Games | Superior Realities

I’m always surprised when my plans in MMOs actually come to fruition.

Yes, my plan had been to replay the base content of Star Wars: The Old Republic as a Jedi consular in order to see the Republic side of things, and somehow that’s actually what ended up happening.

I now bring you my thoughts on the class, its story, and the Republic.

On the consular:

Having played it all the way through, I’m still not getting why the buzz around the consular story is so negative. While it’s definitely nowhere near as spectacular as the agent story was, I still enjoyed myself quite a lot.

What I like most is how well they sold the class fantasy. The consular story is all about delving into ancient lore, healing the sick, and diplomacy. I’m not the biggest fan of the Jedi (even relative to my already lukewarm feelings toward Star Wars as a whole), but the consular story captures the essence of what it is to be a Jedi incredibly well.

It’s also a welcome change of pace from the more bombastic stories video games tend to focus on. Of course, the game mechanics still involve no end of combat, but story-wise, the consular story is far more focused on making peace rather than war.

You do start to feel like a true paragon of virtue and enlightenment. That appeals very strongly to me — it may not for everyone.

I also thought it was very interesting to have so many diplomats and envoys on your ship, in addition to the usual companions, many of them compelling characters in their own right.

Though it does make me wonder where they were all staying, considering there are only two beds on the ship. Pity the poor soul bunking with Qyzen; he’s awfully spiky, and he’s cold-blooded, so you know he’d be a blanket-hog.

And once again I was struck by how very much SW:TOR does not feel like Star Wars to me. The names are the same, but the style of storytelling in this game bears no resemblance to the movies, and it’s almost hard to believe they’re nominally part of the same franchise.

Coming from me, that’s a compliment.

I do have a few complaints about the consular. One is that chapter three is by far the weakest. The unique class flavour is mostly thrown away for a very standard “save the world” story, and the one big twist is very easy to see coming.

Also, while the agent story easily could have stood alone as a solid game in its own right, the consular story does feel very much like a side-quest (albeit an unusually good one). It feels tangential to the main game, and not terribly important in the greater scheme of things.

Finally, the class itself just isn’t that fun to play. Button bloat is a big problem for SW:TOR in general, but the consular, at least as the sage sub-class, is an especially egregious case. How many different “throw sparklies for moderate damage” spells do I need? My agent had too many buttons, too, but at least they all flowed together into a natural and somewhat satisfying rotation. They all had a clear purpose within the greater whole. Sage is just playing whack-a-mole with a dozen barely distinguishable short cooldown abilities.

Companions were also at times a source of frustration.

On companions:

The consular story once again had me frustrated by how slowly you unlock companions in SW:TOR. It took me an incredibly long time to unlock any companions I actually liked.

I also found it strange — though also somewhat amusing — how unbelievably out of place the first few consular companions are. I’m playing the game’s most peaceful and virtuous class, yet my first three companions are a fanatical lizard monster who hunts sentient beings for sport because he thinks life is a game and he’s trying to get the high score; a weird, creepy pervert who is accompanied everywhere by his self-aware holographic sex doll; and a homicidal, megalomaniacal terrorist.

Qyzen, at least, did grow on me a bit, though it’s still hard to look past the “murders innocent people in the name of his bloodthirsty goddess” thing.

Tharan makes my skin crawl, though. He comes across as the sort of guy who’s going to get caught installing hidden cameras in a middle school bathroom at some point. And Zenith just seems to be the Twi’lek version of Arcturus Mengsk. I can hear him giving the speech now:

“I will not be stopped. Not by you, or the Sith, or the Jedi, or anyone! I will rule Balmorra, or see it burned to ashes around me!”

Thankfully, they were just saving the best for last.

Felix is a pretty basic character, and his arc never really went anywhere, but he’s a likable enough guy, and he’ll always be welcome on my ship, no matter how scrambled his brains are.

Nadia, though, is the one who was worth the wait.

I gather Nadia is a character the community is somewhat divided on. I certainly grant her eagerness and naivete can at times be a little abrasive.

But in the end I was won over. Her joy and wonder are just too infectious. Surprisingly, even despite the severe limitations of an MMO, I’d rate Nadia as one of my favourite Bioware romances to date; it’s a sweet story, and it plays out well.

I particularly liked how in this case it was more a case of Nadia pursuing the player character than the other way around. Normally in Bioware romances the NPC doesn’t display any interest until the player does. It’s like a switch goes off in their head and suddenly they like you.

Which is of course exactly what happens, but the artificiality of it is painfully obvious. By making her the aggressor (for lack of a better term) in the relationship, Nadia comes across as a lot more real.

I also thought it was interesting how Nadia appeared in the story long before she became a companion. I am left to wonder why they couldn’t just make her a companion right away,* but at least it gives the player plenty of time to get to know her, even if they can’t adventure with her until near the end of the game.

*(I understand there’s nominally a story explanation for it, but it feels a bit flimsy.)

On the Republic:

This was of course also my first time seeing the Republic side of things.

I don’t like it.

Now, I’m not sure exactly why I find the Republic so uninteresting. Part of it is definitely that the moral choices are a lot easier. I really agonized over a lot of the Imperial choices, but bar a handful of exceptions, the Republic choices are usually between “do the obviously right thing” or “be a petty, evil prick for no reason.”

But even beyond that, the Republic just feels so colourless and bland. Maybe everyone is just so nice the faction doesn’t feel real. Maybe it’s how dorky their uniforms are. Maybe I just like British accents a little too much.

I may still play Republic classes, but it’s clear my heart lies with the Empire. And that’s pretty surprising, because I never like playing the bad guy in games.

On the future:

Against all odds, I’m still enjoying SW:TOR, even if a few of the game’s bad habits are beginning to wear heavily on me — like the lengthy travel times enforced by its sometimes wonky quest flow, and its ludicrous over-abundance of trash mobs. I don’t see myself leaving it behind any time soon.

Right now I’m still thinking I’ll finish the inquisitor storyline at least before moving on to the expansion content. Maybe a few other classes, too — we’ll see. I do want to finish at least most of the class stories eventually, though I can’t guarantee my interest will last that long.

One thing in my favour is that nearly all my characters were created during a double XP event, meaning they’re all a fair bit ahead of the leveling curve. I can afford to skip quite a lot of the non-class content, which should keep things from being too much of a grind.

My plan is still to return to my agent whenever I finally move into the expansions, and I don’t currently expect to play any other characters after finishing their class stories, but we’ll see how it goes.

I may be taking more detours into other games along the way, as well. Right now I feel a strong, sudden call from a old flame… a wild frontier where a young Yukifyo woman can make a name for herself…

* * *

By the way, I finally figured out the issue with images on my blog, so you should now once again be able to click screenshots for full-size versions. Which I certainly hope someone is going to do, since I am unjustifiably proud of my screenshoting skills.

Origin regularly offers up games simply for free, which is the one thing that elevates it above being merely the poor man’s Steam. One recent offering was an old martial arts-themed RPG from Bioware called Jade Empire.

Jade Empire was never really on my radar, but hey, free is free, and I did like later Bioware games.

Took me until now to finally get around to playing it (unfortunately this means you’re too late to pick it up for free if this blog makes you curious about it). Ultimately the main trait it shares with more recent Bioware titles is that it’s a game that leaves me with mixed feelings.

The biggest surprise about Jade Empire is that its combat is actually pretty good, not something I expected to say about a Bioware game, especially one of this vintage.

It’s an unusual but interesting system. Essentially, you have three main options at all times: a quick, usually high DPS attack; a slow, heavy attack to break enemy blocks; and an AoE attack.

However, the effects of each of these three attacks changes radically based on your current style.

The best analogy I can draw for styles is that they’re a bit like the different guns you might have in a shooter. They’re bound to the number keys, and you can instantly swap between them at any time for no cost.

Each style has different strengths and weaknesses, and while some merely amount to slightly different ways to punch people, others have far more unusual effects. Spirit Thief Style deals no damage but restores your chi (mana). Dire Flame Style allows you to hurl fireballs (at the cost of chi), offering an analogue to a mage playstyle.

Weapons also count as individual styles, and there are even transformation styles that allow you to shapeshift into a variety of strange creatures for powerful bonuses.

My favourite was Toad Demon Style, which transforms you into a giant, lumbering toad who slaps people into submission with its flippers for massive damage.

That is exactly as fun as it sounds.

That’s not to say the combat is perfect. In the greater scheme of things, it’s still not an especially exciting system compared to the best examples of RPG combat out there, and it has some minor quirks that can be annoying, such as some occasionally awkward camera angles

Still, on the whole, I’d count Jade Empire’s combat in the “win” column.

However, just as Jade Empire succeeds where many of its successors failed, it also lacks some of their strengths.

As you’d expect from a Bioware game, Jade Empire features a large cast of colourful characters who serve as your companions. However, they’re not nearly as well-written as their descendants in Mass Effect and Dragon Age.

A few of them still won my affection, notably the haughty but heroic Silver Fox and the roguish but lovable Sky. The biggest exception of all, however, was the conflicted Sagacious Zu; he alone stands with the great characters Bioware would later create.

However, the fact remains that if you go into Jade Empire expecting Mass Effect or Dragon Age quality character development, you’ll be disappointed.

The romances are especially confusing. As in later games, several of your companions can become romantic interests for your main character, but these romances are, well, a bit broken if you ask me.

I had intended to romance Silver Fox, but there never seemed to be any dialogue options to support such an effort (I only know she’s a romance option from reading about it elsewhere). Meanwhile, there didn’t seem to be any option but to romance Dawn Star (not without treating her with outright contempt, anyway). It seemed I was doomed to end up with her even though I was merely trying to be basically nice, a sensation like sinking into quicksand.

However, the romance never amounted to anything, leading me to wonder if I’d misinterpreted all that talk of “true feelings” earlier, or if I somehow ended the relationship somewhere along the line (without any blowback from Dawn Star?), or if the romances in Jade Empire are just that anticlimactic.

On the plus side, the fact that Jade Empire’s romances ultimately left me only confused and alone does make them a remarkably good mirror for real life, at least where I am concerned.

One twist that I did find interesting is that there are a few segments near the end where you will control some of your companions and make use of their unique talents. Although I grant it could become tiresome if overused, I’d like to have seen a bit more of this throughout Jade Empire — and maybe in later Bioware games, too.

Also mirroring later Bioware games, specifically Mass Effect, Jade Empire has a morality system based on two extremes, the Way of the Open Palm and the Way of the Closed Fist. These are pretty much just paragon and renegade, right down to my maxing out my score for paragon/Way of the Open Palm.

The morality doesn’t seem to affect gameplay much, though given my dislike for rigid morality systems I’d count that as a positive. The biggest impact is that there are a handful of styles and quests that are only accessible to followers of a specific moral path — and really “handful” might be generous. I can recall only one quest and one style I was locked out of by not following the Way of the Closed Fist.

As for the main story in Jade Empire, it’s… okay, I guess? It’s a bit of an odd mix. The first 70% or so of the game is very slow and feels very predictable, but the remainder is breakneck and full of unexpected twists.

I feel as though I should have enjoyed the story more than I ultimately did. It left me feeling cold, but I’m struggling to understand why. The twists surprised me; the ending was a bit abrupt but mostly satisfying.

Perhaps there was just one too many big boss fights in close succession. Perhaps the relative lack of strong characters sucked some of the heart out. Perhaps the sheer oldness of the game began to wear on my jaded tastes after a while. Jade Empire’s graphics and gameplay have aged very well all things considered, but they’re still not up to modern standards.

Overall rating: 6.9/10 It might have warranted a better rating in its day, but it doesn’t shine as much as it could compared to modern games.

Superior Realities

Category Archives: Games

SW:TOR: Consular Story Complete

Retro Review: Jade Empire