choices which actually follows the stated philosophical split, instead of being just good/evil.
You forgot the third option: don't rescue her, instead selling her into slavery yourself. Which also nets you Closed Fist points - more than having her kill her would-be buyer, in fact, if memory serves. So no, that's another one that fails there.

Jerthanis

2012-12-20, 09:12 PM

- Romancing NPC's is basically impossible without a guide.

Really? I played a chick and put Sky out of my party and basically never talked to him except every once in a while, never saying anything particularly flirtatious and he still declared his undying love for me at the end. It was so out of left field that it actually one of my least favorite parts of the game.

Maybe there's a bunch of hidden dialogue options which are romantic, and finding them all is difficult, but my impression is that Jade Empire's romances will happen unless you go out of your way to stop them.

While I liked Jade Empire, it was probably one of the most forgettable in terms of detail. I could take you through every other Bioware RPG step by step from memory and miss nothing but a few details here and there, but in Jade Empire I'd be lucky to get a single plot event other than the major twist and what the climax was about, as well as a few details.

Gameplay wise, I think it's most closely related to Dragon Age 2, and plot-wise it's closest to KOTOR1. It's an action RPG where you mash the combo attack and dodge buttons, and the plot is about stopping a superweapon because you're the legendary chosen one. If you like that gameplay and plot, you're in for a very entertaining, but IMHO shallow execution of that combination in a very neat steampunk panasiatic mysticism setting.

Aotrs Commander

2012-12-20, 09:31 PM

Maybe there's a bunch of hidden dialogue options which are romantic, and finding them all is difficult, but my impression is that Jade Empire's romances will happen unless you go out of your way to stop them.

Considering to get the one I was doing with Silk Fox (I think), I ended up going through a large chunk of the game three times (twice at a dead run) because I missed one conversation at one point (where if you didn't go back to the camp and just did the quests in the city, you missed it), I'm afraid I have to concur with Mikeavelli!

Some of them, at least, are very easy to fluff up...!

Jayngfet

2012-12-21, 02:33 AM

How is the loot system in Jade Empire? Is it more Mass Effect style with few upgrades but different weapons/styles or more DA/BG2 style where you find swords of awesomeness all over the place?

Mostly you just get cash, which you use to buy weapons, key items, and training. The swords of awesomeness exist, but outside your starting sword(which is awesome on it's own), but you need to earn them.

It's streamlined in a good way, since unlike a lot of other Bioware games you don't need to micromanage everybody's inventory for tiny gains, and you have more generalized slots so things don't get too crazy.

Philistine

2012-12-21, 12:20 PM

Dem Romances…
The default romances are Dawn Star for male PCs and Sky for female PCs - and when I say "default," I mean that not romancing them is actually more difficult than romancing them. Silk Fox is available to anyone, and is a little more complicated to get, as her romance requires that you explicitly shut down the default romance (unless you're playing a male character and going for the three-way with Silk Fox and Dawn Star - that one requires a number of very specific dialog choices, and rather irritatingly does not count as "romancing" Dawn Star for purposes of dealing with your two big late-game OP/CF choices or for the epilogue). So on balance… No. It is not correct to say that you won't complete a romance without a guide.

Dat Karma Meter…
So. Much. RAGE. I don't even

In principle, and in the initial presentation, Open Palm vs Closed Fist is an interesting idea - two competing philosophies of doing good in the world, one by solving people's problems for them (aka "give someone a fish") and one by encouraging people to solve their problems themselves (aka "teach someone to fish"). So closer to Order vs Chaos than Good vs Evil in D&D terms - though even that doesn't quite fit - and it's even stated that an OP practicioner can be a bad guy, and a student of CF a good guy. In principle, that's freakin' awesome - a strictly more interesting approach than even Mass Effect's Paragon vs Renegade, much less the stark (and tired) Good/Light Side vs Evil/Dark Side of most games with Morality Meters. In principle.

In practice, JE's utter failure to live up to that makes it my Exhibit A for discussions of Why Games Should Not Feature Morality Meters, No, Not Even Then. Because apparently nobody told BioWare's writing staff any of that, so the vast majority of the OP vs CF choices in the game boil down to the same old same old. Every OP option in the game translates exactly into D&D "Good" or SW "Light Side," and almost every opportunity to choose CF translates exactly into D&D "Evil" or SW "Dark Side." Even when the "CF" choice presented runs counter to CF philosophy as initially presented (as with the Arena example Zevox brought up.

But it gets worse. Mikeavelli's freed slave example is one of the very rare occasions when you get a "CF" option that's actually relevant to The Way of the Closed Fist (instead of being Just Another Day in the Life of a Baby-Eating Monster) - except that the game undercuts it. Because you also have Option #3: Sell the Girl to the Slaver and Collect the Fee Yourself... which isn't really in the spirit of CF, certainly not when compared to the "arm her" option, but gives you more CF points on the game's Karma Meter, and worse, is the only way to unlock the CF-only "Viper" martial arts style. (ETA: And I almost forgot - as an Extra Special Bonus, if you arm the girl and tell her to fight for her freedom? She turns into a giggling homicidal maniac. Clearly, any thought of doing good with CF leads to madness!) WTH, BioWare? But the Death's Hand example is worse yet! Using your Super-Special Spirit Magic to bind your companions' wills and keep them in line is certainly Evil, but CF? It sounds to me very much like an example of the "Open Palm Bad Guy" idea which the introduction suggests but the game never, ever delivers.* Except, wait, NO - it's Evil, so it must be CF according to BioWare. Who supposedly went with the OP vs CF philosophies to get away from that cartoonishly simple dichotomy.

* That's right: all of the bad guys in the game are CF. All of them. And all the CF people you meet are in fact bad guys. All of them. So. Much. RAGE.
I really do rather like the game, though. Crank the difficulty down to minimum so you don't have to pay attention to the action-y combat and go along for the ride - then 15-20 hours later you van come back and tell us what you think of it. :smallbiggrin:

Yora

2012-12-22, 03:55 AM

I really like the Open Palm / Closed Fist morality system. To bad the game doesn't and completely ignores its own system and instead goes with a simple be nice / be an ******* system.

Closet_Skeleton

2012-12-24, 12:59 PM

* That's right: all of the bad guys in the game are CF. All of them. And all the CF people you meet are in fact bad guys. All of them. So. Much. RAGE.

The closed fist party members aren't all bad. Only one of them is a literal demon. They aren't really closed fist as its described though.

I'd buy the main villain as open palm, but they don't make that clear and if he's anything in the game files he's probably closed fist.

But the plot is 'the bad guys have disrupted nature's harmony' and open palm is supposed to be harmony while closed fist is discord so they basically shot themselves in the foot there. You can't be a heroic chaotic character if restoring natural law is the only good ending.

Tiki Snakes

2012-12-24, 01:57 PM

The closed fist party members aren't all bad. Only one of them is a literal demon. They aren't really closed fist as its described though.

I'd buy the main villain as open palm, but they don't make that clear and if he's anything in the game files he's probably closed fist.

But the plot is 'the bad guys have disrupted nature's harmony' and open palm is supposed to be harmony while closed fist is discord so they basically shot themselves in the foot there. You can't be a heroic chaotic character if restoring natural law is the only good ending.

Closed Fist / Open Palm was not supposed to be about Discord / Harmony though. The sales pitch was that Closed Fist was about the genuine belief that doing things FOR other people actively harmed them, made them weaker, needier and generally worse in order to treat the symptoms and assuage temporary hardship and that in order to genuinely aid people you had to force them to stand on their own feet, allow them to struggle and strive and fend for themselves. That's nothing to do with discord/harmony, unlike the way it is treated post-prologue in-game with the exception of one or two vanishingly rare moments.

(Obviously, Open Palm needs no real explaining. Helping people is worth doing, etc).

Closet_Skeleton

2012-12-24, 02:30 PM

Now that I check, harmony and discord only come into open palm and closed fist in item descriptions.

Its like the different writers for this game all though they were working on a completely different project.

Which is the problem of trying something new I suppose. Say "its D&D" and everyone can write side quests in their separate boxes and the result won't look too odd when you put it all together.

JCarter426

2012-12-24, 03:59 PM

That doesn't surprise me. The same thing happened with Knights of the Old Republic. Mostly it's little details like the age of the Republic being wrong and then later correct, and Bastila sometimes being called a knight and sometimes a padawan, but then there are a few big ones, like these following examples from Canderous:

The Sith had gone - retreated into their empire. They sealed themselves off from the rest of the galaxy.
(That never happened.)

We thought it would be centuries before they'd come back. It's amazing that they could rebuild their fleet so fast.
(They never came back. Some other guys started calling themselves Sith. That's kind of what the whole story is about.)

But since they were working with an established setting, they had a better view of the big picture. I know from experience it can be hard to articulate the big ideas, and I've never collaborated on such a large project... so I guess I can understand it, especially as I believe that was their first time working with a completely original setting.

Though I also remember reading an interview with one of the Knights of the Old Republic developers shortly after the game's release. He was asked if they had ever planned to let you return to Dantooine in the third act. He was under the impression you could.

I haven't played Jade Empire myself (and perhaps neither have the developers :smalltongue:) but I remember when it came out; a friend played it and described some things to me, particularly the alignment system, which he touted as more mature than Knights of the Old Republic's. I was rather skeptical. So thanks for confirming my suspicions, everyone. :smallamused:

Philistine

2012-12-24, 06:28 PM

That's the kicker, though. They did indeed have an awesome idea for a Karma Meter, one which was considerably more interesting (or you could describe it as more mature, sure) than the norm in Karma Meter'd games; and there are still one or two places where you can kinda-sorta see the bones of that idea underneath the finished product. But then the devs completely and utterly stuffed up the execution of that idea. As in, "I'm not sure how they could have gone any farther astray if they'd set out to do so deliberately." If it hadn't had so much potential, it wouldn't inspire so much disappointment.

JCarter426

2012-12-24, 07:02 PM

Oh, I'd certainly be in favor of it if it actually worked. It does sound pretty cool.

GloatingSwine

2012-12-25, 07:06 AM

A combination of Web, Stinking cloud and Fireballs at 20 yards? :smallbiggrin::smalltongue:

Mirabelle :smallwink:

Wardog

2012-12-25, 08:25 AM

A combination of Web, Stinking cloud and Fireballs at 20 yards? :smallbiggrin::smalltongue:

Pfff. Epic Spike Traps. :smallcool:

Tvtyrant

2012-12-25, 12:15 PM

Coidzor

2012-12-25, 12:47 PM

Way too short and it seemed... rushed and incomplete when I played it.

Like they had a good idea and then the person heading the project got replaced by a stereotype who hated the idea and had a deadline of 3 weeks to put the actual game together in order to rush it to market for Christmas.

I enjoyed it, but it kinda made me more disappointed in the professionals who worked on it than pleased by them because they made it painfully obvious that they could have done better, they just either didn't care to do so or were too much of chattels to be allowed to.

Jayngfet

2012-12-25, 01:56 PM

I only had two real objections to the game.

Focus investment blew mana investment out of the water, to the point where I simply dumped everything into focus and staid in it almost all of the time. Summon a crappy golem or tear your master apart in less than 10 seconds? I pick the latter.

The second was the speed through which the game went. The main quest was extremely short, and some of the side quests (beat everyone in the dojo!) took a few minutes tops.

If you didn't get equal return, you didn't use it properly.

With Jade Golem and backing your hits with Chi, you can pretty much mow down any non-boss in like two hits once you boost it enough, and anything mid to low tier in one after a bit.

Zevox

2012-12-25, 02:52 PM

Honestly, almost the only thing I spent mana on was healing. I didn't feel that the damage boost from adding magic to your attacks was worth it, I rarely used the magic styles since they mostly felt underpowered (did use the ice style for starting harmonic combos sometimes), and I never used the transformation styles due to finding them awkward and hard to use well. I have heard that Jade Golem was overpowered, though.

I mostly kept my stats balanced on the whole. Focus felt unnecessary given how easy the game is, so I mostly spent that on weapon-style use, which made none of the stats seem especially better than the others.

Jayngfet

2012-12-25, 02:59 PM

GloatingSwine

2012-12-25, 03:11 PM

On the other hand, Demons were common and amazingly irritating, and weapons murder the **** out of them.

Especially Mirabelle, which also means you don't have to take return damage from horse demons.

Zevox

2012-12-25, 03:49 PM

On the other hand, Demons were common and amazingly irritating, and weapons murder the **** out of them.
Yeah, that. Especially the damn Horse demons and the damage you take for every attack you throw at them. They're the one truly hard thing in that game, because if you face more than one of them and don't optimize your damage dealt vs damage taken, you can die from your own attacks even if they never land a blow of their own.

GloatingSwine

2012-12-25, 07:20 PM

That's why Mirabelle exists.

Jerthanis

2012-12-25, 07:47 PM

I used the Longsword the whole game, and swapped out for the antighost martial arts style when ghosts came out. I slaughtered the game with such aplomb that I almost felt like going back through with another style that didn't win so hardcore. Focus is crazy good all around.

The game is easy enough that it's safe to say you can do almost anything with your build and style and will be able to get through.

Mystic Muse

2012-12-25, 08:13 PM

Been a while since I played. Which style was the antighost style?

Zevox

2012-12-25, 08:42 PM

Been a while since I played. Which style was the antighost style?
Any martial style. They're immune to weapons, and I think magic and support styles, so that's basically all you've got to use against them. They're not really that hard though, except in one or two spots where there's a Red Minister backed up by several lesser ghosts.

Jerthanis

2012-12-25, 08:44 PM

Any martial style. They're immune to weapons, and I think magic and support styles, so that's basically all you've got to use against them. They're not really that hard though, except in one or two spots where there's a Red Minister backed up by several lesser ghosts.

Really? I thought the "Drain Chi with every strike" style did extra damage to ghosts or something. Maybe I was just imagining it.

Zevox

2012-12-25, 08:46 PM

Really? I thought the "Drain Chi with every strike" style did extra damage to ghosts or something. Maybe I was just imagining it.
Spirit Thief? That one never does actual damage, it just restores your chi. That's its sole purpose. I think it still works on Ghosts (though I could be wrong), but there's nothing special about it against them.

Edit: Actually, slight correction: Spirit Thief will do damage if you use the ability that boosts your damage by draining some of your chi with every attack, but not much, and it kind of goes against the purpose of the style, so I never actually used it.

Zeful

2012-12-25, 10:17 PM

Spirit Thief? That one never does actual damage, it just restores your chi. That's its sole purpose. I think it still works on Ghosts (though I could be wrong), but there's nothing special about it against them.

Edit: Actually, slight correction: Spirit Thief will do damage if you use the ability that boosts your damage by draining some of your chi with every attack, but not much, and it kind of goes against the purpose of the style, so I never actually used it.

Chi enhanced Spirit Thief is one of the silliest and most effecient chi powered styles there is, because it still steals Chi on strike, which is essentially refunding most of the cost of the enhancement, it's still really weak, because the amount of chi it steals is really low at endgame, but given the skill based nature of the game, you could run Spirit Thief as your "main" offense and still win, it'll just take longer.

Closet_Skeleton

2012-12-26, 06:47 AM

Red Minister however steals hp and chi and does acceptable damage.

Or you could just have an ally in support giving you free chi.

Or use paralysing palm. Really this game is just full of cheap stuff.

Calemyr

2012-12-26, 09:36 AM

A few comments:

My favorite weapon style is twin axes. As powerful as an epic weapon, focus cost of a starter weapon. End result: huge damage and no focus cost. Mirabelle comes second - I really like it, but it's not functional against fast or multiple enemies.

Nothing is immune to chi-enhanced Spirit Thief. The damage is pathetic, but it's quite reliable. For my money, though, I like storm dragon - you can shut down most enemies with it pretty easy. Strong Storm -> Couple quick hits with another style -> Strong Storm -> etc.

Jade Golem was quite nice for the most part, but I found that Red Minister was the most useful in general. Its Chi stealing effect allowed you to remain in that mode longer and shut down mages fairly well, and many grunts use weapons, rendering them irrelevant for anything but free snacks.

Finally, about the "dark knight" character:
It's annoying that it's treated as an evil action, because it can have one of the most good aligned outcomes in the game. The dark knight is more of a victim than anyone except the main character. If you recruit him, but finish the game on the Open Palm path, he becomes a free man for the first time since donning that armor, and becomes something of a hero.

I really wanted to tell some of the protestors "No. He doesn't get off that easy. He doesn't get to do this kind of damage and then just die. He is nothing but a weapon, but then so am I, and even a weapon can be used to good ends."

The one thing I hate about the morality system in BW games is the absence of a "gray" route, even in games that extol that very path. The game only rewards extremists, which means nobody playing a nice guy is likely to give the dark knight a chance.

Is the game good? Yes. It's a much more action-based game than the usual BW fare, has a conceptually fascinating but VERY poorly utilized morality system, and a wide cast of very amusing characters (Black Whirlwind is great if you let him talk, and Kang is definitely mad, but in a good way). The gameplay is simplistic and not well balanced, but pretty fun.

And the twist is not only not a twist for a twist's sake, it's the foundation that the whole story is built around. Once you know the trick, replaying the game is an entirely new experience, where so much of the idle banter takes on a very different connotation.