Although Jade Empire is an interesting experience, its hampered by annoying combat controls and a lack of longevity.
The story of Jade Empire comes off as derivative. The character that is chosen has to chase after their master after their martial arts school and village is burned down by an army of mercenaries. Through the story, the player will meet other important characters that can tag along (and some of them are optional depending on your alignment) to support the player in battle. There's not much else that can be said about the story that will fall into spoiler territory due to a healthy amount of plot twists throughout the journey. That being said, the minor bits of the story are filled with unique humor and excellent voice acting.
The character choice is a negative in Jade Empire. There's only a handful of characters to choose from and their outfits will remain the same no matter what. In Knights of the Old Republic, the player was able to change the outfits of all who accompanied them. However, the options to customize the character's statistics and name are still present so it doesn't become a massive demerit.
Given the setting of the story, the sound design for Jade Empire is superb. Each area has its own traditional Asian background song and the sound effects are booming with emphasis. To tell the truth, the sound is so excellent that it wouldn't be a stretch to say that most people would turn their TV's sound up to hear the music.
As for the gameplay, Jade Empire plays like a complicated game of rock, paper, scissors. This approach to combat is a fresh one for BioWare and its nice to see how nicely it flows.
There are three bars to look out for:
1. Health
2. Chi (magic)
3. Mind (focus)
Also, there are four main styles of combat:
1. Martial
2. Support
3. Weapon
4. Magic
Martial styles are techniques that involve no blades and can damage any enemy. Support styles don't effect certain enemies but cause status effects on those they do. Weapon styles don't work on certain enemies but do massive damage to those they do and they also drain focus with each swing. Last of all, magic styles work on all enemies but they drain chi quickly.
The followers accompanying the player through the story all have their own personalities, abilities, and combat skills. Some of the followers are noncombatants that only provide certain services (transport, sales, etc.) but most can assist the player in a fight. The followers can support you by either attacking the enemies or sitting out of battle and restoring the player's stats. Most of the time, support seems like a better option since the enemies will ignore a support character and focus their attacks on the player's character alone. Due to the amount of minor conflicts Jade Empire provides, the difficulty won't change noticeably.
Jade Empire's version of instant statistic bonuses is Essence Gems. In the first hour of the game, the player's character will receive an amulet that allows three essence gems to upgrade certain statistics or allow new abilities. The gems can also help build conversational skills that increase the player's chances of unlocking new solutions through certain dialogue choices (whether they would be through charm, intimidation, or intuition). As the player progresses through the story, more slots will be available and there's a decent amount of interesting combinations to inject some strategy into the gameplay.
One aspect that hasn't changed in BioWare's formula is a good/evil system that comes in the form of the Ways of the Open Hand/Closed Fist. The Way of the Open Palm is the same as the good side and the Way of the Closed Fist is the same as the evil side. While there's no actual statistical bonuses for going either way on the spectrum, each side has its own specific quests and styles that provide a small bit of replay value to the mix.
With such a magnificent combat system, there can't be any flaws, right? Wrong. There are a couple problems that are so annoying in Jade Empire's combat they start to drain the experience in the first few battles. These couple of problems caused a few game overs and plenty of frustrating moments that made every battle seem like a chore (even though I was on the easiest difficulty).
First off, the biggest problem is trying to hit an enemy. It takes a very long time to get used to how far your techniques reach (I still couldn't gauge the proper reach during the last battle) and special magic attacks have such little accuracy that they might as well not be used at all. In fact, the attacks had such little accuracy that the character was flailing around and swatting flies until some poor enemy waltzed into my man-made blender of doom.
The second issue is only having one follower help the player in battle at a time. Sure, some followers can hold their own for most battles and there are a few occasions where the player will do all the work themselves but some battles cause them to die in less than 10 seconds. Alright, that should be understandable if it was a boss battle but they kept dying in small battles with enemies that could be defeated in less than four strikes! The most annoying part of having a follower is that you can only heal them if you also have damage. Thankfully, the health issue can be resolved after each battle since their bar instantly regenerates after each conflict.
Overall, Jade Empire feels like a rushed project by a bored BioWare that wanted to explore new waters. Still, the negatives aren't nearly as obvious as the positives so its worth a try. However, if you don't try Jade Empire you won't be missing out on anything new.