Jade Empire: Final Thoughts

I finished the game yesterday. Once again, I highly recommend it. I have one complaint though: unskipable end credits. Here is a game design tip: do not fucking do this. The last thing you want to do is to annoy the shit of of the player who just spent many hours having fun with your game.

I know that many people like to sit through credits, because sometimes you get some nice bonus “something” at the end. At least that’s what happens in the movies – in video games, not so much. But not providing a mechanism to break out of the game credits is annoying. I just finished the game, now I want to go and do something else – but I have to sit through 5 minutes of white text on black background because there is no way for me to quit the game other than hard reboot of the machine.

Also, if you feel like kicking ass in the game, I can let you in on a dirty little secret. Here is how to do a flawless victory on all human enemies. Here is a quick strategy guide:

You will need two styles to pull this off. First you need a strong combat style that deals a lot of damage. I used White Demon because it is the style I started with, and it served me well throughout the game. You can pick another one – it doesn’t really matter. Second you need a style that immobilizes your opponent. I recommend Storm Dragon because you get it relatively early in the game. Paralyzing Palm is also good but you get it later, and you may not be able to learn it it if you play an evil character.

Upgrade both styles to the max. Especially important is the duration of your support style.

In combat, start with your immobilization move. Do a quick 1-2-3 combo, and as your character is delivering the second blow, switch to your standard style. You will finish the combo, and start another one (with the enemy either paralyzed, or shocked). Mid-way through your combo, switch back to the immobilizing support style. If your support style is upgraded enough, you may actually be able to do 2 damage-dealing combos before switching back. The trick is to keep the victim immobilized as you pound on them. With a little bit of practice, you can defeat all human enemies this way without getting hit once.

Yes, it is a little cheesy – but it is out there. If you have a particularly hard boss battle you can use this to your advantage.

Note that demons, ghosts and golems are immune to support styles so you need another approach. When learning styles I recommend to concentrate on upgrading the following:

  • damage dealing style – I recommend White Demon but whatever. As long as you can deal damage quickly you should be fine.
  • immobilizing support style – I recommend Storm Dragon. You need it to pull those flawless victories.
  • Chi stealing styleSpirit Thief is the only one as far as I can tell. Make sure you upgrade it even if you are not using it much. The game has a boss who is immune to anything but support styles that deal Chi damage – and he has tons of HP to burn. Much more than you have Chi. You will need to Spirit Thief him in order to win. It’s easier when the style is upgraded.
  • weapon style – golems are immune to anything but, so you need one. Your initial weapon is ok, but I suggest investing in the twin blades style that you get for fighting in the imperial Arena.

When fighting elephant and rhino demons I noticed that if you stand really, really close to them they tend to turtle up and block. Then you can easily take them apart with your block breaking moves. This does not always work – but more often than not, if I got really in elephant demons’ face he would stop fighting and start blocking.

Btw, investing in Mind is not a waste of time. Once you have enough focus to burn the Matrix like Focus mode becomes actually usable. I would sometimes exploit it when fighting groups of boss-level enemies. You can focus up, and try to deal massive damage to one of the enemies while the others can’t catch up to you.

[tags]jade empire, end credits, games, gaming[/tags]

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5 Responses to Jade Empire: Final Thoughts

  1. Alt + F4 Gets you out of the program… or windows key (this is all if you were playing on windows)

    Go buy fable, thats the best advice ever.

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  2. Luke UNITED STATES Mozilla Firefox Windows says:

    I finished Fable long time ago was an awesome game. I finished it as a good character, and then started re-playing it as evil, but got bored after a bit due to the repetitiveness.

    Still, Fable is a very awesome game.

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  3. Luke UNITED STATES Mozilla Firefox Windows says:

    [quote comment=”4314″]Alt + F4 Gets you out of the program… or windows key (this is all if you were playing on windows)[/quote]

    Yes, or that. :P But I didn’t want to kill it, because I wanted it to save my character so that I can use it next time around if I want to.

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  4. Whoops didn’t mean alt + F4 (which wouldh ave too) I was meaning the Alt + Tab Combo.

    Fable, I played through three times… the only problem that i had with it… is that there were only a few battles that were truly challeging, and I had the ability to do that super fast sprint (which is a power i recommend everyone building to highest capacity before any other magic)so when i got into too much of a bind, i would just run away.

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  5. Luke UNITED STATES Mozilla Firefox Ubuntu Linux says:

    I would use that power just to move from point A to point B.

    I also remember that one power that would let you go berserk and double your speed and damage. I remember using that alot. :)

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