Jade Empire Reviews Continue

Another handful of reviews for BioWare’s highly anticipated Jade Empire have made their way to the web. The first is at TeamXbox with an overall score of 9.7/10:

Despite all the hype of prior Xbox RPGs, Jade Empire is the real deal. The key ingredient is its mesmerizing story that complements the outstanding overall art direction. Even the action-oriented gamer should find plenty to like with the game’s real-time combat system, but will it be enough to draw in the mainstream gamer? Hardcore RPG fans will love the branching plot lines and customizations, but may hunger for some added depth. BioWare strived to make Jade Empire their best game yet. Mission accomplished.

The second is at DailyGame with an overall score of 9.7/10:

Jade Empire is designed to reach a different crowd while still satiating BioWare’s RPG stalwarts. Whether it meets those objectives is up to gamers to decide, but one thing is certain: Jade Empire is one of the finest games around, RPG or not, and it will certainly be mentioned in Game of the Year discussions in December.

The third is at Yahoo! Games Domain with a perfect score of 10/10:

It’s not every day that a genre is reinvented, and it’s certainly not every day that a game with this much creative energy crosses our desks. Enthralling and beautiful, Jade Empire melds adrenaline-inducing combat with a compelling RPG structure perfectly. Here’s an RPG that anyone can enjoy — Jade Empire is sheer pleasure.

The fourth is at 1Up with an overall score of 8.5/10:

Another sensation one gets while playing this game is that Bioware have fallen in love with their own genre-bending game mechanics. The very same cyclical conversations that once seemed so fresh in KOTOR now seem obligatory and gratuitous, and the dialogue uninspired. The pacing of Jade Empire exacerbates this. Less free-roaming and more tightly scripted than KOTOR (there is nothing, naturally, in the Empire that would encourage planet-hopping around the galaxy as in KOTOR), Jade Empire leads you on a tightly controlled path peppered with “optional” quests. These quests, while not mandatory, have no reason not to be fulfilled, as any player would realize it’s in his own benefit to complete them. Whether it’s saving some old lady’s daughter, or negotiating with a giant, guilt-ridden ogre to return to his master’s farm, Empire offers a ton of intermittent diversions. This doesn’t stop Jade Empire from being astoundingly linear, though, which stifles the feeling of “choice” so liberally given in past Bioware efforts. That the developer also chose to restrict you from visually customizing your character moves away from the liberties so generously embraced in games like KOTOR and Fable, and closer to the confines of staid, old Japanese RPGs of old.

And the fifth is at Game Over Online with an overall score of 90%:

Jade Empire is probably the best original RPG on the Xbox, and I like it quite a bit. It has all the ingredients to be a hit, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this was the beginning of a long, great franchise. As it stands, however, it feels like I’m missing ten hours’ worth of gameplay. It’s a testament to the strength of the rest of the game that I really want those hours.