[Spoilers] Shallow Old Human Tourist Hit the beach!

[Katinka]

I ended up writing this review for Hitru. Whoopsie. 


Game: Jade Empire
Released: 2005 (Xbox), 2007 (PC)
First played: 2007 (PC)
Personal rating: * * * * My first BioWare RPG, the heart-warming oriental nostalgia. Would kung-fu again.

TL;DR: Third-person, action-RPG set in ancient China with fantasy elements. Think wuxia.
 

It would be suitable for Jade Empire to be reviewed after Knights of the Old Republic, since they are both RPG games developed by BioWare and KOTOR was published before Jade Empire, but let’s stick to the alphabetical order.

Jade Empire’s was the first original world to be built by BioWare after they had previously worked only on license games. The world draws heavily from Chinese mythology and the culture of ancient China. The world has some fantasy elements: although magic users are relatively rare, devoted monks or martial artists can perform amazing feats through their Chi energy, and humans live side by side with strange monsters and mystical creatures.

You, the protagonist, are the star pupil of a martial arts master, living in a small village. You get to choose your characters name and gender and choose their appearance from a handful of options. You start humble and embark on an adventure after your village is attacked. During your adventure, you gain friends and gather allies, make decisions and complete a good amount of side quests.

Jade Empire utilizes the same kind of third-person gameplay and ally-gathering elements as KOTOR, but has real-time combat, which makes it kind of an action RPG. As you gain levels, you distribute points between a couple of attributes and different martial arts fighting styles, you know the drill. The only thing missing from a complete RPG experience is an inventory grid. Jade Empire has similar morale system, dialogue system and romance plots that BioWare used before in KOTOR and developed further in Dragon Age and Mass Effect series.

All in all, Jade Empire has a beautiful and rich oriental setting, interesting characters and villains and a quite decent plotline with a very memorable twist.

You can pick Jade Empire up on Steam summer sale for under 4 euros, so if you’re a BioWare fan and can handle the graphics and the now clunky controls, it’s worth experiencing.

I’ll return to write about Morrowind when the time comes. It would have been very appropriate for Morrowind to have been your small, northern fishing village with only little usable land, but I guess it was not meant to be.