Jade Empire

released on Apr 12, 2005

Set in an ancient world inspired by mythical China, Jade Empire lets you train under your master's watchful eye as you learn powerful martial arts and mystical powers. When danger threatens, you'll travel across the world, from the harsh mountains of the Land of Howling Spirits to the lush gardens of the Imperial City. In your adventures, you must face powerful human and supernatural foes, learn the exotic and magical martial arts, and discover the darkest secrets of the world. Practice the greatest fighting styles and defeat the most powerful enemies to become a master of martial arts. Also Available Jade Empire: Limited Edition


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Cool story, great gameplay!
Loved the game mechanics.

An incredibly simple but very enjoyable Bioware RPG. Still holds up and is worth a playthrough or two.

I had this game in my library for a long time and finally got to stream all of it! It took quite some time though, as RPGs usually do. One warning going forward, however, you need to look up some ways to modify the code and some mods to improve it's appearance. Here's a fix I found, thanks to the wonderful community on steam

So this game was a pain in the ass to get up to run and had to instead load directly from the .exe. This is sadly something common with a lot of older games. Especially ones that were on the xbox too. Regardless, my points aside, here's my first experience whilst I was streaming it as a little preview of it

That aside, I'll continue with my written review:

Jade Empire is set in a fictional far-east location ruled and known as the Jade Empire. You can choose your abilities or go with a pre-set character, much like Bioware's Mass Effect series. Three types of focuses, one of each gender. One is Body where you're high in health and physical strength, One of Spirit which is focused on magic power and powerful with the movesets that require a lot of magic like transforming into a demon and Mind which specialises in weapons, but also gives you the ability to slow down time for both trap-dodging and combat.

You start out as a student at a martial arts school, often seen as the teacher's favourite much to the ire some students. After a bit of sparring you meet up with a childhood friend to hang out a little, learning about the stories of ghosts and the dead not resting, though many don't believe in this kind of thing. That said your friend, Dawnstar, has the ability to sense spirits. However, after some exploring you are attacked by bandits!

After you make your way through the mods of bandits and come to their leader, he summons ghosts who you manage to punch and disrupt. Seeing this, he freaks out until your master arrives and destroys the boat in a single move! Afterwards he warns you that there is stuff to talk to you about your true origin and where you came from along with your unique abilities.

Jade Empire is kind of exactly what I thought it would be. The first Bioware RPG to not use their RTWP system, the game between KOTOR and Mass Effect. It's the last game that I think you could credit to "early" Bioware, a pre-EA buyout expereince, though Mass Effect 1 kinda fills that role as well. But Jade Empire feels more related to those older games, in the way Dragon Age Origins has obvious links to them.

First, one thing that did surprise me is that, especially for a game made by mostly white western developers in 2005, the game doesn't feel at all racist. Sure it's a bit cultural appropriation-ey, but it feels more in the realm of like, ATLA. It's an americanized slurry of cultural references, but seemingly a pretty respectful one? At least as far as I, a white guy the midwest, could tell.

The other big thing I was worried about was the combat, and I feel like I was right to be worried. See, when Bioware created RTWP, it was with the intent of making TTRPG combat more dynamic and engaging than a direct translation. After KOTOR though, it seems like they wanted to take the opportunity to work on a fully action-based system for the first time. And I mean, it just feels bad. In a way it reminds me of Secret of Mana and Trials of Mana, where it's this weird cross between turn based ideas with real time positioning and execution. But mostly it just feels weightless and not timed out correctly. Combos are finicky to get started, blocking is fairly overpowered, some ranged attacks will track you even if you dodge behind the caster before they go off, and any attack that doesn't use a weapon is impossible to predict success on. I ended up cruising through the second half of the game on easy, just so I didn't have to deal with the system much anymore.

Moving on to parts I liked, the different locations are all pretty great. There's only 4 or 5 total, and only 2 are true hubs like you would see in KOTOR, but those two are pretty gigantic! You can really tell they're making better use of the Xbox's hardware by now, with how much larger and more detailed each individual map is. Really, the whole game is gorgeous, especially if you're into the way OG Xbox games looked. Anyways, the dungeons are nicely varied, though a bit small, and the sidequests are numerous (in those two hubs). Really my only disappointment here is that a lot of the sidequests are only one or two steps, mostly feeling like fetch quests in a way that kinda thins the world out, I think. The good sidequests are really good though. Once you get to the bigger hub city there's a couple really fun doozies, I gotta say.

Probably my favorite part of the game, and the bit where it really can lodge itself with the classics, is the story. It's a classic hero's tale, a hero with a thousand faces-type story, but the plot machinations are really pretty perfectly executed. The twists land hard, the emotions ring high, and the themes are maybe the least straightforwardly heroic out of any Bioware game of this era. Really, and this is just a hunch, it almost seems like they were influenced by KOTOR II, and managed to fit a little bit of the self-questioning darkness of that game into classic hero morality.

I think I'd recommend playing it. Especially if you've run out of true Bioware classics to play and want more of that flavor. I think you'll get more out of this than you would NWN's main story, that's for sure, and maybe even NWN 2's main story, even though it's Obsidian! (but you should play that one just to get to MOTB which is proper greatness in DLC form). If you find the combat annoying like I did, just turn it to easy and cruise through, but really spend as much time in the hubs as you can. The game's linear, so the two hubs kinda build on each other a bit, and I think they both feel more real if you spend time getting to know them. I'm glad I did.

anyways I think playing this with the hyperkin duke was a bad idea my wrist hort now

Really enjoyable RPG. It sits uncomfortably between the older BioWare cRPG and the more modern, console-first ones (think Mass Effect), but it's definitely leaning more towards the second in gameplay and presentation. Small but quite dense levels that manage to evoque a huge world thanks to clever writing and a unique atmosphere. RPG gameplay is heavily stripped down, leaving only the essentials, but that means everything you encounter is hand-crafted, useful and thoughtful. Try doing every quest, enjoy your companions' company and don't spoil yourself.

Layers upon layers, another piece built from those conniving Canadians!

For one reason or another, I put down Jade Empire twice before. I’m not really sure why, I thought what I played was interesting enough to finish as part of my journey in BioWare’s catalog, so I’m just gonna blame this on my poor attention span yet again. I digress, after replaying KOTOR1 and KOTOR2, I figured now was a good time to finish this since I knew it’d be relatively shorter than Dragon Age and Baldur’s Gate, both of which I want to cover when I have full energy because as anyone who’s binged decently lengthed RPGs back-to-back under a busy schedule can tell you, shit’s soul draining! So now that I finished it for the first time, let’s talk about it… after going over the PC port. In terms of getting this to work on modern hardware, it’s quite a step-down of tinkering when compared to KOTOR1, not quite as reliant on patches and mods. Most of the configuration can be done with the game’s INI file, such as increasing anti-aliasing and anisotropic filters which can also be combined with the graphic card control panels, as well as allowing for a higher framerate (which, in terms of physics timing, only messes up cloths and clouds), but there’s two issues that need to be taken care of externally. Get this file dropped onto the game’s folder to avoid massive stutters or anything of that nature, and set the compatibility on the game’s EXE file - the literal game EXE, not the config or launcher EXE - to Windows XP2/3 in case it doesn’t start, and you’ll be set. As is generally the case of old titles, prioritize buying it on GOG, but if you’re like me and settled on a Steam copy, know that getting it to work there is, thankfully, pretty painless! The additions contained within SE aren’t much, so I’ll give a brief overview: touched up graphics, tweaked/new enemy AI to address complaints about the difficulty being easy - which in turn has a new unlockable setting for NG+ runs - which at the end of it all doesn’t really matter for reasons I’ll elaborate on later, one new character to choose as your main character, and some new form of attacks/weapons. An IGN interview back in late 2006 goes into more detail, but suffice to say, you’ll play a slightly different experience on the original Xbox release a la Backwards Compatibility or real hardware compared to this version that’s also available on Mac and Mobile platforms. This is also why I didn’t log that version on here to begin with plus this page is far more likely to get clicked on anyway.

So, what is Jade Empire anyway? In BioWare’s long-running career, it’s one of their more neglected titles, something I merely found murmurs and hushed whispers upon discovering it a few years ago. Well, remember when BioWare passed up the offer to make a sequel to KOTOR1 and recommended Obsidian? During this period, sects of the studio were working on two ideas and starting up another, all of which not being based on any existing property: Dragon Age, penned by David Gaider and starting up around 2002; Mass Effect, which was spearheaded by Casey Hudson and soon Drew Karpyshyn that would kick off in 2004; and this one, chiefly written by Mike Laidlaw and Luke Kristjanson, with Kevin Martens as lead designer, Mark Darrah being the leading programmer, and Jim Bishop serving as its director, containing co-founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk as producers while it was underway during 2001 - actually, these two in particular have been wanting to create JE for a while, with Zeschuk at the 2011 DICE Summit revealing info an old prototype called Five Fingers Of Death they showed to Interplay, whereupon the publisher “laughed them out of the building” after viewing. This time, however, would be different, thanks to a steady incline of the studio’s quality product releases, skillset within the people, as well as tech advancements necessary to make it a reality. This wasn’t the first original title BioWare released, and shit if you really wanna stretch that meaning it wasn’t even the second, but it does mark the biggest turning point of the three aforementioned endeavors, as well as serving as the missing link between the Canadian’s past philosophy of pulp-centric prose and meticulous RPG mechanics, with a new one more focused on streamlining several aspects so as to make its approach available for anyone and everyone along with that Narrative Trick I mocked before. They weren’t settling on dealing licensed deals anymore, they were looking to expand the scope and scale, and hopefully make an immensely alluring setting to explore on top of that. Of course we uh, now know what has happened to them after the fact, but let’s ignore the passage of time for a bit shall we?

It’s funny I mention the Trick, cause speaking as someone that’s seen this structure ad nauseam during this span of BioWare’s life, Jade Empire’s a bit of a fresh air by comparison. There is a set of McGuffins to pick up, but they’re not necessarily the main focus so much as a secondary effect of the main plot concerning the Emperor and their strong-armed, paramilitaristic force dubbed the Lotus Assassins, ones that have kidnapped your Master Li. This, in turn, means sprinklings of Ancient Civilization lores are dispersed during key points within the story, not every single time you hit a story check from a McGuffin pickup. Actually, the game as a whole favors linearity, having different hubs with subareas to explore and revisit but not quite to the same degree of open-ended exploration as KOTOR1, DA, and ME, plus even this stops being the structure once the third act hits where it very much is a straight shot to the end. Sure, some old tropes are still here, such as the your tutorial area being torn asunder, prompting your premade MC from a selection of six (seven in SE), a well-meaning yet uncertain Lawful Good companion, and a Checkered Past Soldier at your side to head off in search of your mentor, but to my surprise, so much I’ve come to learn and witness in ME and DA have their start HERE. Kang, a mad scientist whose ingenuity with technology is only matched by his off-kilter diction? That’s just what Mordin would end up becoming in ME2! Young Wild Flower, a child whose death had been intervened by the presence of spiritual beings, anchoring her life to the mortal world once more? Wynne, is that you? The back-and-forth spats the cunning yet detached Silk Fox and the aforementioned starting companion Dawn Star remind me so heavily of what Morrigan and Alistair would end up doing, though heavily lacking in quips. It’s not just the character archetypes that this applies to, Jack Wall is the composer here and, alongside the OST being pretty damn underrated in general befitting of the aesthetic and tone, numerous pieces feel like a starting point for what he’d later do for the company, especially a certain Suicide Mission… actually that section the music plays in as a whole reminds me of it. Now that I think about it, earlier than that there was a utilization of a moment akin to the ME3 PTSD montage. Makes sense, it’s a popular writing tool after all, and to give credit it's handled fairly better- aw fuck wait a section earlier than that did the Beam Run uhhhh shit ok let’s move on NOW-

Above all else, the intricacy placed onto the worldstate is immensely alluring. Now, my combings of non-Japanese East Asian media, especially those under the Wuxia genre or Classic Chinese Literature, is rather meek, merely pertaining to action movies starring Jackie Chan, region-raised directors such as King Hu and their films, or at the loosest of ties other arts also inspired by it like Avatar The Last Airbender. I know enough about common pieces and setups that are abound here such as the Journey Of The West vibes or some of the popular cliches in those mediums, and have learned key details like companion Black Whirlwind being based off of Outlaws Of The Marsh’s Li Kui, but I’m not fully confident about how deep the influences permeate, nor am I in a place to judge on how culturally appropriative the application of these aesthetics and feel have become with some exceptions (Henpecked Hou is the comedy relief bellying a whole lot of stereotypes, and of course you can expect a white-dominant voice cast), a topic that Mark Darrah has reminisced on in a video he made three months ago. With all that said, this mixture of cultures culminates in a world I’m utterly fascinated by, a feeling I haven’t felt in an RPG in quite a while. Seeing the type of direction Matt Goldman took regarding the fictionalized setdressings and world ethos on full display is utterly captivating, with all its steampunk elements intertwining with the spiritual/mythological elements from Eastern folklore, as well as all the different Ages, Dynasties, and country-specific iconographies and coloring. From the serene, humble starting area of Two Rivers, to the riverside touchstone that is Tien’s Landing, to perusing Imperial City’s many, many quadrants and gathering spots, plus all the interconnected locales that can be visited, special sects of Heaven and celestial beings that inhabit it, even seeing the effort placed into having a fictional language ruleset and structure thanks to the hiring of University of Alberta’s psycholinguistics student Wolf Wikeley, it’s all been a consistent treat to gawk over. Gotta give props to all the different menu backgrounds available at each story point as well! I even kept up with all the in-game supplementary material, though with numerous screencaps since this doesn’t have a Codex menu, it seems like that started in ME1.

And that narrative man, alongside all the sidequesting to be had and some quirky moments to enjoy, I always kept myself in check due to all I’ve heard about the story being pretty outstanding by the studio’s standards. While there’s still some tropes and ruses either from themselves or the genre influences it’s taking from, I was pretty invested as to where things were going despite the slow burn, and when I finally hit that obligatory twist… I was floored for the rest of it, and began to see what others had meant. I wish this site had a spoiler text insertion option instead of an all-or-nothing toggle, because there’s so much I want to detail in regards to the subject in question and how, as someone that’s gotten used to all of the studio alumni’s writing quirks, it was enthralling to see what might be not only their best villain from this era and beyond, but also their best twist purely from an implication and revelation standpoint. I love Saren, and Loghain’s a very cool antagonistic force, but even I have to bow to the mighty grandmaster that’s here, especially since they give you equal respect upon defying them over and over to the end. On the other side of the coin is the Water Dragon, a mystical being that guides the player through all the trepidations and obstacles that awaits them, always being an curious and enigmatic force that you aren’t quite sure as to what exactly their exact goal is leading up to, or if it’s even something you want to help with. The way both of these intermix within the plot is fantastic, and it really helps sell the scope as to what exactly is currently happening, and why you need to push onward to fix it all in your fashion. The thing is, for as great and near-masterful as the narrative and worldbuilding are, the rest of the material in this game is merely solid. Good, even! But it hurts seeing something so bursting and emboldened with potential, just not quite reach it, a feeling I haven’t been levied upon in quite some time.

Expanding more on the party depth, they’re a step above what KOTOR1’s crew are like, but still aren’t quite as intriguing as I’d like them to be. There’s Zin Bu, who’s really just the everpresent merchant that allows you to stock up on any new items, sort of like how it was done in ME1’s Normandy Requisition Officer and DAO’s Bodahn. The aforementioned comedic relief Henpecked Hou, a cook who used to partake in the Drunken Master style, having stories that revolve around his harmful relationship with his wife mixed with bad luck shenanigans, which is like… fine, but not really fulfilling. Black Whirlwhind’s the gung-ho axe warrior who’s expositions revolve around his oddjobs and how they end in gratuitous and violent outcomes. Again, this is fine, even got me to chuckle, but there’s not enough substance to last, and his arc that becomes available in the Imperial City’s Arena feels so haphazardly inserted, like there was supposed to be more but got harshly truncated. Sky, a devilish yet heartfelt rogue, is just a guy you pick up, has a backstory with his daughter and family but this doesn’t really go anywhere - in fact, numerous times I have stumbled upon wikis sourcing that Chris Priestly, part of the quality assurance team, detailed how Sky was supposed to more within his arc and development until it was all cut before release. I can’t exactly verify it since the forum has shut down and from hitting multiple dead ends on Wayback Machine, but it really wouldn’t surprise me since not only would this explain the rather bewildering cutscene interaction near the end, but his arc feels very much like a prototype that Zevran in Dragon Age would utilize. Wild Flower and Kang are probably the best executed when it comes to this simpler approach, these two have their own sets of interactions you have to delve into either in dialogue or concocting different formulas in Lord Lao’s Furnace, pertaining to Flower’s spirit demon dilemma of Chai Ka and Ya Zhen as well as Kang’s lost memories resurfacing with each success, and the completion of these arcs are wrapped up neatly and tightly. The only ones that have any amount of depth (excluding a few more due to spoilers) are Sagacious Zhu, the previously described Checkered Past Soldier, Dawn Star who’s your designated and also previously described Lawful Good companion, and Silk Fox, a self-assuring rebellious royal princess who hooks up to get to the bottom as to what’s happening as well. Thing is, they also don’t quite hit as well as they should because again, it feels like they’re suffering from a lack of development. Moments that should register as emotional climaxes, especially when it comes to Zhu’s musings and actions, don’t land enough of an impact due to this nagging feeling of an arc being fast-forwarded unto the conclusion - this is especially the case with Silk Fox, since you only recruit her to the team in Chapter 3, effectively the game’s mid-point. As for Dawn Star, well, she’s just utterly boring, nothing you haven’t really seen before especially in Bioware titles. The only real praise I can give is they at least feel like a unit, each of them have their own interjections they expound out loud, a step in the right direction after how hollow KOTOR1’s party interaction ended up, helping with the fact that you can direct SF, DS, and Sky onto the Closed Fist path as well - on that note, here’s what the general systems are like.

Since this is an action-RPG hybrid, Bioware’s usual streamline implementations make a lot more sense here, and eases up as to what the bare essentials are like for the stat side of the equation. You have three to manage, Body which relates to Health, Spirit ostensibly being Magic to harness Chi, and Mind ostensibly being Stamina to control Focus, with two combinations of them funneling into the three classic persuasion tactics, Charm, Intuition, and Intimidation. Both the persuasions and the stats can be increased or decreased with essence gems you plop onto your special Dragon Amulet, an important tool that also plays pretty heavily onto the plot, alongside other benefactors like evasion cost, XP additions, the (dis)frequent appearance of special orbs during combat, and other miscellaneous effects. As a result, build variety in this regard comes more into speccing two of the three stats, and slotting on gems that either enhance those, or boost other attributes, which you know what? Works super well for what it is. It’s nothing extravagant or managing as their other titles, but for the type of angle this is gearing towards, it works pretty damn well, and each time I thought that a particular scenario needed one of these stats to be higher, it was easy to answer as such. They also make for extremely easy money pooling considering you can trip over them in the world like it’s nothing. There’s also minigames you can participate in, most of them pertaining to a verti-shump heavily inspired by the likes of Legendary Wings, Xevious, and… Ikaruga?! Damn, I can’t believe Sheldon Carter was playing some kino shit before the design outlines. Anyway, these are alright, not at all challenging but serve their role as decent distractions fine enough, and a majority of them are completely optional meaning you can skip them to your heart’s content. A major detraction, however, is this game’s morality system. In layman’s terms, it’s the prelude to the original Mass Effect trilogy’s Paragon/Renegade binary, and if you’re not familiar with the trappings that entails, we’re presented with a misaligned and over-the-top Super Good vs. Extremely Evil choices instead of Idealized Unity vs. Pragmatic Survivalist. Sure, sometimes in the game you get choices that actually boxes them into these supposed categories, like Tien’s Landing’s fate either being about the central community of people or prospership from sailors and wayward souls, but in the forest above that town you’re subjugated into either helping a tricky yet well-meaning fox spirit, or actual, literal cannibal demons. So, ya know, not really thought out! I suppose a silver lining is that, some of these Closed Fist prompts are so outlandishly cruel and insane, that playing a route purely dedicated to this would make for one of the funniest experiences in a Bioware title. I’ve seen and dabbled some of these in action, it’s actually kind of a riot even if it’s unintentionally so.

Deo Perez and Aidan Scanlan go over the process about the kinematic inspirations and mechanics of combat, although, and this could be my upbringing of the Odyssey Engine titles clouding my sight, despite being a new engine this feels like an overhaul of those entries’ action-queue lineup to be more real-time and cutting down on the waiting. I played this whole thing on K+M controls though so maybe I’m just insane. I digress, this is likely one of their better combat systems solely cause it’s easy to break in half. With Chi being able to heal you upon held use and Focus being a slow-mo ability that trickles down (yes this is as useful as it sounds), you have seven style branches to choose from, Martial, Weapon, Magic, and Transformation are all damage-inducing techs, with Support being self-explanatory along with two unique ones that don’t fall into any of that. You upgrade each of a skill’s three attributes somewhat akin to a TTRPG spreadsheet, getting enough points on level ups to fulfill the required amount for augmentation. Despite the rather awkward motions and inputs, the actual moment-to-moment fighting isn’t all that bad, honestly, I’d even say when it all comes together it can be pretty invigorating. When participating as intended it can be pretty fun flipping, blocking, and changing into different techs for all sorts of actions. The problem is that, of the titles in this era of Bioware, this game is the easiest to break. See, you’re likely to end up sticking with the same 3-5 styles throughout the venture, only because you like their approaches or because they’re just outright broken (more on this in a bit). On the one hand, this is an understanding compromise, since wuxia and martial media are all about using the same pool of abilities at all times with little deviations and variations upon them. On the other hand, this thought process falls off hard because the hierarchy of combat prowess is incredibly lopsided, DPS with mid-long reaches and fast animation being favored over pure might with slow startups or stubby punches with weak range. Legendary Strike has cool kicks and motions, but I tossed it aside since Leaping Tiger is much faster and longer reach to close the gap on enemies. The staff is pretty good for foes that are either in front of or a bit away from you, but it gets obfuscated by twin axes in the midgame that do the same job yet better. Mirabelle, a unique GUN style obtained as an optional reward from a quest involving John Cleese’s character, is utterly broken cause it does great damage even starting out, and has an animation cancel that’s supremely easy to figure out and abuse, to the point of outright stunlocking an opponent with ease including the final boss! And that’s just with Martial and Weapons, don’t get me started on Magic, Support, and Transformations, including the Jade Golem and Storm Dragon styles! Even disregarding all of that, the enemy AI in general doesn't really put up much resistance. I played on Normal from start to finish, and despite a rough beginning, the skill curve plateaus since you can easily figure out then exploit enemy patterns and movements, block or flip to the side, then start to whale on them back - and like I said at the beginning, Special Edition supposedly rebalances the difficulty, but I didn’t really feel a difference or a desire to change up my tactics. Once again, I’ll point you all towards Mark Darrah’s comment.

It’s been a good week or so since finishing Jade Empire, and it’s been on my mind for all that time. It’s a weird title, feeling half-baked despite all the effort and love placed into it, with all its charm and ideas hitting just right, and the overall execution still tight enough to make for an entertaining and good time. In an old GamesIndustry article I once linked, Greg Zeschuk had lamented that, if they could’ve held it off for just a bit longer, perhaps they could’ve made it an Xbox 360 launch release, a unique opportunity for both the company as well as a better foothold for the game to plant itself in. Even with that, multiple of the old staffers have expressed in interest in revisiting the IP, and there’s been uncoverings of canceled plans for a successor, getting to the point that art director Matt Rhodes had shared concept arts both on his Instagram and ArtStation pages. Despite all of this… nothing has come about since, and with the way Bioware has been careening downward towards potential closing, I don’t think it ever will unfortunately. This is what’ll make recommending it somewhat difficult and tricky; do you want to play a game that, despite its untapped potential and unlikely chance of revival, is unique in most cases amongst its peers to make up for it? Are you a Bioware nut that just has to play all of their games no matter what? Have a weekend's break and want to spend it succinctly? Do you just want an excuse to nerd out over all the Chinese implementations and culture? Then go right ahead! At the end of it all, the worst you’ll feel is underwhelming disappointment, with the best being the enamourment of a captivating space.