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Official Jade Empire Thread

I think I just got the game spoiled for me on the GamefuckingFAQs board.

I found out that I would have to fight Master Li some time in the game

What. The. Fuck. I still remember I got KOTOR's hugeass plot twist spoiled for me on the GameFAQs board as well.

This better not be THE plot twist in the game. I seriously need to learn to avoid the GameFAQs boards. Goddamn kids........
 
Speevy said:
I've not played Baldur's Gate, but if it's that good, I probably will someday.

Among the PC Infinity engine games, Icewind Dale 1 & 2 have the best combat and Planescape Torment has the best story (by far!).

BG1 is good, but you should skip directly to BG2 if you're playing either, since it's better than part 1 in every respect and astonishingly long.

Both Torment & BG2 are MUST-PLAY, imo.
 
Mrbob said:
Oh nonnonono. It is much better because the story isn't bound to D&D setting. :D

It probably doesnt help matters that I find the Jade Empire backdrop to be kind of hokey and underdeveloped.

I kind of expected more than this from the storyline. It becomes too epic too fast, and it moves everything along in a relatively linear path (Chapters 2 & 3 are exceptionally linear compared to the free roaming chapters in the D&D games). The Shooter levels are lame as hell (much like the KOTOR minigames, I guess).

I wanted to be hopping across treetops like in Crouching Tiger... :-/

I am still having fun with the game, but it's the least of Bioware's efforts, imo.
 
I just reached the Black Leopard School in the Imperial City, and encountered a dialogue glitch talking to the Sixth Brother... Almost every one of his lines screws up near the end, with the last word either being half-said or not said at all. I thought maybe it was a loading problem (like it were loading up the next line too quickly), but the same thing happens when listening to the lines in the Dialogue Review menu, so it can't be that.

Has anybody else noticed this?

I guess I just want to know if it's a programming glitch, or if it's my copy... I'm hoping against the latter, as I'd hate to have the game start screwing up on me some 18 hours into it. :(

EDIT: This thread's pretty slow, so I'm braving GameFAQs with this question... I'd still appreciate any input here, though. :)
 
I've had several instances where dialogue wasn't read aloud or glitched like that. I haven't really had any problems though, so no worries, I think.
 
I've ran into that dialogue 'hiccup' as well and it seems to me it's more of a loading issue (launch Xbox w/Thompson drive owner here) than an acutal bug, but that's just my experience. However one thing I've noticed, and it's only happened maybe twice now, is that the character on the screen isn't always the one speaking and that the camera will sometimes cut a character's head off so I'm looking at just a torso. Again, this has happened only twice so far and it's a little goofy, but it's nothing too distracting. Overall, it seems Jade Empire is more stable than KOTOR was by a country mile.



And now for something completely different, how fucking fantastic is the music in this game? The Jade Empire theme is easily on par with the theme from Shenmue, imo. I just keep listening to it over and over. What a great soundtrack.
 
Hitler Stole My Potato said:
And now for something completely different, how fucking fantastic is the music in this game? The Jade Empire theme is easily on par with the theme from Shenmue, imo. I just keep listening to it over and over. What a great soundtrack.


Agreed completely.
 
I beat the game last night. The last boss was extremely easy. It took me about 24 hours to complete the game including most, if not all, of the quests.
 
oh, can someone tell me what the Flying quests in the Imperial City are like? More advanced minigames? Worth doing? Skipped them the first time.
 
golem said:
oh, can someone tell me what the Flying quests in the Imperial City are like? More advanced minigames? Worth doing? Skipped them the first time.

They are the same shooter flying mini-game. They are nice and give you both money and experience, so I say it's worth it. They're also reasonably easy to complete.
 
I am 12 hours in, I am in the Imperial City and I have
gained the recommendation of the Lotus Inquisitor
, but I am still
fighting in the arena in order to gain more experience
. I really like this game, way more than KOTOR and I really dug that game.
 
John Cleese's character >> *

Holy shit that was funny! I loved every bit of that sequence. Notice that his breast plate had a picture of a hunk of cheese with a fork stuck in it? I gotta play that again. :p
 
Just got my copy, stuck it in straight away. Only played for 20 minutes or so, only thing i can really comment on is the graphics. I picked Furious Ming as my character just 'cause of the hilarious name, i might change though, his character model looks really dumb in game.

Gotta say wow, in the movies and trailers the game looked kinda washed out but on my TV is looks awesome, and the lighting on the characters looks amazing...off to play more. If theres anything i should do/do not do at the start of the game please let me know now.
 
Ghost said:
Just got my copy, stuck it in straight away. Only played for 20 minutes or so, only thing i can really comment on is the graphics. I picked Furious Ming as my character just 'cause of the hilarious name, i might change though, his character model looks really dumb in game.

Gotta say wow, in the movies and trailers the game looked kinda washed out but on my TV is looks awesome, and the lighting on the characters looks amazing...off to play more. If theres anything i should do/do not do at the start of the game please let me know now.


All the male characters look idiotic in-game. I originally began the game as the balanced male character, Lu the Prodigy, but couldn't get over how goofy he looks so I started over as Wu the Lotus Blossom. The ladies are much easier on the eyes.

As for what you should and shouldn't do, don't worry about it. You'll soon realize that there's no way you can do everything in this game with just one play through. Jade Empire almost begs you to play it again.
 
Yeah I'm going to be decidedly evil the next go around too but I never really intended to be Ms. Goody Two Shoes during my first time, it just sort of happend. For some reason or another it's much harder for me to be the bad guy in Jade Empire than it was for me in KOTOR. In KOTOR it was a total pain in the ass being a good Jedi but in Jade Empire I think it's going to be hard for me to remain on the Closed Fist path. I don't know why that is. Maybe it's the characters or the setting or maybe it's because I hate Star Wars and I didn't mind if everyone dies.

Hmm.... :/
 
Well I'm starting the fourth chapter now and so far the 'romance' has been limited to a bunch of suggestive flirting, similar to what was in KOTOR. But that's just been my experience (and incomplete at that).
 
Hitler Stole My Potato said:
Yeah I'm going to be decidedly evil the next go around too but I never really intended to be Ms. Goody Two Shoes during my first time, it just sort of happend. For some reason or another it's much harder for me to be the bad guy in Jade Empire than it was for me in KOTOR. In KOTOR it was a total pain in the ass being a good Jedi but in Jade Empire I think it's going to be hard for me to remain on the Closed Fist path. I don't know why that is. Maybe it's the characters or the setting or maybe it's because I hate Star Wars and I didn't mind if everyone dies.

Hmm.... :/

:lol :lol

This is funny because the same thing happened to me. I planned on going the closed fist route but ended up on the open palm route! I had no problems being totally evil in KOTOR as well! When I play through again I'm definitely going all evil!!
 
The game is amazing! Especially after you get to the Palace where the action really picks up and you fight literally gangs of people.

Just finished my first playthrough, ended up being a alittle over 21 hours. I did the vast majority of the sub-plots (missed a few early in game. ie medicine for the student etc.) as well as talking to npc's a lot so that could have extended the time.
I am 12 hours in, I am in the Imperial City and I have gained the recommendation of the Lotus Inquisitor, but I am still fighting in the arena in order to gain more experience. I really like this game, way more than KOTOR and I really dug that game.
I got both recommendations for the Lotus Assassins and the arena is loooong... with quite a bit of loading which was annoying beyond reason. But the fighting rocked! I enjoyed it much more than the arena in Fable.

As a matter a fact, I whenever there was a similar option for various ways complete a task, I usually did both just as long as it didn't affect my Open Palm/Closed Fist ranking (much). I beat the game with full Open Palm FYI.

I don't know how you guys stand using the Thousand Cuts style. I'm watching my brother play through with it and it seems to suck.. :/ on it's own at least.

I ended up sticking to core styles that I loved even though you have access to so many. My favorite combo vs human/bosses ended up being:

Legendary Strike(combo) -> Storm Dragon(combo) -> Dragon Sword(combo) -> Paralyzing Palm(combo) -> Dragon sword(combo) -> Dragon Sword X Slash -> whatever the fireball stance is called(combo) and end it with the the X fireball from the previous style. The Dragon Slash launches then across the room and the regular fireballs hit while they're sliding. Then they're still sunned by the Paraltzing Palm just long enough to catch the X fireball in the face. :lol

ElyrionX,

Yeah it got spoiled for you. I totally wasn't expecting it though, and when the initial confrontation results in
your death
I just sat there with a "oh shit" look on my face. :lol

Oh, I missed two followers. I'm pretty sure one was the [spolier]Outlander(the English guy)[/spoiler] you meet in Scholar's Garden, but I just took his rifle style :lol... perhaps next time. However I have no idea who the other guy would be?
 
raYne said:
Yeah it got spoiled for you. I totally wasn't expecting it though, and when the initial confrontation results in
your death
I just sat there with a "oh shit" look on my face. :lol

Oh, I missed two followers. I'm pretty sure one was the
Outlander(the English guy)
you meet in Scholar's Garden, but I just took his rifle style :lol... perhaps next time. However I have no idea who the other guy would be?

Thousand Cuts is pretty decent maxed out... its really fast and hard to interrupt by others.. so u can spam it. I had somewhat of a hard time fighting ghosts because that was my only hand to hand that i was decent in.

Kinda big spoilers:

If they
left you dead after teh first confrontation
, that would have been the greatest twist ever,
the game you cant win!!
LOL

I dont think you can get
the Outlander... one of them for sure has to be Death's Hand though
 
golem said:
Thousand Cuts is pretty decent maxed out... its really fast and hard to interrupt by others.. so u can spam it. I had somewhat of a hard time fighting ghosts because that was my only hand to hand that i was decent in.

Kinda big spoilers:

If they
left you dead after teh first confrontation
, that would have been the greatest twist ever,
the game you cant win!!
LOL

I dont think you can get
the Outlander... one of them for sure has to be Death's Hand though

Dunno man, all styles are pretty decent maxed out. :) It just doesn't look hard hitting enough to me I guess... but eh..

Shame if true about
Outlander
, but totally I forgot about
Death's Hand
. However, that option comes up WAY late in the game and since you fight the final boss one on one (loved that fight btw) it'd be pretty useless at that point. You'd end up having him for a few minutes max. :/
 
One thing guys, Pausing the game by pressing back lets you rotate the camera. Doing it in battle lets you grab some really neat looking shots.
 
Anyanka said:
You can be in a lesbian relationship.
If you talk to Silk Fox enough the right way she'll start talking about how she's never felt this way towards a man and how much you mean to her. In Chapter 6 we finally kissed. I've heard you can fall in love with Sky if you're a guy.

Hmm.. I must have skipped over this. I never got into any relationships with anyone. My girl is all business! But doesn't Sky have a daughter? He mentions her towards the end. And if that's the case wtf? indeed....

Hitler Stole My Potato said:
I've ran into that dialogue 'hiccup' as well and it seems to me it's more of a loading issue (launch Xbox w/Thompson drive owner here) than an acutal bug, but that's just my experience.
Launch Xbox, Thompson Drive... never happened. w00t!
 
raYne said:
Hmm.. I must have skipped over this. I never got into any relationships with anyone. My girl is all business! But doesn't Sky have a daughter? He mentions her towards the end. And if that's the case wtf? indeed....

Dude
Sky's daughter was killed by slavers waay before he met your character. :lol you're not much for chatting with your followers are you?
 
Azih said:
Dude
Sky's daughter was killed by slavers waay before he met your character. :lol you're not much for chatting with your followers are you?

Duh? :p I know she's
dead
but that's not what my point was.

I was just wondering how you'd even
get into a gay relationship
since he's obviously.. uh...
not gay?
:lol But, eh.. whatever... times change I guess... :lol
 
Count me in as a Third who was gonna go into the Closed fist route but ended up going the Open Palm route.....dont know why


when i replay this title after beating it, i think im gonna have to force myself to stay on the closed fist route next time.
 
Fixed2BeBroken said:
Count me in as a Third who was gonna go into the Closed fist route but ended up going the Open Palm route.....dont know why

Me too...but I know why. The main reason for me is that I know that I'm likely to experience a longer game as a good character when my interactions depend on my attitude. My guess is when I play through a second time as a rat bastard, many of the characters will end up as foes rather than potential clients based on the snarky or threatning responses I see the system would let me make.

Sometimes I find it hard to be "angelic" because some of the obviously negative responses are so damn funny. I've actually cracked up a few times scrolling through the options.
 
This game seems to bring my drive to it's knees. :/

I was just walking around the teahouse and suddenly the drive started whirring, then chirping, then the game froze (but the drive kept going).
 
Redbeard said:
This game seems to bring my drive to it's knees. :/

I was just walking around the teahouse and suddenly the drive started whirring, then chirping, then the game froze (but the drive kept going).


Strangely enough, my Thompson has been perfect. I'm surprised. KOTOR 2 wasn't nearly this stable.
 
raYne said:
I was just wondering how you'd even
get into a gay relationship
since he's obviously.. uh...
not gay?
:lol But, eh.. whatever... times change I guess... :lol

Oh you were talking about the rumours, my bad, I thought you were just talking about how your girl gave Sky the cold shoulder :lol
 
The game was quite a nice experience for me, but I find the promised gameplay time by IGN disappoints me, AGAIN. They gave 22 estimated hours, I got 20 on my last save and that includes 3 hours idle time. On top of that, I am not under the impression that I rushed through, I did quite a lot of the quests etc..
All in all, great game, but it just feels a lot larger than it actually is.
 
I finished the game tonight (13.5 hours). Ho-Hum.

Not much to say, really. The last few chapters tonight felt pretty obligatory to me, which is a shame... The game never really found that balance between combat and exploration for me, and while I found some of the questing to be tedious at times, the last four chapters weren't the adrennaline rush they appeared to be a first (in fact, playing the game prompted me to order Shinobi & Nightshade so I could unwind with some real martial arts combat when I was done). The combat flow in the game is always interrupted by the dialogue & vice versa, which meant the whole thing felt like a half-developed RPG & a half-developed action game to me. I wish the plot was better (the light / dark thing seems especially arbitrary, just like the "romances").

The ending was underwhelming too. Oh well.

I missed a few shooter levels apparently, but i have no desire to play again...
 
hehe cool boss fight

i just beat the emperor. it took me a few tries, at first i was just switching between magic and hand to hand, but then i noticed that he never gained immunity to support styles and started using spirit thief in chi mode... turns out you can catch him in a combo and pretty much endlessly pound him with spirit thief, consistently rebuilding your chi while simultaneously damaging him by very small degrees and he never becomes immune. it was pretty enjoyable because it took me quite a few tries to find the right approach.

it's turning out to be a pretty long game for me. i'm well over 20 hours (probably close to 26 or so). can't really tell my exact time because it's the type of game that i tend to leave running idle and the clock just ticks up (it's ticking up as i type this:P). i think the clock says i'm at 35 hours but i suspect i am several hours shy of that. There are actually a lot of sidequests.... i wonder if some of the shorter times are people who aren't really liking the game that much anyway, and are rushing through and ignoring the side stuff. i can't imagine getting any less than 20 hours out of it.

IMO this is the second best xbox game, slightly behind ninja gaiden. it's really a nice mix of elements with a great story. the style, graphics and overall polish are really great. i do wish the combat felt a little more snappy and i would have liked to tailor my characters main fighting styles at character creation instead of learning new ones slowly as i played through the game. those and the framerate are about the only real hardcore gripes i can think of.

hopefully there will be a next gen sequel with a few tweaks.
 
Yeah, I was semi-thorough, but apparently I missed some sidequests, but I definitely fall into the "don't really care enough to go back" camp.
 
Redbeard said:
This game seems to bring my drive to it's knees. :/

I was just walking around the teahouse and suddenly the drive started whirring, then chirping, then the game froze (but the drive kept going).

Happened to me while playing last week and in the same exact spot, too! I've been afraid to try again since. I would get freezes and dirty disc errors now and then, but never the violent clicking JE produced. :lol
 
Louis said:
Is the LE worth buying for the extra's or not ?

The LE is the exact same price as the regular edition, so I dunno why someone would choose not to get it.

Other than the videos/interviews the LE has a few game demos on the extra disc (Forza, Mechassault 2 etc.) a foil cover and most importantly an exclusive character and fighting style.
 
just beat it and it took me roughly 30 hours. I chose liu the prodigy. My primary martial style was white demon which became extremly effective once i trained it sufficiently. The other styles that i used mainly where
paralyzing palm
once i got it and
the musket (forget how to spell it's name)... i trained it all the way up and it became my primary weapon in situations where i needed something other than my martial style. fully trained it can kill many enemies very quickly. you just have to remember to switch to a martial style when enemies get close so you can roll away. it was my primary weapon against several bosses including deaths hand.
I also had the ice spell, which i put several points in. and i tossed a few points here and there to test things out.

i was open palm, partly because it seemed that going evil would cut my number of quests in half. i will have to play it again and find out if that is true.

to those who were wondering about a romance...
i managed to get a romance with dawn star, with a cut scene where we kissed and all that good shit

i would give the game a 9.5. it's one of the best rpg's i've played this gen. there were a few little problems and a few things i would have preferred if they had been done differently, but i can't complain much since i had such a good time.

my wish list for jade empire 2

* let me pick between every style in the game at the beginning. i don't want to customize my character in little chunks here and there. let me start with a truly unique character from the get go.

* upgrading styles should work like DMC or NG when you upgrade weapons... it should open new moves. give me fewer points to upgrade with but make the benefits more interesting than just enhanced damage and speed.... i want to customize my fighter in a really detailed way.

* i want throws, a jump button and dash attacks. They should take the action combat element all the way. i especially miss the ability to use jump attacks. this is supposed to mimic kung fu movies... those have constant flying kicks and people running on walls...

*take the paper mario element with the gems a little further. more gems with special effects, like the one with the damage shield... not just stat enhancements.

* i want an inventory.

* no loading at all.

* make the flying levels more like panzer dragoon. that would be very sweet.

i hope this game sells well enough to justify a sequel.
 
raYne said:
The LE is the exact same price as the regular edition, so I dunno why someone would choose not to get it.

Other than the videos/interviews the LE has a few game demos on the extra disc (Forza, Mechassault 2 etc.) a foil cover and most importantly an exclusive character and fighting style.


In Europe it costs €10 more . But i already got it , the normal version was already sold out .
 
Eh.. whatever.. :p

I'm not even sure just how limited the LE is supposed to be anyway since I have yet to see the normal edition. :lol. The whole first press is probably LE's and the "normal" edition comes afterward.
 
I'm enjoying Jade Empire, but the load times are really starting to annoy me. Especially when I reached the arena.

30 second fight

20 second load back to the outside

Another 20 second load back into the arena start next fight

30 second fight

20 second load back to the outside

Another 20 second load to get back in the arena for the next fight

30 second fight

Repeat like 10 more times

Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, that whole section nearly destroyed my entire interest in this game. Load times still bother me somewhat in the rest of the game but nothing came close to being as bad as the part with the arena. I'm just past that now so hopefully I don't encounter another section like this again.

In the end, I think Jade Empire is going to go into the same boat as Half Life 2 for me: A fantastic game which is extremely bogged down by annoying load points. The loading points take an outstanding experience and hamper the entire game.

I originally planned on playing through this game again after I finished it, but with all the loading time I'm probably just going to shelf this game once I'm done.
 
Jesus christ. I just got to the Imperial City and the game has become almost unplayable. Fucking thompson drive goes insane and game locks up when I'm walking around, when I'm trying to level-up my character (I emphasize trying, as I've reloaded the game some five or six times with no luck), trying to load a new area, etc...

Looks like I'm finally going to have to try and replace the drive. :/
 
I really enjoyed the game's art direction and story but the combat was sort of meh...*3hit combo* *jump over opponent* *3hit combo*<<<Repeat Process until opponent is dead>>>> I didn't need, nor did I bother to pull of a harmonic combo the entire game. The Sword style, and White Demon style got me through the majority of the game, I learned The Leaping Tiger style at the end for change of pace.

The simplicity of the combat, and the idiocy of the A.I. hurt the game.. Every major fight was pretty much a squash. I mean all game you are hearing about Death's Hand and how much of an unstoppable force of extreme migth he is
but when I finally fight him I literally beat him without him scoring a hit, and the same with Master Li

Also the game shifted to linear mode during instaces where you seemed to have had a choice in the matter.
 
Nameless said:
Also the game shifted to linear mode during instaces where you seemed to have had a choice in the matter.

The most absurd instance of this was when
you walk through the hall past the tomb where the Water Dragon is being raped by Li & the Emperor, and you simply can't go in door because "you have to hurry".
I mean, wtf.
 
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