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Jade Empire - SE Review @ 2404.org

by Dhruin, 2007-03-09 20:09:21

2404's review has a laundry list of shortcomings in Jade Empire Special Edition but doesn't stop it from getting a score of 8.3/10, courtesy of the excellent dialogue and quests:

Fast-paced as it may be, the fighting in Empire is not exactly cerebral, so the D&D or Final Fantasy geeks (guilty of the latter!) won’t find stat nirvana here.  That said, at least it’s original.  By contrast, everything having to do with dialogue or quests is lifted directly from KOTOR.  Replace the Sith with “the Way of the Closed Fist,” the Jedi with “Way of the Open Palm,” streamline the dialogue options a bit, surgically excise and burn KOTOR’s tumor-like outgrowth of quest-related bugs, and you’ve got the derivative but solid story engine of Jade Empire.  It’s a good thing BioWare has perfected this aspect of its gameplay, because city exploration, quest management, and talking occupy by far more time than combat.  The dialogue is as brief or as involved as you want it to be; the quest journal is crystal-clear in its organization; and the quests are plot-pertinent yet numerous.  Personally, I had a blast with this game’s quests and dialogue portions just as I did with KOTOR’s – sure, it’s more of the same, but it’s improved even further, and it’s not like any other game does it nearly as well.

Information about

Jade Empire: SE

SP/MP: Single-player
Setting: Fantasy
Genre: Action-RPG
Platform: PC, Xbox
Release: Released


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