Another one done, took me forever to write it.

I have finished “Jade Empire”, and in my opinion most of the time if you want to beat a game all you have to do is play it, Jade was one of those games it wasn’t that hard in fact I just sort of walked through it. It was pretty easy once I figure out the rhythm of fighting there wasn’t a man or women in the Jade Empire that could stop me. After I completed most of the quests I was so powerful that the last boss was a piece of cake, the only weapon I really used my first sword skill and I cut him down like he was a regular enemy.

While I was playing Jade empire it struck me that its was basically an American take on Japanese role-playing fundamentals, It seemed to follow the same formula that square uses to make a rpg with a few small changes that make a huge difference in the way the game flows. The option of being evil just for the sake of being evil is huge when you look at the way games are made, not everyone wants to be the hero all the time. The role playing stereotype is that you’re the hero and are unquestionably good regardless of how many times you just barge into someone’s house and rummage through there stuff, Where as in a Bioware game you wouldn’t just rummage through there stuff if you wanted to be evil, you can kill them, steal there stuff then burn there house down. I think that’s why rpgs from Asia are not getting a lot of love as of late, the people playing them want a little variety in there games. Squares vision of the hero has become vannialified over the years and they are pretty much the same character with a new paint job every time they release a new game. In a Bioware RPG characters aren’t some emo kid or a plucky youth that has a gripe with the evil empire, they are pretty much what you make them to be. Your not forced into a boxed hero type the character is YOU, weather your saving a kitty from a tree or setting the tree on fire it breaks down to what you as this character want to do. What Asian developers haven’t realized about western gamers is that they have grown up playing there games and most of them are now adults who’s gaming tastes have changed as they grew up, most of them don’t want to play through some jerk off characters teenage angst. Maybe that’s why I find Biowares stuff more interesting now because I’m not being spoon fed the same characters over and over again. A little variety never hurt anyone, considering I’ve been playing the same game.

Bioware does abuse the dialogue tree on a regular basis there isn’t really a question of that, but the side quests and the way they are implemented and the way the quests add in little bits of story and context of the world around you through out the game. I’ve started “Knights of the old republic” a day ago and I’m seeing some of the same patterns in both games, it might be because it’s a Star wars game but “kotor” grabbed me faster then Jade did. When I started playing Jade, I couldn’t stand the side quest they seemed like a huge waste of time and a way to lengthen the game. It was like they just kept sending them at me over and over again. Now I see that Bioware replaced the grinding of old school rpgs with those side quests, instead of making you grind for four hours so that you can go fight a tough boss you progress though the game basically by just playing those added bits of the story, which is really nice because I don’t really have time to grind a lot anymore. They also as far as I know there aren’t any random encounters, which I always thought were really annoying. The side quest are really what gets you to the next level because they feed it too you in small spoonfuls of it, the exp ratio is tight too there isn’t a huge gap between levels which is why these games flow so well. I made it through Jade problem only killing 100 enemies throughout the whole game, so the focus of the game is on the story and not the next level. When is the last time a Final fantasy game wasn’t about the grind? That being said I don’t have square but there last couple weren’t good or even pretty good, they were lousy. Its time for them to take back there thrown and to take the power back, they have a dynasty of great games, too many for me to even write out here. Bioware has maybe 5 or huge games under there belt and they all seem to be good games or have good intentions with everything they make. Hopefully square can pull it together with final fantasy because with the economy the way it is any misstep could mean trouble with there new risky aqusitions.

TIME TO SMOKE!