Jade Empire: No Heart?

[ATB]

There's just something missing in Jade Empire.

I'm about 10 hrs in and while I am enjoying it, it's- pardon me- NOT Knights of the Old Republic.

For whatever reason, I'm not connecting with my character (this is the 2nd one I've tried) and I could not care less about my followers...Maybe it's because you get like 6 within the span of 10 minutes (okay maybe not that fast...but).

I just set down in the Imperial City and I've got the blahs... I really enjoy the combat (now that I've cranked it to Grand Master), find the mini-game pretty stupid, and so far have not been sucked into the game.

Also, the ethical choices all seem so cut and dry: <not a real one> Do you rescue the cat from the tree or burn the tree down stomp on the cat's corpse and then massacre the whole villiage?  In KOTOR you had to, in many cases, THINK about what the consequences were...


No spoilers please, but anyone else feel this way/does it get 'heart' as the game progressess?

[Glycerine]

You aren't alone.  Great game, but I couldn't get into it either.

Glycerine

[Kevin Grey]

I wholeheartedly agree.  Jade Empire was a huge disappointment to me.  I ended up quitting halfway through Chapter 3.  I thought the writing was horribly bland, especially by Bioware standards.  I didn't care for any of the followers other than a cursory "gee that's kind of quirky" for Black Whirlwind and Henpecked Hal.  

The most disappointing aspect was Bioware's inability to capitalize on the unique setting.  A good 80-90% of the game that I played could have been directly transported to any generic fantasy RPG only by changing the names.  Only the Forest quest in Chapter 2 felt like it took advantage of the mythology.

And the amount of dialogue was way over-the-top.  I think my gameplay to cutscene ratio was actually worse than Xenosaga and the story wasn't nearly as interesting or well-directed.  Bioware really needs to figure out how to make heavy dialogue scenes more visually interesting than their default letter-boxed talking head style so prevalent here and in KOTOR.  Note- I consider pretty much all of the conversations to be cutscenes and not gameplay because, quite frankly, there were no interesting decisions to be made.  

The sidequests were very boring too and almost entirely rehashes of previous Bioware sidequests.  

Good and evil options were disappointingly transparent and few options were given for playing a middle of the road, "gray" character.  

Maybe it wouldn't have bothered me so much if I hadn't played KOTOR 2 just a few months ago.  I thought KOTOR 2 was fantastically written with tons interesting dialogue options and choices.  Maybe Bioware should hire the scripwriter from Obsidian.

[Sepiche]

I think part of the problem with the companions is that you have no control over them what so ever.  No control of leveling, no control over equipment, little controll over them in combat.

Plus they all seemed to have roughly the same amount of combat ability.  They just felt so interchangable that I had no attachment at all to them... although Silk Fox was pretty hot.

s

[farley2k]

I was left....underwhelmed after I finished the game.  

There did seem to be something lacking in the spirit of the game.

I noticed it really bad during the 5th,6th, and 7th chapters which were just incredibly linear and dull.


I feel really bad saying that becuase I love Bioware, I love their other games, I thought the setting sounded great, the story seemed like a winner, but in the end it just didnt' all come together for me either.

[Andrew Wonser]

Haven't not played it yet I'm wondering if comparing it to KOTOR is fair. Maybe the reason it doesn't have "heart" compaired to their previous game was because we already had so much background (in KOTOR) to start with, so you were more vested versus Jade. But again I'm just guessing here.

[Scott]

Maybe the reason it doesn't have "heart" compaired to their previous game was because we already had so much background (in KOTOR) to start with, so you were more vested versus Jade.

I think it is just a dull story and bad writing.  I was definitely vested in Baulders Gate and BG II, both original games from Bioware.  Neverwinter was a good engine, but boring writing, much like Jade it seems.  Neverwinter's expansion was very good though (second expansion).  KOTOR also seemed to have a pretty good story line and system, and it did have the familiarity you've expressed.

Jade just really falls flat to me.  I've tried a couple times, and I just can't get into the game at all.  I dislike the combat, and there is nothing else to keep me going.  The decisions, as mentioned, are all obvious and generic, and seem to have little effect anyway.  

Even though I didn't like Neverwinter's story, I at least enjoyed it.  Jade Empire is the first Bioware game I just don't like, and can't get into at all.  I think it may be one of my biggest disappointments in year, as I thought I'd love it.

[Kevin Grey]

Haven't not played it yet I'm wondering if comparing it to KOTOR is fair. Maybe the reason it doesn't have "heart" compaired to their previous game was because we already had so much background (in KOTOR) to start with, so you were more vested versus Jade. But again I'm just guessing here.

Like Scott, I'm a huge fan of previous Bioware games.  Hell, I thought the original campaign to NWN was better than Jade Empire.  Probably blasphemy but I can only say that while I didn't finish the NWN OC I put in twice the number of hours that I did in Jade Empire.  FWIW I thought the add-on NWN campaigns were superb and finished both.