Today I'm feeling a little crestfallen, I have to admit. I lack those endless fonts of bubbling energy that I usually preserve exclusively for this blog and thus with that comes a deficit in creativity. Although if you've seen the state of this blog you'll know that isn't too much of a stray from the norm. So with that in mind I thought it might me more fun to take it easy this Saturday and just talk about what I'm playing right this moment, which is actually about 15 different games but I'm going to limit myself to one for the moment. That title is one of the only IP's that Bioware haven't touched with a stick since it's release and as the title reveals, it is 'Jade Empire'.
My history with Jade Empire is curiously non-existent for someone who has been playing Bioware games for half their life. Whenever I used to tell people I was playing a Bioware game like Mass Effect, I'd be practically assaulted with gleeful recommendations of their other titles like Dragon Age, Knights of the Old Republic and Baldur's Gate, but never once did I hear the name of this title. Perhaps it's because it was a one-and-done on Bioware's end, but this feels like one of those forgotten games that most people only recall as some half-banished dream. Well I'm hear to remind anyone who'll listen that it wasn't just a dream, Bioware did create an original mystical fantasy game that flirted with Chinese mythology and yet featured a fully English speaking cast. (I can't even find a Chinese localisation patch, what's up with that, Bioware?)
Jade Empire takes place in the Jade Empire (Shocker) in a little village called Two Rivers situated by the outskirts of The Kingdom. This is a land defined by martial might, magic and the restless spirits of the undead, so it's no surprise to see mythical monstrosities and elemental powers work their way into the story. (Although that does low-key remind me of how much I would actually die to have a proper RPG Avatar game. God, that would be so perfect!) One of my favourite quirks about this game's setting is way in which the naming conventions work, in which an individual receives a name and an epithet to accompany it. Now that is by no means the rule of the land, some folk have plain names and others have pure descriptors, but most key characters have this funny little trait to their name that I find amusing. Rather than just name someone Tein, you'll have Sagacious Tein, or maybe they'll throw the word 'Typhoon' or 'Whirlwind' in there. It just sounds to me like the cast of an old Chinese martial arts movie and I suppose that's probably the vibe that the world builders were going for.
Two Rivers is, similarly, just the absolute most stereotypical setting for the beginning of a 'martial arts movie' adventure that it isn't even funny. It's a small picturesque fishing community placed far away from any of the major roads and routes, with the only location of note being the prestigious martial arts school placed on top of the hill. With a set-up like that I wouldn't be surprised if the village gates were adorned with a sign saying "Welcome to Two Rivers, please burn us down on your way out!" Obviously the main character is that perfectly balanced mix of an orphan who's also the most talented kid in the school who just also happens to have a destiny to him, yet to be unveiled. I'm ragging on the tropes a bit, but it's in a loving way. The way that Bioware wares it's influence is actually rather fun and cool to see, and as I began accepting it and the world a bit more I started to really get into the role. Does it feel as weighty and thought-out as Dragon Age? No. But it still boasts enough charm to make up a bit of the difference.
But then there's the most important question of all, if this is a martial arts game with an RPG twist then how does it play? I mean, most of Bioware's other titles have either dabbled with a semi-autocombat model or just gone full-out shooting; so what could Jade Empire do to spice things up? I'll admit this was something that I wasn't that curious about, as I just assumed the game would play like Kotor, but now that I think about it there was a lot of potential in this category. When you think about it, a lot of great games have come out which attempted to simulate martial arts. I mean there's the Yakuza games, Sleeping dogs, Shenmue (Okay, maybe that last one has questionable gameplay) but my point is that there's some great examples to drawn from, so it's shame that Bioware went for their own thing.
Now I understand why it was, the Bioware of this time had little experience with active combat in their games and so they were going to try an approach that felt right to them, but oh-good-lord does it not feel right to play! Jade Empire's combat is entirely active, with no turns being taken for the player or autocombat sections, which means the player is fully at the whims of their reaction times and the game's controls. In practise this means that the player has a button for dodging, blocking, attacking and heavy attacking, seems simple enough, right? The problem comes from the way that all of these controls feel wrong in their own unique way; rolling is too floaty and can throw you half way across a map, attacks are weightless and lack impact, blocking seems mostly redundant when you can dodge (at least so far, maybe in the future it's worth will stand out more) and heavy attacks are quite possibly the slowest thing I've seen in a game. (I loathe the moments that I have to use them.) This all adds up to, quite possible, the least fun combat system in a Bioware title, which could be one of the reasons why no one talks about this game.
Of course that isn't to say that the game is unplayable, indeed I'm still playing it, but I'm already in the mode where I'm looking past gameplay sections for the story and that's never a good sign so early on in the game. I'm also not a big fan of the way that all the character's resource bars, (that is to say; Health, Chi and... is the yellow one 'technique'? I can't remember.) are perishable and do not regenerate. At least not yet, there may be a mid game surprise that I haven't bumped into. This makes it so that players have to pray at shines to restore these bars and even I could have told the team what a poor idea this was. What this does it make it so that the entire game becomes an experience in repeatedly backtracking to shrines in order to keep your pools full, unless you abscond from taking any risks in combat and thus make every encounter grind down to a halt. (Which is exactly how I would have played this game 5 years ago before I trained myself out of the hoarding habit.)
But at the end of the day the game is still worth my time, the gameplay shortcomings don't entirely smother my fun. If you approach this game with a mind to forgive the lacking gameplay, the simpler presentation and the stiff VO, there might be something special in this game for you. Personally I'm proceeding with my particular brand of cautious optimism. I know it's strange to say that I'm liking a game after picking holes through it's very essence until it resembles Swiss cheese, but I suppose that's just the unexplainable allure of old school Bioware games. Even when you're frustrated and fuming out of your ears, you're intrigued and want to push forward, and I'm familiar enough with Bioware games to know they can turn themselves around and be fantastic by the end. So that's my 'six hours in' assessment of a 2005 game, I'll see if I stand by the things I've said in another ten hours of gametime...
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