Jade Empire: Special Edition

Jade Empire is an original action RPG from BioWare that swerved away from established fantasy entirely and set its story in a fictional world inspired by ancient China, its legends, and martial arts. The player takes on the role of a martial arts master's student who, following a tragic event, sets out on a journey uncovering a vast conspiracy threatening the balance between the world of the living and the world of spirits. The combat system runs in real time and allows switching between several fighting styles on the fly, from hard strikes through acrobatics to weapons and magic, with the moral choice between the philosophy of the Open Palm and the Closed Fist playing a key role, affecting available abilities as well as relationships with companions. Dialogue written with traditional BioWare quality offers room for both persuasion and intimidation, and a number of conflicts can be resolved without a weapon.

The game arrived on PC two years later than on Xbox, in 2007, under the title Jade Empire: Special Edition, and came with several improvements right away. A new difficulty mode called Get Some was added, with bonus fights and rewards for players who wanted to get more out of the combat system, along with developer commentary on selected scenes and support for higher resolutions than the console offered. The controls were reworked for mouse and keyboard, which sped up combat and made ranged aiming more precise, but a number of players complained that the interface and camera were still designed for a gamepad and felt clumsy on keyboard — navigating the menu and inventory took some getting used to, since the commands were merely remapped from the gamepad rather than designed from scratch for a mouse.

Content-wise it is otherwise an identical game with no quests cut or added, so the main advantage of the PC version remains its graphical sharpness and the mentioned bonus challenges, not an expanded story. Still, for players without an Xbox, the Special Edition represented in 2007 the only way to get to an unconventional RPG that was fairly unusual in the 2005 catalog, and even two years later still without having to compromise on the graphics.

Why play it: For players without an Xbox, the Special Edition represented the only path to an unconventional RPG from BioWare, complete with sharper graphics and extra bonus challenges.