A fantastic non-cheesy Kung Fu game!
The worst part about Jade Empire is that the darn thing ends. How dare they make such an excellent masterpiece end? Worse yet it ends way too soon. There's so much in the world of Jade Empire that is hinted at, or talked about that we never get to see. There's also a number of martial art styles in there that have their basis in real Kung Fu (Drunken Master, in example) and it would have been nice to see Hung Gar included in the mix, considering that it is highly popular in Southern China. But then again some of the martial arts in there are made up anyway.
Where this game really shines is its highly cinematic and deep storyline. The tale allows a young warrior selected and customized by the player to follow the plot along two different paths. The righteous path "Way of the Open Palm" or the wicked path "Way of the closed fist." There's a great deal of the story, which delves deeply into Chinese Martial Art morality, and philosophy, and for the completist there's a ton of backstory, which can be found as the game progresses. Games this engrossing are few and far between as the game takes a hold of you tightly, and does not let you go until it ends a mere 16 hours after it begins. Very short for an RPG.
The game also features what I have decided is the all time greatest soundtrack for a game, besting both Soul Caliber 2 and Symphony of the night with it's very authentic themes. The music sounds very real, and if it's done with midi then it’s done so well that I couldn't tell. It sounded orchestrated. A lot of effort went into the music and the voice acting, and it pays off.
This game is weak in graphics, however. There's a lot of aliasing, and the character models could have been a lot better. Instead they don't look like there was much improvement over BioWare's last Star Wars game. The textures were particularly disappointing. The scenery and levels, however, were amazingly artistic and beautifully colored and lit, so the game is not a complete eyesore. Character animation and responsiveness was a bit choppy, however, a fatal flaw that Knights of the Old Republic suffered from as well. Another thing I didn't like was only being able to have one companion at a time instead of two, like in Knights of the old republic. But like KOTOR you'll have a number of times when you see what you want and can't seem to get your character to respond to it. There's also a great deal of excessive load times, but don't let these flaws scare you. They may prevent the game from being perfect, but the over all experience is still one that every Xbox owner needs to have. It is by far and away the best RPG available for XBox.