Alright, to start off, i really have no idea what these other people's comments are trying to say. Pseudo-Chinese? for that matter it could be pseudo-anything. Halo 2? its a completely different genre and can't really be compared (if you did though, multiplayer in a game will ultimately win out, especially if its as good as halo 2's is...). So the only conclusion that i can come up with is that all these people work for bioware. HOWEVER, don't get me wrong, i enjoyed my time with this game, but it was a THOROUGHLY AVERAGE GAME. There's three attacks with every combat "style" (normal, power, area) and there are a grand total of 5 animations for each "style" as well (though the transformation styles may have less...). But there are a fair number of different styles but it just so happens that a number of them are more or less worthless. I know that someone else made a comment about keeping "KOTOR" out of his comment. The problem with keeping it out is that it has a very similar feel to KOTOR except the combat is real-time. What happens then is that you can kinda beej the game and make it really really easy (if you really want to make it difficult try and do the game without getting hit... that might actually be a challenge... but the game is an RPG and i guess its more storytelling that difficult...) and the same techniques work on every enemy no matter what style you use. Moving on, the story is actually fairly lacking and quite average. Nothing special and no real huge glaring holes, except some of the characters might get a little annoying. Each character does have their different quirks and traits though. My main problem with the game is that it is mind-numbingly simple. There is very little depth to the game at all. The "conversation skills" are directly related to a specific stat (intimidation with body, etc.). Other than that this game could have had so much more, but it doesn't. The combat could have been streamlined and more complex, but it wasn't. There could have been more items and better things for upgrading, but there wasn't. There could have been some variance in the weapons, but there wasn't (as a specific example, the sword you can get in the beginning later can be upgraded to a sword that adds 25% to the base damage or whatever, how about a weapon that does less damage but uses less focus, or a weapon that does a ton of damage but also hurts you a little to use it). The game could have had some interesting items that helped, but didn't (armor such as gloves, boots, helmets, clothes, loincloth, and so on, stuff that wouldn't have covered up the body either). The game constantly wants you to make choices but the thing to do is so obvious that there might as well not be a choice. For example, there are "techniques" that are permanent bonuses to your stats, some you get automatically and some are bought from merchants. In general those that are bought from merchants generally have a positive and a negative effect but the negative effect is usually so minor that it has no effect (the benefit is often pretty minor as well but they add up...), why couldn't they actually make you make a choice... "should i get this even though its a big plus to my preferential stat and a big minus to the other stats?" I feel they took the KOTOR style and really simplified it. Hopefully this will be modified a bit in the second game of the series (which it will have for xbox360 once they are done or further along with mass effect, i also hope they don't treat mass effect this way either... that game looks awesome so far...).
All in all, the experience of the game was pleasant, but there really was NOTHING to separate this game from many of the other RPG's out there, especially not KOTOR. If you enjoyed KOTOR though, you should also enjoy Jade Empire.
All in all, the experience of the game was pleasant, but there really was NOTHING to separate this game from many of the other RPG's out there, especially not KOTOR. If you enjoyed KOTOR though, you should also enjoy Jade Empire.