Ever since Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was released on U.S. shores, I have been a huge fan of Wuxia films. They manage to capture style and grace far better than any American film, and the stories are beautiful, almost poetic. I regret to say that Jade Empire does not capture these elements quite as well. There are certain parts of the game that remind me of the films, but overall, the prodcut is fairly Americanized. There's nothing graceful or poetic about Jade Empire. In fact, it doesn't do one single thing very well. But, it does have various things done well enough, which create an excellent action/adventure game. It is very misleading to call this an action/RPG, since leveling up your character is a fairly shallow part of the game. It's main strength, by any stretch of the mind, is the story.
Before you start your adventure, you must pick your character. Each character comes with certain stats and styles, but this can be customized, thus making each character nothing more than a skin. I picked Tiger Shen, since he reminded me of Li Mu Bai from CTHD. The character you pick is the star pupil of Master Li, a kindly old man who heads up a martial arts school far from the prying eyes of the Empire. Your best friend is Dawn Star, a pupil brought to the school shortly after you. She will aid you throughout your long journey. A band of assassins raids your village and kills everyone there, kidnapping Master Li in the process. Time to hand out some vengeance!
There are essentially two variations in gameplay. If you aren't fighting, you're probably talking to someone, and extensive dialogue trees allow you to have some very interesting combinations. Films of this nature would have the hero delicately maneuvering through combat and defying nature in the process. This game is little more than a brawler. Sure, there are martial arts styles, weapon styles, magic styles and transformation styles, but each only comes with two moves. A strong attack, and a normal attack. They cannot be combined to create cool combos. It's either three average hits, or one strong hit. Support styles can be combined with martial arts to create an explosive harmonic combo, but due to the game's ease, they are never needed. Players can block and leap around using the B button, which accounts for the games ease. It's quite simple to punch your enemy a few times, leap over, and just do the same thing before he turns around. When they block, just use a strong attack to shatter it, since they will never come out of a block stance while you're powering up with the exception of a few bosses. I cannot stress enough that it is nearly impossible to die in this game. A few of the styles are awesome to watch in action, such as dual axes, which send heads flying left and right, or Dire Flame, which summons a small dragon and spews flame over an area. Magic consumes chi, and the player can also enter Focus mode, which a fancy term for bullet-time. Not very inspired, but can be helpful for those rare times when you're near death. Also important to your quest will be your followers. All of your followers will aid you throughout the game in a certain way. For example, the Black Whirlwind has axes that cut down the heartiest foes, but if you don't let him fight, he can't help you. Dawn Star will replenish your chi if you instruct her to support you, and Hou will toss out bottles of wine to you so you can learn the drunken master style. Each follower is hilarious enough in there own way, and you can also romance a few of them.
Leveling up happens when you defeat enemies or gain more knowledge from books or other people. When you level up, you gain three points to put towards your Mind, your Body and your soul... I mean Spirit. These three things increase your health, chi and focus bars. They also increase your intimidation, charm of intuition, which can be used in conversation. Through conversation, you will often determine whether or not you follow the Way of the Open Palm or Closed Fist. Many side missions come from conversing, and the story can be greatly altered depending on which Path you walk. If you follow the Open Palm, you may choose to close a dam, allowing the river to return to a town since no one there can fight for themselves. If you are Closed Fist, you would make sure that the dam stays open because the town is full of weaklings that should learn to fight for themselves. I thought the story itself was a lot better with Open Palm, thought Closed Fist was very interesting. Unlike a game like Fable, the story actually shifts if you become the villain with a several twists in the game that I never saw coming. You can even be neutral, although that isn't much fun.
The graphics are extremely good, but again, cannot capture the style of the films. Rather than a realistic yet mythical feel, I felt as though a lot of the characters were very animated... like a cartoon almost. The environments, on the other hand, do capture some of the spirit found in the films. My favorite was an old forest, full of broken headstones and crumbling temples. Also unique was the Imperial City, which is a city of stone that has hanging lanterns strewn overheard. The environments are the real stars, and the rest is just above average. The sound, however, is well above. The game has full voice acting, which is very rare for a game of this type. And to top it all off, the acting is great. The main character doesn't speak, of course, but that can be looked past. The music is phenomenal as well, like it was ripped right from the movies. It can be calm and tranquil, scary, thundering, there's a tune for just about every aspect of the game.
Jade Empire is far from a perfect game, and has a considerable amount of flaws. It doesn't have the grace or elegance of Wuxia films, no fights atop bamboo forests or in a field full of flowers. But it does have a certain charm that just appeals to me, and will to a lot of gamers as well. It certainly isn't the best in it's category, but it is very good. I spent three play-throughs knowing the flaws, and yet I still kept coming back for more. That's got to say something about the spirit of this game.