The idea was nice : A-RPG in a medieval Chinese world with magic, gods and creatures. But the conception was not good.

The main city is empty, hardly anyone, few places, the design was very weak
Almost all areas were actually poorly designed (one exception: the haunted forest)
The RPG aspect is very thin. Few side quests, ...

Only good point imo: fights. They were dynamic, fast and not too long. They do not require huge skills and you can vary fighting styles, use a sword and magic.

A big disappointment in comparison to its elder brother Kotor

I loved it, one of my favourite rpg's. I've been wanting to play it again since my initial playthrough, many moons ago.

I enjoyed it a lot. The setting was possibly Bioware's most unique, and I thought the plot was well set up, however, you can see a lot of places with wasted potential, and near the end of the game it becoems immediately clear that they wrapped up the game in a hurry. Furthermore, there were some questionable design choices, like the followers which were completely useless in combat do to never leveling up, and having no equipment customization like the player-it was always better to just put them in support mode. Also, there was the side scrolling shooter segments, which completely popped the player out of immersion with the game and were very out of place.

To elaborate, you have effectively four hub areas-the tutorial area, the small village, the capital, and the assassin monastary. After that point there is effectively nothing. I was expecting the Imperial palace to be a quest hub, considering it was effectively a floating city, but it was incredably short. The closed fist/open palm mechanic showed a lot of potential as an alternative to the morality meter, and it was initially explained as such, but the developers obviously very quickly forgot about this and it was mostly a the standard KoTOR morality meter for most of the game. The combat was definately innovative for Bioware, but it was pretty easy after you got experienced enough with it. Probably not the best Bioware game, but possibly the one with the most potential. I personally think it stands at the threshold of what seperated 'old' Bioware from 'new' Bioware.

Still my favorite Bioware RPG outside of Baldur's Gate II, despite its failings.

Its a bit a matter of taste, but i liked it a lot. There are some suprises in the story and i found the combat to be fun, so i played it more than KotoR. The alignment systme is basicly the same as kotor.

Gave it 15 minutes, couldn't figure out the combat. I'll probably give it another go someday after checking the manual.

I really liked the story, graphics and setting but had a huge problem with the difficulty. On normal it was way too easy and that ruined it for me but on hard it was way too hard.... So i stopped playing it after 10 hours or so. I am meaning to restart it and play it with a mindset that i am a kungfu god and i can kill everything without breaking a sweat ;)

It was quite enjoyable for most of the game, but unfortunately it peters out at the end. Most of the game goes with a standard semi-freeform hub design, but after a certain point in the plot the game basically goes on rails, and from there on it feels much weaker than the previous portions of the game (I couldn't help but get the impression that they were just rushing things at that point to make the release date).

Favorite Bioware game simply cause of the setting. Funnily enough the RPG elements are more dumbed down in it than Draogn Age 2 or Mass Effect 2 even though Jade Empire was made long before EA took over Bioware.

I would love another game in the Jade Empire setting but by Obsidian. I can imagine closed fist and open palm philosophies being really sweet if done by them.

It's essentially just "KotoR in Ancient China™" but it's definitely my favorite of the later Bioware games. It's somewhat linear and has a silly morality meter as other folks have said, but it's still a good game. The Imperial City also has a lot of people wandering around in it, but you can't interact with most of them. But you can at least SEE them, which is an improvement over most later Bioware cities (Taris, Nar Shaddaa, Kirkwall) and it makes the city feel a lot more alive. It also has the best romance options of any Bioware game in my opinion (somewhat better than BG2, vastly better than everything else).

As for the difficulty, you have to use different tactics on hard. Support styles, especially Storm Dragon, become extremely useful on hard, and using lots of harmonic combos can make your life much easier, especially if you're a magic or weapon user and need those powerups. Those damn ghosts that damage both your health and mana become a nightmare on hard, though, and the Ravager is really really hard to beat on hard because of his health regen and all of his immunities.

It also deserves a note for using every single Bioware cliche in the book, ALL OF THEM, but it manages to pull them off so well that it's not upsetting or immersion-breaking, which is a real accomplishment too.

This thread is bringing back memories now, but I loved Death's Hand! Awesome character.

I like it enough to have played it twice. The raptor-wannabe part is unnecessary and annoying though.

Fun, but pretty short IIRC. Think I finished it in about 10 hours. Probably didn't probe around much, or something.

It's worth playing just to find out who the villain is. Other than that all I can say it's pretty ok.