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