Jade Empire Retrospective | An Extremely Comprehensive Critique and History

"I know, I'll do a review of Jade Empire next! That will be quick"

Today we're looking at Jade Empire - the bridge between Bioware's days as a hardcore CRPG developer and their more modern cinematic output. It's an incredibly unique game - critically acclaimed but also highly flawed - an iconic Xbox original game yet a complete commercial flop.

Strap yourself in because we're going deep and we won't be coming up for air.

Credit for the incredible thumbnail goes to the immensely talented - @MicahTheBrave

All media in this video is used for the purpose of review, commentary or criticism and is defined as fair use under US Copyright law.

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Chapters
00:00:00 - Introduction
00:02:40 - I - What Even is A Bioware?
00:12:38 - II - Set to Fail
00:20:58 - III - A World of Promise
00:26:09 - IV - Having Actual Morals
00:34:33 - V - This Charming Man
00:40:12 - VI - Real Time Stunt Action
00:44:14 - VII - A Heavy Dose of Bioware Narrative
00:50:57 - VIII - Twist and Shout
00:55:46 - IX - Rough Around the Edges
00:58:35 - X - Jesus, It's Still Loading
01:00:50 - XI - Follow the Yellow... Straight Line?
01:06:37 - XII - The Black Leopard School
01:14:11 - XIII - Faintest of Side Content
01:19:49 - XIV - The Walking Stick Conundrum
01:30:38 - XV - Refusing to Follow the Crowd
01:42:27 - XVI - The Grand Messy Finale
01:57:16 - XVII - Could Jade Empire Ever Come Back?
02:03:58 - Goodbyeeee

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#JadeEmpire #Bioware #Retrospective

[JenTenZen]

I love this game. Instead of a sequel, I wish they’d just remake it. It’s an excellent story, it’s obscure enough, that most people won’t know the twist and the technology is there now to really do it justice.

[atodamadre]

I feel old seeing everyone talking about playing this when they were kids. I bought this on day one and played it. I was 30. Such an awesome game.

[Frikgeek]

The Mirabelle rifle is actually super broken and probably by far the best weapon in the game. By using your dodge roll you can completely skip the lengthy loading animation and the rifle will magically be ready to fire when you finish your dodge. This speeds up your rate of fire like fivefold while also letting you reposition after each shot.

The only problem is the high focus cost but it's managable for a weapon-centric build with high focus.

[Tawleyn]

What's best about the twist is that every time they mention your fighting style, they always say something to the effect: "Your Master must have been an amazing teacher. While fighting you, I always felt like there was an opening - a flaw that I could take advantage of. But when I moved to strike, it closed up and I was punished for it."

Every time it was pointed out my first time playing I thought "Wow, that's the kind of style someone called "The Glorious Strategist" would create, something that tricks people into thinking there are opening where there are none, leaving them vulnerable." It's because Sun Li knows that flaw. Nobody knows how to exploit it except for him. It was such a perfect twist.

[wwydakb]

Master Li's betrayal absolutely broke my mind. Mainly cause it all made perfect sense, but I had no clue it was coming.

[DaveKanazawa]

It's been almost twenty years, yet Sagacious Zu still randomly pops into my mind every now and then.

[Keyboardwarrior]

If any dev reads this:

I'd like you to know that I played this game during a particularly difficult time of my childhood. It helped.

[FalenDragmire]

1:03:00 I would like to point out that there isn't just one heaven that all of the gods reside in. Each god of major influence (like the Forest Shadow) has their own personal heaven that they reside in, which is what you go through during the forest section of the game. You're not going through "all of heaven"; you're just going through the Forest Shadow's personal heaven.

[ismfofbiggestfan]

I absolutely loved Jade Empire.. I played through it like 30 times as a kid. One of my all time favourites.

[solikeletsbenerdy]

I love this messy masterpiece it's one of the few games I actually played with my mother or atleast I watched her play the game and beat it and i am currently in the process of beating it myself to honor her death so thank you deeply this retrospective really hits home for me ❤️

[calemr]

I absolutely love the IDEA of the game's morality system. The way it's mean to be more morally grey, more realistic, and with justifications on both sides.

I loved meeting the two masters who describe the two alignment options, and the "Low Path" one explains how if you solve everyone's problems, be a hero, then they'll remain weak, fail to grow, never learn to solve their problems for themselves when you're not there to save them, while also saying that it's still within that belief to save someone's life, IF they would die. Corpses can't learn or improve themselves, after all. Or if you're rewarded, because wealth can be a form of strength in itself, applied correctly (ie: Into the hands of a mercenary like yourself.)

Aaaand then there's a bunch of blatantly evil choices in some quests, that even goes directly Against that ethos, encouraging you to let peasants get murdered by multiple armed men, or backstab people for no reason beyond "I want evil points to make Tempest style stronger."

One of the FIRST closed fist options is "Permanently cripple a fellow student to save a few coins on medicine.", How does THAT "promote growth through hardships"? It's actively Preventing growth!

I kinda wish the game had had Open Palm, Closed Fist, And "Just being a sociopath." Options, To help show how those last two Aren't meant to be the same.
But sadly, to a bunch of the writers, they apparently are the same.

[jayrichard]

I wanted a sequel to this game more than I’d ever wanted a sequel in my life.

[Ripulintuoja]

Excellent review. Jade Empire hit me hard when I first played it, but every critique you've mentioned here is valid and explains why I haven't really gone back to it despite being obsessed with it earlier on. Still, there is one thing that I felt was missing from this video, and that was the game's soundtrack. I think it did a lot to draw me in when I was younger. Jade Empire was tiny and cramped even by the standards of the day, but the music made the world feel much more alive. Really, watching your video it's hard to see from your review how a game this limited and cramped could ever have drawn me in, but then I listened to a few of the old tracks and understood. Jack Wall's work is as stellar in Jade Empire as it was in Mass Effect, but it's rarely remembered. It's a bit sad how some of the standout, excellent parts of Jade Empire were relegated to obscurity.

[jeyo]

just got through the intro, and had to pause to interject after hearing the statement D&D worlds were created by wizards of the coast. When released, Baldur's Gate was based on properties conceived under the TSR banner, and though TSR was acquired the year prior to Baldur's Gate by WOTC, and may have led to them offering some creative input in the last year of the games development, to give them world building credit just has to be wrong. Forgotten Realms, the D&D based setting for Baldur's Gate, was already richly established by the time the game started development and ownership of the licenses involved changed hands. Just a niggle, but I hate when corporate entities get wrongly credited as creators just because they had the monetary clout to buy the intellectual property rights to licenses.

[marciopinho]

Jade Empire is a true hidden gem. Great game.

[jvanmudifaj]

Just did the quest with the doctor trying to transplant the splean to his daughter. And if you chose to go to the other doctor and the father gives his life to save her, with wild flower as your active compion the Guardian will note that such selfless acts of love are very favord by the celestials and perhaps this will alow his to reincarnate a better person next life.

[AlexTraven]

Honestly I always wanted a fresh reboot of Jade Empire rather than a sequel. The game had so much potential that they could honestly bring it back to life

[IFinishedAVideoGame]

Lots of ideas for more videos so brace yourself for more deep dives to come! Obviously I hugely appreciate everyone who's watched, commented, liked and subscribed! It all helps so much!

[Optionthirty]

I absolutely loved this game. I can't recall how many times I played through it, but it was a lot (I was a younger man with less responsibility and infinite imagination) and I've always wondered why it fell into such obscurity. I was a bit too young to understand launch windows and copies sold - I just assumed a good game meant sequels. It appears I carried that assumption into my adult life, because I can remember bringing up Jade Empire to my brother or friends many times over the years and questioning why it never got a sequel.

I didn't know about its launch issues or its horrendous sales numbers. I also had a good pair of rose-colored glasses when looking over all the game's shortcomings (call it ignorance in my younger years and nostalgia in my older ones).

This was a great retrospective on a game that still doesn't get enough attention, all things considered.

[visibletoallusersonyoutube]

Woww what a great video. This game meant so much to me growing up, my parents bought it for me when I was little and I’d never experienced something like it before. I was used to playing flash games and shooters, so this was my first time playing an RPG! People have a lot of nostalgia for games like Zelda, or Final Fantasy, but Jade Empire was my version of that. That twist hit me so hard, I’d never felt such intense feelings from a video game before. Honestly this game helped me get in touch with my emotions at such a young age, and I feel really lucky to have had the opportunity to play it. The music, storytelling, characters, sounds, environments, and music was amazing. I really think this game opened my heart up, and gave me hope in life. I think about it often, the influence it had on me is immeasurable. I attribute a lot of my happiness and peace of mind to the lessons I learned from playing this. Thanks for highlighting this game, I hope to see it revived in some form one day :, )