When it comes to RPGs, Bioware are without equal. They have created wonders such as the Baldur's Gate series, quite possible the best fantasy RPG ever created, as well as given tools to the community with the hugely successful Neverwinter Nights. After a brief adventure in space in the form of Knights of the Old Republic, they sought a new challenge the result of which was Jade Empire for the Xbox. While not the pinnacle of their work, it was still a great game with few flaws – one of them being its relatively repetitive gameplay. Another glaring problem, one which has been recently fixed, was the lack of a PC version. It might be worth seeing if that’s the only issue that was fixed.

A long time ago in… an empire far far away

The setting of Jade Empire is quite far from what you would expect from a Bioware title. Picture feudal Japan with spirits, demons and the like walking freely around the place. Now try to imagine human warriors capable of sinking entire ships with just a strike, bandits capable of jumping several stories high, all the while looking as graceful as swans in flight. Yes, the Jade Empire is a land of magic and wonder. If you ever saw the anime Princess Mononoke or Spirited Away (both are truly a work of art) you know what I am talking about. And just like in the two anime, all this magic and beautiful ancient towns coexist with manmade machines, such as flying contraptions which use engines and magic to stay aloft. It may look odd at first, but the world has a strange appeal that draws you in. It’s not the Forgotten Realms, but something far more wondrous.

The enemies you will face during your adventure range from regular martial artists over assassins to animal demons, huge golems and other magical creatures. Some of them resemble what you would ordinarily find in RPGs, but for the most part the authors let their imagination fly (or rather, they borrowed heavily from Japanese myths). You will meet masked spirits which other than a white mask show no identifiable human limbs, huge humanoid elephant demons (which are more or less elephants that walk on their two hind legs) and some even more bizarre inhabitants of the Jade Empire. While the good majority of these celestial beings won’t be too happy to cross paths with you, some of them won’t attack you on sight and might even help you if you are careful with your words.

While it might not look like it at first, Jade Empire borrows heavily from Bioware’s previous hit Knights of the Old Republic. The quest structure is virtually the same, as is the way conversations and party management are handled. In fact, were it not for the completely different combat mechanics, this game would have been a textbook copy of the Star Wars RPG. This is by no means a bad thing, but I did have several Déjà vu moments during the game, which I’d rather have avoided. As an example, you travel between locations with the help of a flyer (one of the above mentioned machines) and you are presented with a take-off and landing animation each time. The same thing happened in KOTOR when you used your spaceship to fly from one planet to the next. Alignment also makes a return, and you can experience different endings based on your actions. There are other similarities between the two titles, but thankfully they are mostly restricted to positive things.

A punch, a kick and a fireball to finish it off

When starting a new game players are presented with several premade characters. Other than having different appearances they belong to one of the 3 major combat styles. They can be fast and very agile, but cause only moderate damage or the total opposite – a hulking brute whose hits can shatter walls. The third option is a magic (or Chi) oriented fighter, who relies on shape shifting and spell casting. If you are not happy with any of the premade characters you are welcome to make one yourself, but you are still limited to the 7 or so different appearances and only some minor skill tweaks when compared to the default characters.

Each of the three styles requires a different tactic. Magic users will try to keep their distance when casting spells and rush to the enemy when transforming into one of the many demon forms available, while fast fighters will do all that is possible to dodge attacks and use the openings to inflict damage. Brutes will do what brutes do best – take a beating and then return the favor tenfold. It is possible to switch from one style of gameplay to another during the adventure, but doing this will make you a jack of all trades for a time, which can make some of the encounters in the game simply too difficult to overcome.

So how does combat actually work on the PC? Not many things changed from the original Xbox version. The character movement is controlled with the WASD keys and turning is handled with the mouse. The two mouse buttons act as the light and heavy attack buttons, space blocks, the E key enables you to focus and deal more damage while the shift key lets you spend Chi force (what you’d call mana in other games) to regenerate. The system is fairly basic and doesn’t allow for much experimentation. Most encounters can be dealt with by mashing the left mouse button while pressing the various direction keys to avoid blows. It gets old after a while, but the fairly common boss battles help make things more interesting. Throughout the adventure players learn new combat styles which are often spectacular to look at, but in the end they work precisely like the earlier styles. The AI on the PC version is improved, so the enemies will block more often, and sometimes even bait you into a block braking attack which takes a painfully long time to charge. They are however still punch-fodder and don’t provide much of a challenge.

Just like on the Xbox version you are not alone through most of the adventure. Various companions will join you, but you’ll only have one accompanying you at a time. They can either help you out in combat, or perform supporting roles, such as regenerating your health or chi. One of the companions is especially interesting, as his only ability is providing you with a steady amount of wine. As you might expect this wine is used to power the strongest of the martial arts – the drunken boxing style. The AI of your companions is fairly basic, but they do a fairly good job of staying alive and keeping some of the enemies occupied while you deal with the rest.

Just a port?

Jade Empire may be a newcomer to the PC arena, but the game is in fact over two years old. As such it is far away from being a technical masterpiece. The textures, although improved over the Xbox version, are often very poor and the prerecorded cinematics look awful, especially at high resolutions. But all is not as bad as it sounds. When it came out, Jade Empire looked stunning, and even now – two years later it still looks solid. Some of the geometry is very basic, but the well rendered grass, high detail characters and excellent facial animations more than make up for this. Combat is also a sight to behold, as Bioware did an excellent job of animating the various combatants.

Playing on the PC has some benefits as well. As mentioned some of the textures were improved and the ability to play the game at 1920x1200 makes it looks stunning. ATI users might miss AA (it can be forced, but you lose shadows in the process), but other than that there are not problems with the port. The game controls surprisingly well with the keyboard and mouse, something that is not common for console ports. The camera could use some further tweaking, but you’ll manage to keep it under control most of the time. The game is fairly well optimized and it will work on older hardware as well, but your card must support the second generation of pixel shaders. All in all a top notch port of the game.

Voice acting is of typically Bioware quality, which is to say excellent. The actors did a tremendous job of giving life to the characters they play, and with every dialogue voiced over this must have been a huge task. The music is good for the most part, but you won’t be hearing it all the time, which may be one of the reasons it is so easy on the ears.

Conclusion

It took a long time for Jade Empire to reach the PC and it shows. Better games have come out and much of the appeal the game had waned over time. Still, the game managed to retain that certain something that made me want to get to the end - several times I might add. Seeing how it only took me a good 10 hours to finish it for the first time, this is more than appropriate. Some of that time was lost on countless reloads, as certain parts can become painstakingly hard, but nothing a well prepared tactic won’t solve. Anyone who might be looking for some roleplaying action on the PC and doesn’t own an Xbox should give this new version a try – you might not like it at first, but you are bound to fall in love with it before long.