Jade's twitch-based combat isn't nearly as compelling as its fiction; brawls essentially boil down to button mashing, as you assail opponents with alternating weak/strong attacks. You can swap fighting styles on the fly, though you'll likely find yourself dumping all of your experience points into two or three stances and just running exclusively with those. For a game whose story hinges so much on the martial arts, Jade's strangely devoid of tactical depth or challenge; bumping the difficulty slider just swings things to the other extreme, and the on-demand Focus mode (read: bullet time) acts as an all-powerful panic button that trumps almost any foe you'll ever face. Oh, and the various traveling companions you hook up with (who run the gamut from a drifter to demon-child) make combat even less challenging.
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