Jade Empire (Xbox) - Part 2

Today on Super Adventures, I'm getting back to Jade Empire for the second and final time. If you want to read part 1 CLICK HERE.

I'm still looking for a town with sidequests and a big problem I can solve, so I can get a good impression of what the game's actually like before I turn it off. Something like Knights of the Old Republic's Taris, or Mass Effect's Citadel... except smaller hopefully.

This means there will be some SPOILERS here for the first few hours of the game, but nothing too serious I expect.

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Previously, in Jade Empire:

All kinds of stuff happened and I'm not even done with the prologue yet really. My player character found out that she's destined to save the world as the last of the Spirit Monks, she got a nemesis called Gao the Lesser, and she found some money in a cave next to the beach. Plus her friend Dawn Star got kidnapped, so that's high up on my list of things to get resolved. 

But the thing that's really bothering me is this bloody lion statue puzzle! I got the three figurines, I placed them on the altar in the order it asked for, and it just mocked me. But we're not done yet. Not while the statue's still there and I still have my figurines. Though I really should do something about Dawn Star first.

And now, the continuation:

I headed back through the familiar streets of Two Rivers and met an NPC who claims that the money I found in that cave on the beach is actually his. In fact, it's his life savings and he'd appreciate it back.

I'm usually a bit sceptical when a stranger in the street claims that half the money in my wallet is theirs, but hey his story sounds plausible and it's the dude's life savings, so I decided to hand it over. He offered to split it with me as a reward, but I gave him all of it and this earned me a blue halo for a moment.

Seems like the game's doing the Knights of the Old Republic/Mass Effect light side/dark side morality system, which typically means that I don't have to think about my responses. I just keep picking the top or bottom option depending on whether I want to be a benevolent angel or a belligerent arsehole.

SOON, IN THE MARSHLAND

Dawn Star's trail has led me to the marshland outside of town, which is home to groups of enemies that need killing. Especially the ones with spears; I don't like anyone with a weapon range greater than my own.

That guy cowering in the distance turned out to be a merchant called Hing. For a moment I thought he going to tag along as I searched for his precious Fen, but nope I'm doing this side quest on my own.

Hey, I found a dialog review button! Always nice to have a record of what it is I'm supposed to be doing. Personally, I reckon Fen's going to turn out to be Merchant Hing's pet pig or something, but I could be wrong.

I did actually pick up a new friend here, as a few steps down the road I ran into a guy with a stick called Sagacious Zu. The guy's voiced by Robin Atkin Downes, who played Travis Touchdown in No More Heroes, Master Miller in Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, and Byron, the most punchable character on TV, in Babylon 5. He's a lot more likeable here, even if he does seems kind of 'dark side'.

Zu's not on screen right now, but you can see his portrait in the top left.

Wait, what the hell is that thing in the background? I was so focused on the fight I genuinely didn't notice it. It looks like an ornithopter from Dune or something from a Jules Verne story. I want to steal it.

First though, I've got more people to punch. Same routine as ever: I get punches in while I can before they put their shield up, then I somersault over their head before their buddies can surround me and resume the violence. Repeat.

Man, this game loves its trapped boxes. Sometimes a container will give me silver, sometimes a gem, and sometimes it'll explode and cost me health!

Alright, I've killed the group of enemies and I've searched all the boxes, so it's time to walk down the path and do it all over again in the next area. 

Hey, I found Fen, Merchant Hing's precious Flower of the Fields. Turns out that it was an ox, not a pig, so I got that wrong. Also, the sidequest has turned into a joke about how much the guy hates his wife, as he completely neglected to mention that she'd been taken by the bandits as well and she ain't happy about it.

The two of them walk off, with the wife giving Hing an earful and him replying "Yes dear, no dear...". A bit of retro comedy there for you.

Alright, nothing left for me to do out here in the marshland, I'm going to backtrack to a cave I saw and go inside.

Hey, this cave looks cool. Shame about all the anti-social ogres with nothing better to do than crush the skulls of anyone who wanders inside. Look, poor Zu's already dead! I'm sure he'll be back on his feet after I've taken these two out though. I think my follower's health regenerates after a fight... unlike mine. If the enemies don't drop any red health orbs for me I'll have to burn some of my Chi to heal.

It's fine, I'm sure I walked past a Chi shrine out in the marsh somewhere. I'll just run back out, heal up, get a refill and come back

Okay, what the hell? I went up against the next ogre and he took me out with the beginning of his swing animation. He was basically pulling his weapon back and it still took off half my health. The worst thing about this is I only had half my health left! That's game over.

Fortunately, I've been saving frequently and the game has been autosaving too, so death's not an issue... but I'm kind of done playing for now to be honest. Momentum was the main thing keeping me going and now I've been stopped I don't feel any need to start it up again. Especially if these ogres are going to be a problem.

LATER, AFTER A BREAK

Well the bad news is that it turns out Gao the Lesser kidnapped Dawn Star in order to save her from from the destruction of Two Rivers. So this is going to be one of those RPGs where the hero's town burns down at the start after all, even though I already saved it from pirates!

The good news is that those ogres were no trouble at all when I came back to the game after a break to regenerate my enthusiasm. I just had to not be hit by them. Keeping my distance and pelting them with fireballs helped with that. They don't like fire.

Now I'm up against a proper enemy though. It's a rematch against Goa the Lesser and this time he won't be holding back.

So turned into a toad demon and smacked the guy around with my poisonous claws. I don't think he's been trained for this situation, though I don't know what I'm doing either to be fair. I only just acquired this power! The trouble with unlocking new styles is that there's only room on the D-pad for four of them. I had to swap out Heavenly Wave to make room and I don't think I've even tried that style yet.

Oh damn, Gao the Lesser actually died from this! I thought he was going to be a recurring villain, my ongoing rival. Nope, he's dead, and now I need to get back to Two Rivers in a hurry to save the day. Fortunately, Dawn Star has a plan: use the flying machine! Turns out the game's actually letting me steal it.

Okay, what!? The game has suddenly turned into 1942! I'm in my little fighter taking on waves of enemies in a scrolling shoot 'em up minigame. I honestly had no idea this was coming and I'm kind of amazed they did this. Partly because they turned the tragic destruction of the hero's village and the death of everyone they know into an arcade sequence. There's a bit of a tonal mismatch here!

The mini-game is pretty basic, it doesn't seem like I even get anything for shooting all the enemies in a wave, though there are pick-ups to grab that improve my attack and save me from tapping the button.

I flew to Two Rivers, crashed my fighter, raced through the burning town punching all the enemies in my way, and reached the sparring ring from the very start only to find that I'm way too late to do any good here. Everyone's either dead or dying.

My bro from the beginning of the game stumbled over with barely enough life left to narrate a flashback of Death's Hand coming over, and man he was impressed with his outfit. He held on just long enough to express his absolute awe at how black that armour is. Black like a hole in the earth so deep you can't get out.

I didn't have the heart, or the dialogue options, to point out it's actually kind of purple.

Oh come on, those lion figurines were my only possession! Well, aside from my Spirit Monk amulet and this pile of gems I've been collecting.

I wasn't that bothered about the destruction of my character's home village, it happens in RPGs, but knowing that I can never complete the lion figurine puzzle has hit me pretty hard. That XP, gone forever.

Anyway, it's time to head back to the Mosquito flyer. Master Li is missing and we're going to find him. First stop, the Imperial City!

ONE SHOOT 'EM UP LEVEL LATER

Well we crashed the flyer outside the town of Tien's Landing, but that's actually worked out well for us as Master Li left an agent here to give us some crucial exposition. She's also taught me the Spirit Thief style, which can steal Chi from enemies, so that seems like something I should get the hang of. Chi powers my toad demon transformation, my fireballs, and my healing, so being able to refill it in combat will be a big help to me.

Speaking of things that could use some help, Tien's Landing is a bit of a mess. Someone opened the dam to drain the lake and we don't know why. Maybe some official dropped their phone in there. All I know is that it's been pretty devastating for a town focused on fishing and trade to not be near the water anymore.

Look at the place, it's all docks. It's also a proper town with a problem, which means once I've fixed their crisis by closing the dam I can finally turn the game off!

Though I've also gotten myself roped into doing a sidequest, because I just can't help it. I met a woman who was worried about her boyfriend getting beaten up, so now I have to go off and save him. He's not marked on the map though and there's no quest marker to point me in his direction. 

I guess I'm just going everywhere until I run into him then.

I did eventually find the guy, and he told me that a crime boss wouldn't leave him alone, so I ran off to find her. She told me that he'd promised her that he'd marry her, so I had to go running off again. This is the classic Knights of the Old Republic gameplay I remember! Wait, who am I running off to talk to this time? Damn, I'm not even sure. And where was the boyfriend? 

This place is full of NPCs, but most of them aren't going to give me a sidequest. Half of them won't even give me the traditional single line of dialogue. A few of them are very chatty though, like Minister Sheng, the governor of this town. He's the one who should be fixing the dam situation, but the poor guy's got troubles of his own, which have been chronicled in a nearby document:

Sheng's really been having a rough time of late. He doesn't even seem like that bad of a guy. In fact, he's surreptitiously slipped me the key I need in order to get working on this dam situation.

Alright, that's step 1 of solving the dam situation completed, now I can move onto step 2: find the dam.

EVENTUALLY

I haven't found the dam yet, but I have met some new people.

Like I found an old man who told me a story of the catastrophe that occurred when the dam was first constructed. Tien's Landing was doing fine at the time, but the Emperor decided he wanted the river blocked, and the residents wondered what it would mean for them. They soon discovered that it meant their entire town would be flooded, so they grabbed what they could and tried to escape the rising water. The traumatised survivors built a new Tien's Landing on the banks of this new lake, trying to pretend the tragedy never happened.

And now this asshole wants me leave the dam open, offering me a share of the profits he'll make from this situation. Funny thing is, I can reply "I'll help, but not for the silver. This town will be made stronger if it survives the crisis".

I get the impression that this is the philosophy of the 'evil' side of the morality meter, called the Way of the Closed Fist. The Way of Open Hand is about helping people by doing good, and Closed Fist is about helping people by letting them struggle and get their own experience points from life.

But the townsfolk of Tien's Landing didn't grow stronger from suffering last time, they just rebuilt, so I'm going to save them from any further suffering. Just as soon as I sort out the last few sidequests.

LATER

Hey, the game's given me an opportunity to show off my persuasion options. These options are strengthened or weakened by how I distribute my points into the three different attributes: Body, Spirit and Mind, but my three bars are basically balanced so I'm equally average at all of them. I think I'll just pick 'Charm' every single time, because I want Open Hand points, and the game's given me no reason to believe I'll have more success with a different option.

I haven't come across that dam yet, but I did just come up with a way to give a teahouse back to its original owner, so that's pretty cool. Sometimes heroism isn't about closing a dam to restore a town's livelihood, it's about the people you help while wandering around failing to find the bloody thing.

SOME FIGHTS LATER

I've discovered that to get to the dam I have to go through the formerly submerged old town, and it turns out that the flooding happened after the Emperor's attack on the Temple of Dirge blocked off the afterlife. That means that these old buildings are occupied by the ghosts of convicts and children who were trapped when the water level started rising, and they've spent the last 20 years going insane. The game's gotten very dark all of a sudden.

I can't send them to the afterlife, but I can give them some peace if I find the person responsible for leaving them trapped here all those years ago, and bring him out here to bury their bones.

So here I am, back in the teahouse, searching every corner for this guy. No luck so far, but I promised those kids I'd help so I'm going to do a few more laps. There is lots of running back and forth in this game.

I eventually sorted out that sidequest and used some gunpowder to blow open a quarry full of dead convicts who had been sent into the caves as miners. There's no talking these guys down though, I'm going to have to punch them hard enough that their ghostly forms dissipate.

This convict ghost can summon a fire-breathing dragon out of the ground? That seems kind of unfair, even if it's easy enough to dodge.

I thought this cave would be a little side path with few gems at the end, but it's thrown me into the toughest boss battle I've had so far and it's dragging on forever! I'm just about staying in the fight though, by preying on the weak convicts that stray into the arena and beating them up for their orbs. I haven't had much luck with Spirit Thief style so far, trying to refill my Chi has only gotten me killed, but these orbs are doing the job.

My followers have special abilities and if I bring Dawn Star out and switch her to 'support' instead of 'attack' she'll apparently recharge my Chi. I can't really test that while she's dead though, and the game has a one-follower-only limit, so my bro Zu's having to wait on the bench.

EVENTUALLY

Man, that convict boss took a damn while. I beat him though. On my first try as well! Combat is getting more satisfying now that I have more options. I grabbed some good gems as my reward, then went back out again to sort out the dam. Here I met a ghostly friend of mine, who's been popping up every now and then to give me exposition.

This time though she gave me a line I don't think I like one bit. "You are meant to learn, but not too much. To see, but not too clearly. To succeed, but not completely." I'm much more interested in learning everything and succeeding completely. I'm a big fan of succeeding.

The only person who has a purpose for me to complete is Master Li, and this is sounding a lot like I'm being manipulated. Like maybe he wanted Gao the Lesser to kidnap Dawn Star to get me out of Two Rivers. Like maybe he wanted my home to be destroyed. Now I'm even more curious about where this plot is going.

SOON

Alright, I've defeated all the enemies, I've spoken the secret command word to the golems, I've opened all the bridges, now where the hell is this bloody dam?  Seriously, this is getting ridiculous now. I've jogged around this whole area from one end to the other, I've gone all around the ruins again, I've visited everywhere on my map, but I can't find this dam. I can't tell if it's the game, or if it's just me, but how is it even possible to not see a dam? Most of the time when you find a dam in a video game it takes up a whole level; the things are huge!

At least now I know that enemies don't respawn. Probably.

Wait, my memory is telling me something. It's saying... that the golems were guarding the entrance to the dam and I got distracted and went the other way instead. So I just need to find the golems. Oh hey, there they are, on the left! That's it, that's where I need to be!

There you go, the dam has been closed, the lake has been refilled, the ruins have been covered and the town has been saved. I'm done here.

Though I kind of want to keep playing as I want to see where the story's going! I'm apparently about 30% through a 17 hour game, so I'm much closer to finishing it than I expected and it would be a shame to stop now before I met the John Cleese character... but I've got other games I need to play right now. 

CONCLUSION

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Jade Empire is definitely a BioWare game, I've figured that much out at least. At this point, the developer was known for making licenced games set in other people's worlds, like the D&D universe in Baldur's Gate, and the Star Wars universe in Knights of the Old Republic, so this was a bit of a change for them, but it still feels like it's part of the family. It's just a member of the family that emigrated to consoles and switched to the kind of flashy accessible action that was popular over there in the hopes of making a lot more money. Press a button and something awesome happens.

I'm a bit torn on the idea of game developers switching genres and abandoning their niche in order to target the mainstream. On the one hand, this almost always involves streamlining the interesting complications away and requiring players to rely on reflexes and skill over tactics and planning. There isn't necessarily a lot of overlap between fans of strategic combat and fans of real-time brawling, so someone's getting shafted there. Final Fantasy fans know what I mean. On the other hand, I really love the Mass Effect games so I'm not about to complain about BioWare exploring new genres. Plus they went back to the traditional style with the incredibly successful Dragon Age series, so it all worked out for everyone... for a while.

Anyway, my assumption about Jade Empire was that the game is basically Knights of the Old Republic, except with a hands-on combat system that makes the player punch the bad guys and do the flips themselves instead of queuing up attacks and leaving the character to handle the details themselves. I was mostly right.

It's a fists-and-conversation RPG that's more about learning lore than acquiring loot, and every aspect of it was built to support a core of fast martial arts combat. There's no equipment screen or inventory full of health kits. No list of skills like 'repair' and 'awareness'. Now when you explore the depths of a cave or visit a new town the best you can look forward to is getting a few stat-modifying gems or a book of exercises. It takes some of the fun out of it really.

I suppose it makes sense though that a martial arts game would be more about personal improvement. Giving the player direct control during combat means it's up to them to master timing, dodging and blocking, and the gameplay's closer to something like Fable or even Arkham Asylum with how you're leaping around a group of enemies trying to get a hit in when you can. I could also compare the game to Oni, though that focuses much more on the 'martial arts' side of 'martial arts action' by giving you moves to pull off and making fights feel like you're actually knocking someone around instead of just wearing down their health bar. Jade Empire, on the other hand, doesn't really capture the feeling of being in a Wuxia movie, or even being in a particularly good action game. I mean it's better than Enter the Matrix, but it's still clearly from the PS2 era, where devs were still getting used to the idea of two analogue sticks. Though the combat does have a bit of complexity to it and fighting got a lot more interesting to me as I acquired more styles and got more comfortable with using them.

On the other hand, the 'walking around and talking to people' side of the game is so KOTOR that I kept expecting Carth Onasi to pop up and start pestering me about the things he didn't want to talk about. There's a lot of hiking back and forth between unmarked NPCs here, which I guess is fine if you're in the mood for it. The game does have party members that chime in occasionally when they've got a comment to make, though here you're limited to just one at a time. It also has the same dialogue system with light side and dark side choices. Well, choice singular, seeing as there's no reason to change your mind and flip alignment once you've decided who you're going to be. It's a problem that a lot of BioWare games have, though they also tend to have decent dialogue and this isn't the exception. The story is the most compelling part of the game for me so far, though I'm more interested in where it could be going than in what I've seen so far.

I've noticed that the game has gotten a lot of praise for its setting, as it gives people an imaginative new fantasy world inspired by Chinese mythology instead of another variation on the standard Tolkienesque D&D sword & sorcery Middle Ages craphole... but I thought it was just alright. It hasn't really done anything to grab my attention so far. I think that may have actually been the game's biggest flaw at the time, as BioWare didn't do enough to sell people on its unique selling point. Well, they were also selling it on their reputation, but they didn't make the game for their existing fans so their name alone didn't get them many sales. In fact, despite its high review scores the game bombed.

It did sell well enough to get a slightly prettier Special Edition on PC, I guess. It's just a shame that I kind of hate it. The PC version of the game has been altered to only feel right with mouse control and even then it's awkward somehow. On Xbox, I played the game for maybe an hour before losing a fight, while on PC I struggled to make it through the first few bandits. I've read that the game gets incredibly easy on any difficulty, so maybe some people would prefer the PC game, but I can't wait to uninstall it.

Anyway, my opinion about Jade Empire is that it's growing on me and I am tempted to keep playing. There are better martial arts action games and there are more interesting Western-style RPGs, but you don't find many games that give you both and have you doing quests in fantasy China. It's not an amazing game, but 18 years later it's still a distinctive one, and if you want to experience Jade Empire's story you gotta play Jade Empire. Or watch YouTube.

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Alright, that's one more game finally crossed off the list! But the list is long and the games keep coming, which means you've got another chance to take a guess at what's coming next.

You could also leave a comment just talking about Jade Empire if that's what you want.