GameBanshee Feature: Jade Empire Interview
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GB: Can you tell us a bit about the various combat styles and the advantages and disadvantages players might expect from some of them? How about some examples of moves within one of the styles?
Greg: The combat system revolves around styles and tactical style switching. A style is a collection of moves, no more than seven, that are all arranged around a common theme. Each style has its own strengths of weaknesses, and players can find ways to switch between them quickly during combat to produce a winning strategy.
Fighting styles are grouped into three categories: martial arts styles, magic styles, and weapon styles. Within each of these categories styles are described as being "fast", or "strong", or "defensive" relative to each other--so the player could learn a strong weapon style (such as Eight-Ring Sword style) or a fast martial arts style (such as Centipede style), or a defensive magic style (such as the damage-absorbing Willow style). You can think of it as a matrix, with each style falling somewhere into the combination of category and type.
We have several weapon styles planned. One example is the classic Chinese broadsword (Broadsword style). This is a slim, one-handed finesse weapon designed to give a good balance between offense and defense. Another example is the eight-ring sword (Eight-Ring Sword style), so called because eight heavy iron rings are attached to give the weapon more heft. This is a very heavy, two-handed weapon originally designed to cut down a mounted warrior's horse--in fact it is sometimes called a "horse sword". One last example is an improvised weapon: the bar stool (Bar Stool style). Sometimes a visit to the tavern takes a turn for the violent, and a nearby bar stool is just the ticket for smashing your way to safety. These improvised weapons don't have to be "learned" like other styles, they're available to anyone.
Ray: A few other things are very cool about the combat system: for example, if players want to pause to reflect on their strategic choices during a tough battle and choose that '˜perfect' style they can do this at any time. Magic styles are also quite awesome examples include the transformation styles where you can capture the spirits of certain enemies when you defeat them, and then transform into those creatures at the cost of some Chi. Imagine transforming into a giant golem or a horse demon in the middle of a battle! Other magic styles include Fire style, which allows you to shoot fireballs at your opponents, or Dirty Fighting style, which allows you to blind opponents with magical energies. Battles are very tactical as Jim mentioned, as you switch rapidly between different styles, such as martial arts styles, weapons (both learned or improvised) and magical styles and styles interact in interesting ways which is really a form of emergent gameplay. We're excited to see how players combine different styles to get interesting combination results.
