Jade Empire Special Edition

Hello fans of gaming. You might have earlier heard about the game called as Jade Empire which was earlier released on XBOX by Bioware and Microsoft. Now in the year 2007, this game was re-released on the PC as a Special Edition with new features. Basically, this game is an improved version of KOTOR (Knights of the Old Republic) with better controls, new story, better gameplay, etc. Other games made by Bioware are Mass Effect PC/Xbox, Jade Empire Limited Edition, Jade Empire Original, KOTOR, etc.

Image via Wikipedia

The Limited Edition which was on XBOX

Jade Empire: Special Edition

This game is an entirely different RPG created by Bioware and instead of choosing actions and strategies, a gamer gets to participate in the fight.

You can select through 7 characters. Each character looks different and have different advantages. There is the female balanced character who has medium damage and speed, her opposite is the male balanced. There is also male Fast character with an opposite female character. Two magic characters are provided. The only exception is the strong character which is only for males. Also throughout the protagonist encounters other martial artists who help them on the journey by fighting or healing their specific stats.

The Different Possible Protagonists along with Fellow Students

Image via Jade Empire website

The game is based on three main stats which are mind, body and spirit. Mind is then further divided into focus which is a yellow bar which slows down time in battles and is depleted when a weapon is used. Spirit is for the blue chi bar responsible for healing and increasing damage. Finally body is the health. These aspects are then further responsible for  the conversational skills Charm, Intimidation and Intuition which can be used in conversations for increased bonuses, avoiding battles, etc.

This game is based on 6 main areas with small maps of their own. When changing areas, the map is loaded with the quest and NPCs. The game starts with the main player in a school of martial arts.

This game includes various techniques, weapons and stunts. The basic controls include blocking, evading, healing, using special attacks and normal attacks. There are 5 main styles in combat. Magic, transformation, support, martial and weapon.

The Strongest Longsword, The DEMON Sword

The Rhino Demon, New to Jade Empire: Special Edition

The White Demon Martial Arts style, the slowest but one of the strongest

The Protagonist battling one of the transformation styles , Jade Golem, with the twin axes style

The female fast character using the magic style, Dire Flame on a villain

Furious Ming getting ready to execute Storm Dragon Support Style

The battles start with an invisible walls being formed and this wall remains until the protagonist destroys the villian or the gamer is defeated resulting in him/her loading a previous save game. Also this game, includes some of the cultures of China and the graphics are really good. The game has lots of various conversation choices which let a player choose his/her orientation as a villain (follower of Closed Fist), a hero (follower of the Open Palm) or someone in between. In this game we also have flyer missions, in which a person controls an aircraft in the air and has to destroy incoming flyers. This is the only minigame in this huge PC Game.

A video by Kitchensink108 (account on youtube) of one of the hardest battles in Jade Empire

The Flyer used throughout the game

Image via Jade Empire website

Also two new styles have been included in this game from the Original version, them being Iron Palm for the goody-good guys and Viper for the poisonous snakes.

This game also gives 3 difficulty levels in the starting and those levels are Student, Master and Grand Master, i.e easy, normal and hard respectively. With each increasing difficulty, the main player deals less damage and the computer controlled opponents deal more. Also the AI of the opponent increases and they are more skilled in combat at higher difficulties. After finishing the game once, you can get an option for restarting the game with your previous abilities but at level 1. When you make this NEW GAME+ , the difficulty is locked onto Jade Master that is the equivalent of Expert or Very Hard. 

The game also has an exotic storyline with lots of action and a bit of fictional history involved. After starting the game, a person usually gets deeply involved in it. Trust me on that, as I have played this game more than 6 times and I am still yearning for more. Well if possible, try out this game as it is a must play for your gaming experience to be complete.

Also in the PC version, a gamer can download mods to do something which is not possible in the original game so this is an advantage.

This game also has been released on the Xbox 360 market as an Xbox Original

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