Jade Empire

[NeoDragoN]

Were you doing some kind of speed run or something?! Seriously you need to slow down, take in the atmosphere. I spend a fair bit of time just wandering looking at the locations and characters.

LOL nope no speed run just my usual pace, like i said i have spoken to everyone in the game, thats including all the NPC who don't even really speak, just there generic 1 liner. I did take in the atmos like i said its a real good game and the setting i love, its just short.

Well through the Gamefaqs message boards i found out i did indeed find every style for both open and closed, and there has'nt been any side quest questions on there i did'nt know the answer to.

I guess i am just more familiar with these types of games than the rest of you? i went through Kotor and Kotor 2, 3 times each and i've pretty maxed out any RPG that has come to me, i guess only experience could have got me through the game so fast.

The level cap on the game is only 25 and my first time through i was 23 and my second time i was 24 so i can't have missed much. The only reason i got a higher level second time was because i did it closed fist and you get to kill ALOT of people

[Unwell Cat]

Widescreen ?

[Kotatsu Neko]

Widescreen ?

Nope. 4:3 box vision. The cut scenes, of which there are many, are letterboxed, causing my TV to auto zoom the image and chop the subtitles off.

Bit of a shame.

[Unwell Cat]

Nope. 4:3 box vision. The cut scenes, of which there are many, are letterboxed, causing my TV to auto zoom the image and chop the subtitles off.

Bit of a shame.

God damm it , why not...?

[Kotatsu Neko]

God damm it , why not...?

This sounds crazy but in my experience it's true. Game developers put features into games which personally interest them. In the US and Canada most people still run 4:3 TVs, but in Europe many will be on 16:9. Therefore in Europe developers will make games work on their own TVs, in widescreen, and in the US/Canada they will be happy enough with 4:3.

Either that or the extra development/testing time to add widescreen (which is pretty minimal) was not considered worth it.

Personally I think all games should support 16:9. It's so big in Europe and Japan now there's really not much excuse.

[JRMacumber]

Eh, it's getting big here too, so I'm sure that with the next gen systems almost all games will support 16:9 mode. I'll be glad for it too.

[MartyG]

I'm quite a way into this now, and it's been an enjoyable experience so far. The combat seems a little clumsy, but the story and atmosphere are difficult to fault. There is slowdown occasionally, but it's certainly no where near as bad as KOTOR was, and there's also the glitches, such as blades of grass majestically moving through your body and popping out the other side. Minor things, certainly not enough to spoil the game.

[Kevvy Metal]

Got the PAL version today from gameplay, to answer the PAL60 question asked a few posts ago...yes it does predictably support PAL60 like most games. I personnally had concerns after the horride PAL50ness of Doom 3 :angry:

I figured out how to know what mode my TV was set to. (my ps2 and GCN are usa so they are obviously always ntsc)

both Jade Empire and Doom3 had many things in common like big anticpated release, region free and close to global release and if they could **** up the pal version of doom3 then i was concerned about jade empire.

The title screen and music look very nice, i know that for sure.

[MartyG]

Just completed it, listened to the "comedy" credits and watched the making of. For once some decent voice acting in a game.

It's one of the best RPGs I've played this year, the attention to details is really impressive. It's clear from the game that a lot of research went into it, and again from the making of, that they watched a lot of Kung Fu movies and studied Chinese literature. There is a real mythical charm to it, shame it's a little bit short.

At 20 hours that's half the time KOTOR took, and tbh, although there may be some room for reply value, there isn't the same kind of drive to play both the good/evil character as there was in KOTOR, the game tends to lead you in the "good" direction. Still, the story was very well told and at least makes some kind of sense. I'm sure we'll see a Jade Empire 2, as there is much potential for using the mythology BioWare have created again.

Definite one to check out if you haven't already. Now back to Digital Devil Saga.

[IainMcC]

Re: The time argument.

Don't you think it's better to have 20 hours of top notch quality writing and action, (Jade Empire) than 20 hours of top notch quality writing and action plus another 20 hours of tedious to-ing and fro-ing across maps and mucking about with your inventory (KOTOR)?

I'm as big a Star Wars fanboy as they come, and I'd rather play Jade over KOTOR... and I thought KOTOR was pretty much perfect. Jade's a far tighter game (in its execution) than KOTOR is, and is all the better for it. In all I've played so far (I've just entered the Lotus Assassin fortress, after about 18-19 hours of play) I've never felt that I'm tromping across maps without any real purpose. Which is something that you can't say about KOTOR, for example.

I'd much rather have a short game of spectacular quality than a long game of variable quality...

[Mardigan8]

Re: The time argument.

Don't you think it's better to have 20 hours of top notch quality writing and action, (Jade Empire) than 20 hours of top notch quality writing and action plus another 20 hours of tedious to-ing and fro-ing across maps and mucking about with your inventory (KOTOR)?

I'm as big a Star Wars fanboy as they come, and I'd rather play Jade over KOTOR... and I thought KOTOR was pretty much perfect. Jade's a far tighter game (in its execution) than KOTOR is, and is all the better for it. In all I've played so far (I've just entered the Lotus Assassin fortress, after about 18-19 hours of play) I've never felt that I'm tromping across maps without any real purpose. Which is something that you can't say about KOTOR, for example.

I'd much rather have a short game of spectacular quality than a long game of variable quality...

Fantastic comments and I totally agree. Having not yet picked this up the time discussion was a concern. I loved KOTOR 1 and 2 but DID feel like I was repeating stuf and much of both were tedious and slow.

Give me 20-25 hours of rock solid Kung Fu Dynasty action and I am there!! No arguement when it comes to quality or quantity... give me the QUALITY!!

[MartyG]

You can still have games of quality that last longer than 20 hours - I think it is a shame the game is short because the experience deserves longer.

And it's not 20-25 hours of rock solid Kung Fu Dynasty action I'm afraid. A large percentage of the time is spent in dialog and cut scenes, or walking about exploring. What Jade Empire exudes, is a decent fantasy world. The problem is the experience is over too quickly, and this is something that's important in an RPG because unlike many other games, the replay factor influences this genre more than say something like Winning Eleven or Burnout 3 for example. I'd also disagree with the fact that KOTOR had anymore romping than JE. JE was simply a shorter story and a far smaller game world.

[JRMacumber]

Hopefully this first game is a just Bioware dipping a toe into the waters to see how they like it. Having now established their universe, what comes next should be even more amazing.

[Shoju]

Real time action rpg's are never as long as turn based rpg's. As far as action rpg's are concerned 20+ hours is quite long.

[MartyG]

What, you mean like Baldur's Gate, Diablo, Dungeon Siege, Arx Fatalis, Sudeki

I don't believe in the developer rule book it says action RPGs have to be short.