Jade Empire is better than whatever shit you're playing

[good fucking shit happen]

E.g the recent Ghost Of Thushima, made by a US developer, was so well received for it's take on Japan in Japan, that it has Japanese game directors expressing amazement in public that such a game wasn't made by the Japanese themselves.

It was so Japanese that western blogfag reviewers didn't like it.

 

[Nutria]

BioWare is just kind of shit at action gameplay, and they decided to make an action game.

It seems to me they made a conscious decision around then that they had to start making action games because that's what the market wanted. The sad thing is that they couldn't do action right until about ME3, and by then they had completely forgotten how to have a good story.

Jade Empire is kind of like this weird little showcase where BioWare displays what they're best and worst at at the same time.

Exactly. I think that more than having a big hit, they were trying to demonstrate their abilities to investors or something. And unfortunately their ability to make action games turned out to suck.

The minigames are something they also did in KOTOR with the swoop bike races and the turret scenes. I recall Avellone saying those were a big waste of resources considering how much effort was needed to get them right. I'm not sure why Bioware in that era was insistent on them.

something like that Ōkami game that'd come almost exactly a year later

Look, if you play Japanese games about being an okama, that's great. But don't go around saying that the rest of need to enjoy them.

 

[Bastardchops]

Breaking!!! Bioware have just announced their newest title in development. They're partnering with Tencent on what looks to be an excellent action rpg in an Asian setting. It's a sequel to Anthem titled Chinese National Anthem. It's got it all! Lootcrates! Android/IOS compatible! In built spy features operated by the State Security Service!!! Did I mention you can be TRANS!!! You're the property of Amazon!!!

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

In KotOR I think the minigames worked for them. The racing bit was ok, and the turret stuff wasn't bad...or at least it was very short. But with Jade Empire it's just the worst example of what it's doing I've ever played. It's just horrible. Completely terrible. It's like a shooter made by people that have never played one before; or like a shooter made by someone who fell in love with scrolling shooters but it turns out the only one they've ever played is the worst scrolling shooter ever made until BioWare came along an supplanted it.

I'm not exactly sure how much of that can solely be chalked up BioWare just getiting into action to build a portfolio. I mean, surely that's an aspect of it, they get bought up by that group that Bono was part of the year Jade Empire comes out, and they get sold to EA (and the guy running that group ends up taking over EA with that sale) a few years later, maybe five years after being bought. But the doctors also seemed to love action. One of the doctors said in a interview they thought GTA San Andreas was the best RPG (or one of the best) around, so I don't think the move into even more action focused systems can just been taken as business. Although given how much they seemed to love San Andreas it's too bad they never teamed up with Pandemic Studios to make some kind of open world sandbox RPG back when they were grouped together. Shit, it's too bad they didn't work on Mass Effect with them give how bad the shooting, open area sections, and driving were in the game.

I've never played Ōkama. I'm just talking visuals. Visually it's a pretty fantastic looking game, and incidentallay it came out not all that long after Jade Empire, was on weaker hardware, and actually hits what BioWare at least said they were going for...even if that isn't something you can tell by actually looking at Jade Empire.

 

[anvi]

Who gives a fuck about mini games? You can even skip it.

 

[Reinhardt]

But you can't skip shittiest of them - kumfu.

 

[Derringer]

Ghosts of Tsushima looks like one of the better Sony open world clones with samurais compared to shit like Horizon Dawn Zero which is just a blatant progressive BotW clone. Okami's a good game and really fucking long, longer than your typical 3D zelda.

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

Jade Empire is not a better RPG than the non-rpg Red Dead Redemption 2. It sure as shit doesn't look better either. Fucking retard.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

It's great. That world needed a sequel.

 

[baud]

It's great. That world needed a sequel.

I wouldn't call it great, but a sequel could have been nice (but not by current-days Bioware)

 

[anvi]

Jade Empire is not a better RPG than the non-rpg Red Dead Redemption 2. It sure as shit doesn't look better either. Fucking retard.

Lol yes it is... that is a degenerate open world popamole console game for dipshits! It is barely an RPG at all. It is nice looking though, I'll give you that, of all the things you could be playing in the world, you picked a shitty Rockstar game with nice graphics, and then you come to rpgcodex to call people retards.

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

Jade Empire is not a better RPG than the non-rpg Red Dead Redemption 2. It sure as shit doesn't look better either. Fucking retard.

Lol yes it is... that is a degenerate open world popamole console game for dipshits! It is barely an RPG at all. It is nice looking though, I'll give you that, of all the things you could be playing in the world, you picked a shitty Rockstar game with nice graphics, and then you come to rpgcodex to call people retards.

Outside of picking your character model out of presets, RDR2 has the same exact amount of C&C as Jade Empire since you always have good / evil C&C. Outside of that, the immersive elements are miles ahead of Jade Empire so it wins there, and you seem to at least agree with the gfx shit.

Now, the point of all this was not to cuck for RDR2 or R*. I did so to demonstrate the degree of presumptious retardedness in the OP. As I said, "The non-RPG RDR2 is a better RPG than Jade Empire" and i stand by it. You really gotta ask yourself, is this the hill you wanna die on? Because that my friend, is retarded.

 

[anvi]

Still no, Jade Empire has tons of different builds that completely change how your character plays. It's no Neverwinter Nights or something, but for an action game it is pretty good and the combat is good, and most importantly, it is much better than anything shitty Rockstar ever made. Except for maybe GTA1. You can stand by what you like but I know you barely know this game like most people who replied!

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

Still no, Jade Empire has tons of different builds that completely change how your character plays. It's no Neverwinter Nights or something, but for an action game it is pretty good and the combat is good, and most importantly, it is much better than anything shitty Rockstar ever made. Except for maybe GTA1. You can stand by what you like but I know you barely know this game like most people who replied!

Bullshit. I actually beaten it several times and like it. On other hand you make fun of RDR2 for being console popamole when Jade Empire was originally developed for the XBOX alone and was only ported to the PC later. So if anything, they are both console popamole. The build variety in JE boils down to picking your fighting style which in the whole scheme of things, is rarely more than a preference thing. I think an RPG should do way more than that to be worthy of the title. Like I said, RDR 2 is not an RPG, but it does do a lot you expect from the best of them. It has a morality system, side quests, C&C - some times major, autistic attention to detail to enhance immersion, stats for items and horses etc. etc.

 

[anvi]

So does Need 4 Speed.

 

[baud]

yeah, you can choose between using a sword or a long stick, then go through a handful of linear upgrade.

Also one issue is that each combat style is upgraded separately, so it gives incentive to focus on a handful of styles only.
Though I appreciated that companions could be set either to fight with you or be on support mode (though some were restricted to one or the other), so that added another choice to make in combat. And that one of your companions wasn't a fighter, so that allowed to have some variety of profile

Regarding the pacing the game, I felt that there should have been another city/hub after completing the assassin fortress (or imperial palace).

 

[Ash]

lol Jade Empire is shit. Every Bioware game is shit.

 

[anvi]

How DARE you!

 

[Poseidon00]

I really did enjoy Jade Empire a lot and have replayed it a few times over the years. A damn shame it was the shortest one of the good Bioware rpgs from that era. The variety of styles was nice, from weapons to martial arts to magic. I usually stuck with transformation, using Toad or Elephant demons until I got the golem.

The whole background lore of the world was well done and it's a damn shame it never got a sequel exploring more of it. A more refined combat system and simply more to do would have made it truly great.

 

[Morgoth]

Remember guys, Jade 2 would have been a thing if Bioware didn't have to throw all their manpower to finish SWTOR and thus thwart JE2 entirely. Fucking MMOs.

 

[Poseidon00]

Remember guys, Jade 2 would have been a thing if Bioware didn't have to throw all their manpower to finish SWTOR and thus thwart JE2 entirely. Fucking MMOs.

Killed two promising RPG series with one move. Kotor was the first and last time the Star Wars universe interested me.

 

[anvi]

All that for an MMO I quit after about 30 minutes.

 

[Poseidon00]

I liked the whole idea of the Spirit Monk in Jade Empire, so much so that years later I named the class of my first Morrowind character Spirit Monk, and played similarly to my Jade Empire character with the same general powers. If you like those old 80's martial arts flicks there's basically nothing you won't like about JE.

 

[gurugeorge]

In my current course of running through "middle period" BioWare (after doing KOTOR 2 and running through KOTOR currently, and having done ME a wee while ago), I've gotten into this.

It really deserves more love, but I think the combat just didn't seem to suit most people. Maybe it falls between two stools too much, or something. It's partly "press a button and something awesome happens" (though not quite awesome enough to be fully in that genre), and partly "you need to git gud" (but there's no high ceiling of skill compared to many other action combat games).

Meh, it's good enough for me, there is a bit of a skill level and learning to it, and enough variation in styles between, say, Thousand Cuts (fast) and White Demon (slow) to keep it feeling varied. But the main thing is the quests. Some of them are really very dark indeed. Like, I was just doing the thing with the orphan ghosts and the flood, and I teared up a bit when

Spoiler

the old man buried their bones.

And then on the other hand, you have something quite amusing with mildly witty dialogue, like

Spoiler

finding a husband for a gangstress.

It's all quite refreshing compared to the usual cliched European mediaeval fantasy paste.

There's a peculiar incongruity to it though - I mean, all the Asian stuff in it (the culture, mythology, magic, dress, buildings, etc.) seems to be pretty well researched (from my understanding of those things anyway), but it's all being delivered by whiny American accents and Valley Girl actresses and that type of thing. It's quite a weird effect really (I wonder what the VO was like for the Asian edition?)

I vaguely remember that there's a huge plot twist, though I don't remember the details of it; but I also vaguely remember seeing it coming a mile off at the time (it's kind of hinted in that the story you're given doesn't quite make sense, and the Water Dragon is giving you hints too).

 

[Pound Meat]

Lol imagine playing Jade Empire on something other than OG sexbox.

Game sucks because you can't wifu Dawn Star as a hot girl even though she's obviously meant to be with you.