Jade Empire Reviews

Following the madness that is E3 comes three new positive reviews for BioWare’s Xbox RPG, Jade Empire. The first is at Gaming Nexus with an overall score of 9.3/10:

Jade Empire is almost perfect but I had a few small nits to pick with the game. I’ve already talked about a few of the slow downs in parts of the city and the pasted on mini-games but I did find a few small quirks where you could get stuck in the game and were forced to re-load from a previous save to get unstuck. My major issue with the game is that the combat is almost a little too easy. I liked the feeling of wading through large groups of enemies at a time but towards the end of the game it got a little too easy. Especially once you obtain the Jade Golem transformation style. The game felt a lot shorter than KOTO as well. I managed to get through the game in a little under 20 hours while KOTOR took me almost 30. Is that a bad thing? Not really because of the different combat styles in the game.

The second is at Xbox World Australia with an overall score of 85%:

Jade Empire is a brilliant debut title for veteran Bioware’s self-created world, combining solid storytelling with blisteringly fast and brutal martial-arts action. It’s a little deceptive in size compared to the scope of the story and the Jade Empire itself, and there’s little in the way of exploration to be had either. However the amazing visuals coupled with the gusto of the gameplay make these small criticisms.

And the third is at The Armchair Empire with an overall score of 9.0/10:

Jade Empire isn’t looking to convert role-playing fans to fighter fans or vice versa; they’ve created a game that should attract gamers, period. There will be those that claim the various genres are diluted somewhat so that they can be forced together the fights aren’t up to (pure) fighting games but even the (optional) overhead scrolling arcade sections (think of the old arcade classic, 1942) just seem to fit and compliment each other. Great fun, high replayability, good control, attention to detail, interesting story, high production values, and a great gameplay experience Jade Empire comes recommended.