GregHowley.com

I just finished playing Jade Empire: Special Edition this weekend. If I had to compare it to any other game, it would be Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, but I thought it was far better than that game primarily due to the combat system, the minigames, and a better Big Plot Twist. Both games had that Big Plot Twist, I just thought the one in Jade Empire was better, and it caught me more off-guard.

The game overall is decidedly last-gen in its look and its style. This is totally understandable, as the PC "Special Edition" is just a remake of an old XBox game. I compare it to KotOR because not only is the third-person viewpoint and conversation all but identical, but it uses a near-identical light/dark system whereby your conversational choices throughout the game move you up and down a good/evil scale that appears on your character screen and determines in part which items you can use and how characters and companions react to you.

Also, similarly to how KotOR has different crystals that you can insert into a light saber to grant it different powers, Jade Empire has "Essence Gems" that you can insert into your Dragon Amulet to achieve the same effect.

The combat system takes a bit to get used to, but ends up being fairly intuitive. My main complaint is that in the Special Edition version that I downloaded from Steam, I had to remap my mouse buttons each time I started up the game - it kept losing my mapping of the right mouse button as block and the center mouse button as power attack.

The combat isn't automatic as in KotOR, but actually functions more similarly to Beyond Good and Evil, although it's more complex. You have a basic quick attack, a slower but more powerful Power Attack, and an area attack. You've also got a block. In essence, a block will stop a quick attack but not a power attack, so you've got a rock-paper-scissors scenario: power attacks beat blocks, blocks prevent quick attacks, but quick attacks beat power attacks by striking quickly before the power attack is complete. Throughout a combat, you'll maneuver around, using the dive-and-roll movement, changing targets with the mouse wheel, and likely changing combat styles a number of times.

There are four categories of combat style in Jade Empire, and you learn more styles gradually as you progress through the game. The first grouping is martial styles: Thousand Cuts Style, Iron Palm Style, Viper Style. Each has different attack animations, some are quicker or more damaging than others, and many have special effects. For example, Viper Style will poison your opponent, and the power attack for Iron Palm will send your opponent flying back. The second grouping is Support Styles. These are essentially magic styles, and many are ranged attacks. Ice Shard and Dire Flame will shoot fire and ice, and the power attack for Ice Shard will freeze your opponent for a moment, allowing you to beat on him with impunity. Spirit Thief allows you to steal your opponent's chi. And my favorite, Storm Dragon, will paralyze your foe while he's being electrocuted. I used this technique to win the final battle fairly easily.

The third grouping of styles are weapon styles. I ended up using the first sword you get in the game as my only weapon throughout the game. It works well against multiple opponents, as the sword slashes are broad strokes. The last style grouping is that of Transformation Styles, where you actually change into a demon, golem, or some other creature. This makes you immune to many special effects, and each form has different powers. I almost never used them, although the Jade Golem form helped me beat the hardest fight in the game: the second-to-last fight.

During battle, you can also heal yourself with your chi, a technique which drains your chi and adds to your health on a 1-to-1 ratio. You can also use "Harmonic Combos", which I experimented with briefly and then forgot. It involves switching styles during an attack, and the combo can net you a special chi, health, or focus power-up.

Health, Chi, and Focus are your character's three main stats in the game. Health is hit points, Chi is essentially magic points, and Focus is an attribute that is drained when using weapons or dodging traps. The conversational analogs to these are Intimidation, Intuition, and Charm. They're seldom used, so I mostly ignored these too.

Similarly to KotOR, you gain companions as you progress through the game. You can switch companions at will, and they'll occasionally jump in with a line or two during a conversation. During battle, you can set your companions to Fight or Support. Some companions, such as the bearlike Black Whirlwind, have no support style, and others such as Henpecked Hou have no option to fight directly. The methods of support differ. The demon Chai Ka who has possessed the little girl Ya Zhen replenishes your health. Henpecked Hou drops bottles of booze which enable you to fight in the Drunken Master style. Silk Fox makes your weapons do more damage. There are also a couple special companions. Zin Bu is a type of phantom who lets you shop in his celestial store at will, and Kang the Mad (who is wonderful comic relief) is your gateway to the Marvelous Dragonfly minigame.

When I first saw that Jade Empire had minigames, I was overjoyed. But I was very disappointed to find that they are all the same minigame. Still, it's a lot of fun: a variant on the old game River Raid. You get different chi-powered special attacks such as shields and missiles that you can use, but it's still just River Raid.

Jade Empire is amongst the best of the last-gen games. It can't compare to greats like Beyond Good and Evil, Shadow of the Colossus, and Psychonauts, but if you're looking for some kickass last-gen martial arts action, I recommend it.