Jade Empire did not become a classic, because it lacks longevity.
1.) Upon first play-through you might not notice, but the combat is a little clunky. It still has the action queue, so it never responds to your input right away. You always have to wait and watch while your character is too busy walking into a spear to notice your mouse clicks. And then there are all those little bugs like jumping into the wrong direction, failure to change styles, etc. For a game to become a classic it needs lots of replayability and that means it should be possible to *master* the combat eventually. Not so here. No matter how many times you play it, you still need a bit of luck.
2.) And while I'm talking about replayability: For god's sake! Find a way to make scripted animations skippable. Take the fight against Jia as an example. Theoretically it has lots of replayability, because she's quite a formidable opponent. But unfortunately this fight is preceded by a loooong and unskippable cutscene. I'm not replaying that one. Oh no.
3.) Add a toolset. And while you're at it: Add a toolset! Seriously. Nothing does more to anchor a game in the player's mind, than the chance to get involved. If only by proxy through downloading other's mods. Speaking for myself: I do not just want to play - I also want to tinker.
Edited by pecoes, 06 November 2010 - 06:23 PM.
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