Late in the game, the player is presented with one extremely important choice that will determine the fate of the Jade Empire. After completing the "Open Palm" route, I carefully tried to adhere to the "Closed Fist" approach, threading my way through the game's dialogue and choosing whatever came closest to the "tough love" philosophy. This was reflected in a nearly complete Closed Fist meter, but when I decided to restore the harmonic balance of the Empire at the end, the meter shot up to just short of a perfect Open Palm rating, and I got the "good" ending and postscripts. How could that one choice obliterate all the monstrous deeds I had done to get to that point? Ultimately, it made all the choices I had made in the game feel meaningless; I did replay and make a different choice to get the "bad" ending, but by that point it felt hollow.
​