Jade Empire is a game that has a reputation, good old days of Bioware and when they did great games. Well, after finally playing and beating it in 2017 I can say that this is a decent game with moments of greatness. The Visuals and music are good, having in mind the time when it was released, it still looks great. The main problem is two-fold - story and gameplay. The plot of this game is much too predictable, almost without any unique and creative attempts. Each story beat, each sidequest, each companion dialogue is almost a direct copy of ones seen in other games and works of fiction. The crazy berserker alcoholic, the mad inventor, the silent, brooding warrior, the charismatic rogue, the naive village girl. Even the one quest where your character is forced to be an actor and improvise on stage. Having said that, there are some great moments, amazing dialogues but this whole experience is medicore at best. The gameplay is another thing, on paper it is amazing, multiple styles, dodges, types of attacks that let you have very strategic battles. In practice, a lot of enemies are resistant to a lot of types of attacks, forcing you to play just one or two specific ways. You think you can choose a way to play, like being a mage, but you can't you need to bee a jack-of-all-trades. Another problem is the massive inbalance in the fighting styles. It is painfully easy to find the best, strongest ways to deal with opponents - to break the game and become basically unbeatable. The combat and gameplay is fun but unbalanced. All in all, this is a good game, but it is the equivallent of an action flick that you will watch once and never think about it again.
