Best Kung Fu themed RPG?

[deathdunt]

I've been seeing ads for World Of Kung Fu and Twelve Sky.

I recently bought Jade Empire but it's not compatible with my computer.

Which of these are best/most enjoyable for the kung fu fan?

[Bravery]

Jade Empire was a really good game, the fight system is easy to pick up and it has a decent twist to the plot which you'll pick up two hours in. But you should check out Shenmue and Shenmue 2-- classic you killed my father and now I must avenge him storyline.

[Mark Pollard]

WORLD OF KUNG FU and TWELVE SKY are both MMORPGs, aka Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Play Games. They are similar to WORLD OF WARCRAFT. However, most martial arts-themed MMORPGs are produced in Korea and designed to appeal to local audiences. Expect anime-style art direction, minimal story, simple mechanics, lots of repetition, and almost nothing to do with actual martial arts, its folklore or even martial arts movies. SILK ROAD and 9 DRAGONS are two other popular examples. China has produced a couple similar MMORPGs but I don't think any of them have been translated into English and introduced to Western markets.

My advice is to stick with single-player RPGs like JADE EMPIRE. There isn't much in the way of selection though. I'm always hoping to see something good come out that I can review but I haven't come across anything since JADE EMPIRE. Martial arts in video games tends to reside in the action realm with titles like NINJA GAIDEN that offer really over-the-top, twitch-based fighting. I'm looking for something that's more story-based and a little more grounded in reality. I'd love to see a series of games that do for martial arts what Tom Clancy's RAINBOW SIX series did for the tactical shooter.

Edit: Corrected "JADE DRAGON" to read JADE EMPIRE.

[PsiKnifeKFT]

As already mentioned there's a ton of "free" martial arts styled MMORPG's out there, though none are too impressive IMO. The two best games (in terms of professional production) in this somewhat neglected genre that I've seen are both Jade Empire and Ninja Gaiden. Ninja Gaiden isn't a dedicated RPG and by most accounts would probably be called 3rd person action, but is fun, if not "arcadey" nonetheless.

Jade Empire just made the jump to PC from console, and is worth getting your PC up to date to play (it's not very demanding * if your PC can't play this game it's time to upgrade), but the most recent Ninja Gaiden is currently console only, the best being for XBox 360.

Frankly, we're all kind of holding our breath for the Jade Empire sequel, but don't expect it to drop until 2010. A long wait, but projects to be well worth it.

[Mark Pollard]

Nice looking sig graphics there PsiKnifeKFT and welcome to the forums.

Bioware is the developer behind JADE EMPIRE and they're arguably the best RPG maker around. They're working on several other titles at the moment including a couple MASS EFFECT sequels. Hopefully, PsiKnife is right and they'll get back to the martial arts genre afterwards.

[PsiKnifeKFT]

Nice looking sig graphics there PsiKnifeKFT and welcome to the forums.

Bioware is the developer behind JADE EMPIRE and they're arguably the best RPG maker around. They're working on several other titles at the moment including a couple MASS EFFECT sequels. Hopefully, PsiKnife is right and they'll get back to the martial arts genre afterwards.

Thanks for having me. Looks like a cool spot to drink my bowls of wine in and loiter lol

Agreed about Bioware btw. Huge devotee here as well. I could have spit fire when I found out Obsidian was taking over for Neverwinter Nights 2. Although KOTOR 2 was a decent sequel, I tried NWN2 and thought they totally dropped the ball. It was nowhere near the glorious epic that NWN1 and its sequels were.

Jade Empire coming to PC took a few years but was well worth the wait. Even with the 2002-2003 looking low poly models the revamped JE Special Edition added a lot of new particle and environment effects as well as Bloom. The gameplay is so good though you rarely notice hte models. Very "immersive" like NWN1 was.

Here's where I heard the rumors leaked on JE2 :
http://www.psxextreme.com/ps3-news/2363.html
http://www.joystiq.com/2005/11/11/bioware-exec-confirms-jade-empire-continuation/

What blows though, is it'll inevitably come out on consoles first, with PC ports following a year or two later most likely. I expect the game to be so good though, it'll be worth buying a PS3.

[Hands]

Im in the same boat here, Im really looking forward to a decent MA rpg. The ones mentioned above are prolly the best choice however there are a couple of other options...

Neverwinter Nights series you can play as a monk or if you feel like it as a fighter who specialises in unarmed combat skills, its not a patch on the close up jade empire graphic feast but if your into rpg's then you have to use your imagination anyway. Plus, unlike 9 dragons and metin2 etc there is a much better storyline and also plotlines written speciffically for monks. Also there are kamas, kukris and katanas as weapons.

Oblivion and Morrowind also have the unarmed and no armour skills however you can only do endurance damage. You can get katana's and the like so if you ever fancied youself a sumari it could work from that angle.

[littlefuzzy]

It's funny, I JUST finished playing Jade Empire, a couple of days ago...

It is a great game.

[kaleyboy]

Not kung fu but for good samurai action you could try the first two Way Of The Samurai games on PS2. Just like being in your very own Kurosawa movie. Also, the Onimusha games on PS2 are quite good too. Total respect to the earlier poster for mentioning Shenmue 1 & 2. An acquired taste, but two of my all time favourite games. They're set in the mid 80's and play like a classic kung fu train hard and get revenge movie. The first takes place in Japan but in the 2nd game, the action moves to the back streets of Hong Kong. The fighting mechanics come straight out of the Virtua Fighter games and are as rewarding to master today as when the games first came out. The first game was Dreamcast only, but the second came out for the first xbox. Give either a try and you may be surprised.