Jade Empire: Special Edition Review

2404.org has tossed up their review of Jade Empire: Special Edition, giving the PC version of BioWare’s RPG an overall score of 8.3/10.

The final score for Jade Empire: Special Edition probably isn’t a huge surprise to those familiar with the two-year-old Xbox game. It was well-rated but a major disappointment as a follow-up to BioWare’s critical hit Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Now, things are not much different for this PC version. Knights was a great RPG (with a not-so-great sequel by Obsidian), and Jade Empire is quite similar to it, but with the bugs gone and an even more compelling story. That said, the only other risk Jade takes over its PC predecessors its original action/role-playing combat engine is not much of a draw. On the strength of its technical graphics and gameplay, Jade does not deserve much more than a 7.5. However, its poignant sense of style and amazing story presentation should make it a hit with PC gamers that have longed for an excellent story-based RPG ever since BioWare’s last PC effort. Just don’t expect a truly open-ended or particularly involved experience.