Excellent, Inexpensive, Enjoyable Game

If you've managed to play or see "Neverwinter Nights 2", this game's graphics match or excel it--a significant feat considering that NWN2 is over a year newer, and has extremely steep system requirements that prevent it from working well on most PCs. This game isn't turn-based in combat as NWN/DnD is; you live and die by how fast you use your skills. There are plenty of areas in experience and buffing and alignment to vary the gameplay widely and pleasantly.

The storyline is pleasantly surprising and quite engaging (some of it not quite predictable). Lots of humor in the game as well (when you're able to play the character of Black Whirlwind, read his journal log, then kill 100 human enemies before killing a large golem to see a successive graduation of kill titles). Romance abounds for the "shippers" of RPG games, too: Not only can same-sex relationships work, but male players can romance two females at once (add 70's music here). This addition, as well as some blood fountains on killing  more

Nice!!

A truly fine RPG and a real treat for anybody who played and enjoyed KOTOR 1. Jade Empire has all the Bioware trademarks: Good graphics, a fine story, great dialog, romance, challenging combat (on higher settings) and interesting characters/locations. Like KOTOR, it has two paths to follow (something like good and evil), plot twists and even the ability to completely change your alignment near the end. Some people say it's "cartoonish", but I definitely don't agree. Rather I think it tries to impart a sense of another culture's mythology, and it succeeds beautifully in my opinion. Think Titan Quest if you want an example (or Star Wars for that matter). I did almost everything in the game, and it took me about 30 hours to complete. There are a lot of cut scenes, but they can be easily skipped by pressing the ESC key. If dialog screens bother you, you shouldn't be playing this type of game in the first place. It's really a shame that it took so long for Bioware to port Jade Empire  more

Looks great - nice balance

The fighting system in this game is a nice balance of "arcade style" (click a lot) and more of an RPG style like Neverwinter Nights (the character does a lot of the basic fighting on its own). I think they did much better than Oblivion, for example, which I find frustrating to control. The graphics are some of the best I have seen and the faces look really good. In fact, the women are quite attractive and the shaping and movement is good enough that they read as very athletic young women. The way hair and clothes move is very good as well. Although the core story is pretty standard stuff, I thought there were some nice innovations and details. If you like martial arts movies, you are quite likely to enjoy this game.

An excellent game.

Jade Empire Jade Empire Special Edition (Rhino Demon Exclusive Content) is one of the best RPG games around. The fight system is simple, but still can be quite challenging on advanced settings. The Companion characters can be hilarious although most are not terribly useful. The storyline is creative and complex. It's very linear but allows an exceptional amount of player choice. Player choices really can alter the outcome of the game quite a bit. I'm bored quite easily, yet this is one of the few games that I've played through more than once. The special edition has a few options and in-game items that don't exist in the other versions.