Jade Empire (PC)

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Anyone playing this ? I'm having a blast so far, a whole new RPG experience the way i see it. The game also kinda reminds me of the gameplay in KotOR, especially all the cutscenes and dialogue options. All in all a great find i must say.

 

A blast indeed, this is the best CRPG for the PC from Bioware along with Baldur's Gate saga.

9.5/10, superb. It would be perfect if it would have a slightly better character development and re-rendered cutscenes.

Edit: Ops, how did I mix Black Isle and Bioware...

[ March 04, 2007, 16:58: Message edited by: Erod ]

 

Is the game buggy for PC? Its already down to £17.99 on play.com for the special edition. Usually new games cost under £25 if they are crap, like Stronghold 2.

 

well the game is hardly new, seeing as it was an old xbox game. and sendit.com usual start around 18£ for all new games, so thats hardly a factor

 

It is very well finished, apart from a few annoying bugs that you may experience, but which are easily circumvented (Autorun installer not working, configuration tool not working). There have been complaints about save game corruption (a notorious Bioware games problem...) and a few smaller things on the official forums, but I had not experienced any of these by the time I had finished the game.

The game is a real bargain at the current price, I bought it from Play.com as well.

 

To be honest, i haven't encountered a single bug yet, and i have finished the game twice already. A bargain in every way. I sure hope there's going to be a sequel in the near future.

Btw...what's everyone's favourite style of fighting ? I play with Furious Ming, and make most use of the "thousand cuts" style. This guy is lightning fast and can drop the biggest opponents with a series of punches with his bare nuckles.

 

I have just started my second time through and I have not had any problems with bugs either.

Overall I would say that it was quite good. The game is a little short but I would say it is definitely worth playing.

I am finding that I am liking legendary strike a lot more than I did thousand cuts. Cuts' range is just too short where as my kicks using legendary strike have better range and power and are still pretty quick.

I actually ended up virtually abandoning thousand cuts in my first game. I was mostly using staves but for hand to hand I switched over to using iron palm. It had better range and does some serious damage.

 

I basically only used Thousand Cuts (it has a short range but you counter it by jumping/moving around a lot) and the Sword as the Weapon style when completing the game on the first run. The other Martial Arts styles were too slow and clumsy for my liking. Support and Magic styles were nice but useless. I did not even try the Transformation styles. Maybe there will be a need to use more styles with the Jade Master difficulty setting, we will see...

 

I'm currently playing it with Lu the Prodigy (balanced character) and i'm at chapter 3, just ended the qualifying rounds in the Arena and started the Black Leopard School sidequest.
My main styles are Legendary Strike and Storm Dragon... Using the area attack of Storm Dragon iniciates an harmonic combo, which is awesome because making an area attack is much quicker than making a strong attack (the usual trigger for harmonic combos).

 

What is the indication that you are performing a Harmonic Combo anyway? I can't seem to understand it\perform one... (any lighting changes, fancy fx's... any notifiers whatsoever?)

 

You start it with a specific Magic or Support style attack, then continue with a Martial Arts strong attack. There should be a small indicator that counts down between the attacks. I did not use harmonic combos myself, as there was no need to use them.

 

Yeah I found them too cumbersome to bother with. Maybe on the special Jade Master difficulty level you might need them.

On my second time through I really specialized with my skills - I maxed legendary strike, two sword style, spirit thief, jade golem, and almost maxed storm dragon.

I quickly found that jade golem is absurdly overpowered. You are immune to magic and support styles, armoured like a tank and you hit like a ton of bricks. First time around the final boss was a really tough fight - second time around using jade golem it was over in seconds. The same was true of the second last boss - in my first game he put up a pretty decent fight but using jade golem style it was as easy as taking rum from a baby.

Edit: Oh and my character managed to pull off a three way with Dawn Star and Silk Fox. I then reloaded and tried to take the options to actually choose one of the two instead of being indecisive and as it turns out if you have managed to get that far courting both of them and then finally make a decision they both dump you.

I would have to say that Black Whirlwind's solo mission in chapter six is the highlight of the game. His quest journal is hilarious and you got to love dishing out some serious carnage.

[ March 31, 2007, 08:58: Message edited by: JSBB ]

 

Aye aye, Black Whirlwind is great, his stories are great too, with exploding rats and whatnot .

 

Third time through I went with closed fist path with Tiger Shen. I maxed White Demon, dual axe style, and jade golem. I had to keep fighting an urge to yell out Hulk Smash!

White Demon is a bit awkward at first but once you get the hang of it you can really dish out some serious damage. The axes were nice enough but they were pretty much the same as using Black Whirlwind. I maxed a couple of support/magic styles too but I never really used them.

 

I just bought it and payed a little, I just finished beating the hell out of the bandits in Two River's Beach. I got to say; impressive. And I would really suggest playing with a gamepad it's really a better option.

 

Yeah I can't even imagine trying to play without a gamepad although for some reason mine seems to have problems with the right stick so I generally use the gamepad for fighting and the mouse/keyboard for exploring.

 

I have some gamepads, but I did not use any, or even think of using any for this. The basic keyboard + mouse combo never fails. Besides, the Microsoft and Logitech gamepads that I have are crap, unfortunately.

 

Really? I've a logitech gamepad and I've no problem at all. I'm using for everything really, combat and exploration. I just sit in the sofa and play like any console game, only it's on the PC!

 

Yes, it is a Logitech Dual Action gamepad. It is advertised as the "ultimate precision instrument". Right... the 8-way D-pad is simply horrible, it is almost impossible to get any precision with it. Additionally, the right analog stick suffers from the design/construct flaw, which makes it useless.

The other is a Microsoft SideWinder Freestyle Pro, back from 1998, still works perfectly. Its 8-way D-pad is as useless as Logitech's. It is also quite clumsy to use. But it has motion sensing technology in it, long before Nintendo "invented" it with Wii. Although, it too, is quite useless.

But so much for ranting about gamepads, as the game was originally designed for the Xbox, it is quite understandable that you might want to use a gamepad over the basic mouse + keyboard combo. The problem for me is, that there simply are not any good gamepads for the PC, maybe I should buy an adapter and use a PS2 gamepad... but why bother, since you can simply use a mouse and a keyboard.

 

I've a logitech dual action and I really don't see the problem you're talking about. Maybe your standard are too high, I find it quite good really. Are you sure it's this one? (It's the model I own btw)