Jade Empire



Jade Empire is an Action/RPG computer game, set in a fantasy world based on Imperial China, rather than the more usual Medieval Europe. The Jade Empire is basically what Ancient China would be like if all the myths and legends were true: ghosts and spirits litter the landscape and there's an enormous hierarchy of demons, gods and other things that make up the humorously played straight Celestial Bureaucracy (which are mostly based on Ancient Chinese legend).

The story begins in the idyllic, beautifully-rendered little town of Two Rivers, with you as the senior student in a martial-arts school run by the mysterious old Master Li. It turns out he is really Sun Li, the brother of the current Emperor, and the general who commanded the army that destroyed the temple of the mystical Spirit Monks. You also happen to be the last of said spirit monks.

The reason for the attack was that the Jade Empire was gripped by a ten-year drought. The drought was ended by killing the Water Dragon, a powerful goddess who controlled part of the cycle of life and death, but this also blocked the path to the afterlife for an ever-increasing host of angry ghosts and spirits, who now plague the world of the living. Sun Li explains that, seeing how wrong his actions were, he rescued you as a baby and raised you in secret in the obscure village of Two Rivers.

This goes swimmingly until the town is finally found by the Lotus Assassins, a secretive order of former monks that do the Emperor's bidding, and firebombed. Yes, firebombed: they have flying machines in the Jade Empire. With your home destroyed, and Master Li kidnapped, you set off for the Imperial City accompanied your childhood friend Dawn Star, and a mysterious ally who calls himself Sagacious Zu.

Being Bioware's very first original IP, Jade Empire still shares many features with their earlier Knights of the Old Republic, including "light side" Open Palm and "dark side" Closed Fist paths through the story, but adds more fluid and interactive combat. It is also an experiment in including a less "Saintly/Horrifying" Karma Meter than that of most other games, an idea which would bear further fruit in one of their later series.

In early 2011, several news sources reported that a sequel had been under development in 2006-2007, as shown by the resume of a former BioWare employee. Whether it will be revived is unknown, though BioWare is always somewhat coy about the title when asked and even as late as 2011 has suggested that they still view it as a viable franchise.

"Sky: I don't know how you can be so humble. Is it some kind of special training? Spirit Monk: Yes, years of intense meditation are required before you can say something nice."
 * A God Am I: Emperor Sun Hai says almost these exact words, later . On a lesser scale is
 * Absent-Minded Professor: Kang the Mad breathes this trope to live.
 * Affably Evil:
 * All Myths Are True: At least with regard to Chinese traditions.
 * And Call Him George: An ogre named Zhong in the Tien's Landing teahouse did one of these with an ox. Specifically, he used to play a game with the ox where he threw her up in the air and caught her. But one time he missed. And she landed on her head. He's quite upset about it.
 * An Economy Is You: Subverted with Merchant Chiu, who tries to sell you all kinds of crap you don't need.
 * Although there is a supernatural being dedicated to making sure the the things you need are available. He ends up just selling them to you directly to save time.
 * Anti-Villain: Aishi is Type I.
 * Arrogant Kung Fu Guy: Closed Fist practitioners.
 * Gao the Lesser is probably the best example.
 * The Player Character can be this way too. Also, Open Palm adherents can act like this as well.
 * Authority Equals Asskicking: Emperors Sun Hai
 * Ax Crazy: Fading Moon. Given her talk of her visions, it's possible she's mentally ill.
 * Barrier Change Boss: can't be hit with whatever type of style (Unarmed, Weapon, Support, and Magic) he's currently using.
 * Black and White Morality: The developers don't do a good job showing that Closed Fist is not bad and Open Palm isn't always good. A lot of times, making one choice will send you flying into either the red (Closed Fist) or blue (Open Palm).
 * Boring but Practical: The White Demon style is this. No flashy moves or complex combos whatsoever, just simple kicks and punches but it WILL kill things.
 * Boss Rush: If you make it to the Gold Division of the Arena, you'll have to fight all of your previously defeated opponents in the same fight. There is a ten-second pause before the entrance of each one, so beating them quickly enough will keep you from getting overwhelmed.
 * Bragging Rights Reward: Defeating the Bonus Boss in the Imperial Arena earns you the Superior Warrior Gem. Additionally, beating all of the bosses without losing once earns you a minor stat increase. Not surprisingly, this is one of the hardest challenge in the game.
 * Bullet Time: The oh-so-fun Focus Mode. This is also one of the very few games where an enemy can also use it.
 * But Thou Must!: You can't side with Kai Lan the Serpent in the arena. Before you can make a decision, Black Whirlwind bursts in and asks you to come with him so that he can tell you the truth about Kai Lan. Lucky Cho follows you down there, and you proceed to kill him, then Kai Lan decides to have you killed.
 * Came Back Wrong: On two separate occasions, the Lotus Assassins offer to resurrect the loved ones of potential allies. Both of these potential allies refuse, as they've heard stories about how this trope is what occurs when the Assassins attempt to do this.
 * Capital City: The only city shown. Jade Empire is a fairly short game for an RPG.
 * Cassandra Truth: At the end of Chapter 1, after you're informed of Master Li's backstory, you can go up to all of the students at the school and tell them exactly who he really is. None of them believe you because they think it's too outlandish. You get the same reaction from Silk Fox if you attempt to tell her during your second encounter with her.
 * Celestial Bureaucracy: The appropriately-named Celestial Bureaucracy. You meet a representative of this group in the form of an accountant who lost his job because of all the chaos and commotion you caused (his job was to account for all of it), and he becomes a shopkeeper instead. It's mentioned that Black Whirlwind has an entire department devoted to keeping up with his various deeds.
 * And that the reason the job was lost is because one minor deity couldn't keep up- yep, the PC gets a whole department too...
 * Chekhov's Gun: Several characters note upon watching the player character fight that they think they saw a flaw in the player character's fighting style. At the very least, they identify an oddity in the character's personal technique.
 * Several characters even comment how the supposed flaw works as a highly cunning trap, in that a skilled opponent will attempt to search for the flaw and become distracted from the actual battle.
 * The Chessmaster. . And how.
 * Childhood Marriage Promise: Part of a sidequest, with the twist that the Unlucky Childhood Friend trying to collect on the promise is a gang leader. Depending on whether you're playing the Open Palm or Closed Fist path, this can end quite badly.
 * Con Lang: Tho Fan (i.e. the Old Tongue). Completely made up by a linguist to sound like it was from the region and time period.
 * If you listen closely, however, most of the lines repeat themselves at various points, depending on the speaker's gender, age and tone (for example, one voiceover might be applied every time an old man makes a joke, and another might be applies to one where a young woman threatens you).
 * Cruelty Is the Only Option: In the Special Edition, obtaining one of the pieces for the new Infinity Plus One Style requires you to do one of the more darker Closed Fist paths.
 * Culture Chop Suey: The presence of golems, which are from Jewish folklore, in a setting based on Imperial China. However, this is more an example of Translation Convention since the designs are based on the Terracotta Army, and golem is pretty generic in English for a magically-animated automaton.
 * Cutscene Power to the Max: Many of your followers get an establishing cutscene when you first meet them showing them very casually demolishing every enemy in their path. Once they actually join your party, however, they are amazingly incompetent, rarely able to take down even a single enemy on their own. In higher difficulties, they're more often used to either meditate and support the player character or as bait for the player to set up Harmonic Combos.
 * In a strange twist on this trope, however, when said followers pass under your direct control for brief periods near the end game they become possibly even more deadly than in the cutscenes, causing the mooks they fight during The War Sequence to explode in showers of gore after only being hit once or twice and racking up kill counts in the dozens.
 * Gao the Lesser, an Arrogant Kung Fu Guy, manages to stun an Ogre and kick him into a cave wall, causing him to be crushed under rocks. Gao is stronger than a single Ogre, but is a fairly easy boss.
 * Dark Action Girl: The NPC Silk Fox, and you too, if you play as female taking the Closed Fist path. A male player character can also encourage Dawn Star to follow the path of the Closed Fist and become this as well.
 * Dead All Along: Several examples. . Subverted with the last escaped spirit for the Necropolis; his son wants him disposed of, and you can either do it or help them reconcile.
 * Deadpan Snarker: Sky. And you can be too.
 * Deadpan Snarker: Sky. And you can be too.

"If I help you, you'll only tell the others what I've done. I have to let you go."
 * Decade Dissonance: Some places, such as Two Rivers, are ancient Chinese straight out of Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Others are full of Magitech.
 * Truth in Television. Imperial China was very advanced in certain areas (Ming shipbuilding and medicine come to mind), but the degree of penetration varied from place to place; doubly so when Europeans made contact.
 * Degraded Boss: The Lotus Assassins. First chapter, Master Li himself has to come out and stop the one assassin who's been standing back and letting his flunkies attack you. Chapter 2, you fight a couple of Assassins, but they're at the center of boss fights. By Chapter 4, though, you've improved to the level where they're just another flavor of Mooks.
 * Depraved Bisexual: Judge Fang, although many characters remark that would be an insult to depraved bisexuals everywhere.
 * The Dev Team Thinks of Everything: Even though you're only given control of characters other than the PC for a minute or two each, each of them has a separate objective and, in one case, a joke, in the quests menu.
 * Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?:
 * Does Not Know His Own Strength: Zhong goes into a tavern after accidentally killing his master's ox, and must be talked out or killed.
 * Doomed Hometown: The hero actually has two of these. Two Rivers in the prologue and the Spirit Monk's entire monastery in the backstory.
 * Doppelganger Spin: The Phoenix Unity style involves this. After you defeat the first enemy, six more clones spawn.
 * The Dragon:
 * Drunken Master: An actual fighting style once used by Henpecked Hou and utilized by having him in your party so he can keep throwing jugs of wine to you. One of the more powerful styles in the game after the Game Breaker styles.
 * The Black Whirlwind's greatest feats were all achieved while drunk, and when you control him in the end he uses Hou's bottles as power-ups.
 * Dronejam: Consciously avoided - extras will either move out of your path, or you can simply walk through them.
 * Dumbass Has a Point: Sir Roderick Ponce von Fontlebottom the Magnificent Bastard during his debate has several good points about the Jade Empire. The Best one is where he is amazed that the Jade Empire doesn't use the Dragon powder to make guns.
 * Eldritch Abomination: Supposedly the thing you face in the Water Dragon's temple is this. In practice, it's just three copies of your character.
 * Enemy Civil War: Master Gang is plotting to usurp Master Shin's position in the Lotus Assassin Fortress. Jia calls out her subordinates on petty power struggling, which undermines the Assassins' mission.
 * Enigmatic Empowering Entity: The Water Dragon is a good example of this. She frequently gives the player character new powers, hints, or advice, but is doing so so that the PC can help her in return.
 * Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Gao the Greater is grief-stricken over his son's death, and wants to kill you in revenge. Averted with.
 * Even Evil Has Standards: As depraved as Judge Fang is, he knows that the Lotus Assassins are worse and attempts to bring them down.
 * Black Whirlwind also objects to mistreating children, particularly sending them into danger to pay back a debt.
 * Evil Versus Evil:.
 * Exact Words: Of Death's Hand "That is the armor of a man who knows no remorse, no pity."
 * Far East: Avoided mostly. The Jade Empire is well drawn and, aside from the deliberate fantasy setting, sticks fairly closely to Chinese culture and folklore, but there are dashes of Japan thrown in (Silk Fox's ninja-style design, some of the armour), and, according to Word of God, a few bits of Thai and Laotian architecture.
 * Ironically inverted. Sir Roderick is British, but wears conquistador-style armor.
 * Flunky Boss: Deliciously parodied in a segment late in the game in which The Black Whirlwind is put up against a Jade Golem and an endless wave of soldiers. The player could theoretically kill them all day, while the game parodies Quake with an announcer narrating the kills. After enough time of this passes, the narrator breaks the fourth wall and yells "Just kill the damn golem already!"
 * Foreshadowing:
 * Gambit Pileup: There's two Chessmasters and one honorable mention who's still running a scheme of his own. Most of the game's story is focused on untangling exactly what is going on.
 * Gay Option: One male and one female NPC can be romanced by a PC of either gender. However, if you pursue a same-sex romance, the camera cuts away before they kiss, unless you install this Game Mod in the PC version.
 * Giant Space Flea From Nowhere: The Ancient Evil is almost a lampshade. For four chapters, you're fighting Imperial intrigue the whole way, and then in Chapter 5 your enemy is some kind of demon from outside reality who has nothing to do with Master Li, the Emperor, Death's Hand or the Spirit Monks. (You could possibly justify it by the fact that loss of the Water Dragon allowed a lot of evils to enter the world that otherwise couldn't have, but it's still pretty random.)
 * Not random. Remember Mother?
 * Goddamned Bats: Lost Spirits in particular; they have a projectile attack that is difficult to block.
 * Go-Karting with Bowser: Two NPCs in the town of Tien's Landing are a teacher and his student. Both are now mortal enemies, as they now represent opposing philosophies. However, once a year, they meet in Tien's Landing to play a game similar to Go. Without pieces. Or a board. After one of them teaches you a technique similar to your philosophy, they finish their game and part, planning to meet again the next year - assuming neither dies in the interim. They do not exclude the possibility that they could well kill each other if they appear on opposite sides of a conflict either.
 * Their dialogue, however, seems to imply that they're Vitriolic Best Buds.
 * Genocide Backfire: You're the last Spirit Monk alive and now you're out to stop the guy that made you that way.
 * Guns Are Useless: Oddly subverted. In a game about flashy martial arts, traditional Chinese weapons, and magic, the European musket is a borderline Game Breaker.
 * Despite being powerful, it's offset by being slow, taking time to reload, and occasionally backfiring on the user, as guns of that era were.
 * Half Truth: The game has a visual example of this. All the events we see during did actually happen, but  warp the way we interpret them. When  recounts the events, we see the same scenes, but with a truthful interpretation of them. Turns out
 * Harder Than Hard: The Jade Master difficulty, exclusive to the PC version.
 * Heroic Sacrifice: A popular theme, and even one of the Multiple Endings. In-story, one of the most poignant is.
 * Heroic Comedic Sociopath: The Black Whirlwhind. Not so much heroic as drunk and loves fighting and killing, but he's still portrayed as heroic (assuming you're Open Palm).
 * High-Pressure Blood: Oh my, is it under a lot of pressure! Any decapitated enemies will stand upright for a several seconds with a crimson geyser spouting from their necks, it even takes a moment for the splatters to start to fall around their (still standing) body.
 * Humans Are the Real Monsters: How the Universe and the Water Dragon view us humans. The Spirit Monk can either redeem the human race - or prove them correct.
 * I Call It Vera: Mirabelle.
 * Informed Ability: Your character's subtle peculiarity in his/her fighting style.
 * Insufferable Genius: Yaoru, although he is the only one who would call him a genius.
 * In Vino Veritas: You can trick Three Sheets Dutong into admitting that the writ proving his ownership of the land the teaahouse was built on is a forgery by giving him alcohol. However, give him too little and he's too cheerful to want to talk about it, and give him too much, and he gets too paranoid.
 * Ironic Echo: Said by the PC, for a Crowning Moment of Awesome.

"Kongyu: Celestial integration means that it's integrated... celestially."
 * Is That What He Told You?: Said by the Water Dragon to the player character
 * I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: You can convince Ai Ling to pursue that route in one sidequest.
 * Jerkass: Gao the Lesser. The other students and townspeople can't stand him.
 * Gravedigger Shen. He steals from the dead, is willing to accept easy solutions to his ghost problems as opposed to moral ones, and is fairly spiteful toward the spirit of his dead mother-in-law. He comes quite close to crossing the Moral Event Horizon except and.
 * Karma Meter: Represented by The Way of the Open Palm and The Way of the Closed Fist instead of good and evil. The game initially presents these as equally valid depending on the implementation and essentially standing in for Lawful and Chaotic. The actual practice still labels Open Palm as good and Closed Fist as evil, regardless of whether this action would make sense. Rather controversially, a choice made at the end of the game will reverse your karma meter entirely, which doesn't really make a lot of sense if both sides are supposed to have validity instead of black and white morality. Your philosophy is shown on your status screen, similar to KOTOR, and reaching the highest levels will display a symbol of your philosophy over your head when you are stationary long enough.
 * Sufficiently CF players will also have their shadow exhibit creepy wriggling tentacles. It's subtle enough to be very unnerving when you notice it.
 * Kick the Dog: Literally, for Closed Fist practitioners; the lapdogs in the Imperial City provide powerups.
 * Kick the Son of a Bitch: In order to impress the Lotus Assassin Inquisitor recruiter, you must eliminate one of their enemies. The "good" way to do it is to force Judge Kang, the Depraved Bisexual above, to resign.
 * King Incognito:.
 * King of All Cosmos: The Celestial Bureaucracy is sometimes depicted comically; in one case, a god assigned to calculate the karmic effects of your actions throughout the game berates you for making him fall behind on the rest of his work.
 * Kleptomaniac Hero: Averted for a short time in the first chapter, where an NPC actually asks you about his missing money. You can still commit wanton acts of vandalism against jars in the imperial city, however.
 * Kissing Cousins: Kind of.
 * Kung Fu Wizard: Building up your chi and focus through martial-arts, meditation etc. enables you to perform magical feats.
 * Light Is Not Good / Dark Is Not Evil: An early NPC explains the karma system this way, since Open Palm can lead to being a Knight Templar and a Closed Fist practitioner might still step in to help the weak if they are too overwhelmed to survive and grow from their challenges. In actual gameplay it is still just good and evil, although the Big Bad may be Open Palm depending on whether you believe his motives are what he says they are.
 * Limited Special Collectors' Ultimate Edition: The special edition came with an extra character model, staff weapon style, and a making of video, though it cost the same as the regular edition. The PC re-release was actually called Jade Empire: Special Edition and included the extra character model but not the weapon style. It also featured gameplay tweaks and improvements. The physical copy came with an art book and a poster as well.
 * Load-Bearing Boss: inverted. You defeat the cannibal demon Mother by smashing the supports in her chamber and crushing her with her own lair.
 * A Load of Bull: The Bull Demons, among the strongest enemies in the game.
 * Love Triangle: Resolving one in which a man is engaged, but has a childhood friend he supposedly promised to marry, is the focus of a Tien's Landing quest.
 * Ludicrous Gibs: Hit enemies with a resonance combo and they explode.
 * Mirabelle does it in an in-engine cutscene as well.
 * When you're given control of Black Whirlwind, he's certainly no stranger of making a fine red mist out of his enemies, either.
 * Meaningful Name: Many characters have names that could be meaningful, if we could tell what character was used.
 * Mighty Glacier: Elephant demons are slow, but hit hard and have quite a bit of health.
 * Mutually Exclusive Magic: A few cases. In Act 1, you can choose between a staff and a sword, and between fire and ice magic. You later get the option to buy the other spell, or a better version of the weapon you didn't choose, though. In Act 2, you get a different style based on whether you are far enough along on Open Palm or Closed Fist.
 * New Game+: The only way to access the Jade Master difficulty in the PC version.
 * Luke, You Are My Father: Played with.
 * Mad Scientist: The aptly-named Kang the Mad. ("I make things explode, and I make things fly,and I am very good at both. The things I fly tend to survive. The things I explode... not so much.")
 * Make It Look Like an Accident: In the Lotus Assassin's base, you can take out two of them this way. Also invoked by Kang, who encourages you to make Gao the Greater's death look like an accident and suggests that he "fall down a flight of punches."
 * Manipulative Bastard:.
 * Man On Fire: Talk to the Lotus Assassin sorcerer in the Lotus Assassin Fortress, and he will attempt a ritual to summon some spirits. The ritual fails and ends up turning two of his comrades into this.
 * Martial Pacifist: Most followers of the Way of the Open Palm.
 * Match Maker Quest: In one side-quest, you have to find a husband for Ai Ling.
 * Mega Manning: Beat up a guy who uses Tempest, you get Tempest; Beat up a guy who uses twin axes, you get his axes as well as his axe style; Beat up a Jade Golem, you get to become a Jade Golem...
 * Actually, in most cases, you buy the abilities from unrelated characters. All of the transformation styles play this straight, however, and you do learn several styles as rewards from teachers after an honest fight.
 * Mighty Whitey: Sir Roderick. Averted in that the protagonist bests him. Played straight in that it's strongly implied he had killed dozens of challengers with his Mirabelle. And he's just some random shipwrecked guy!
 * Mirror Boss: The final boss,
 * Mister Danger: Sir Roderick Ponce von Fontlebottom the Magnificent Bastard.
 * Mook Chivalry: Averted; in most battles you'll have at least three people at a time ganging up on you.
 * Mook Face Turn: Subverted after the dam. You can ask the sergeant if he's OK with what the assassins are doing, and he says that people's lives don't matter compared to the will of the Emperor. Played straight in a few other occasions, such as one mercenary who surrenders, and a soldier who was pressganged into the army to replace one whom a Lotus Assassin killed.
 * Multiple Endings: Depending on your alignment, your romances, and certain story choices, you can get a few different endings for the story and your friends.
 * Nice Job Breaking It, Herod: The backstory showcases the Emperor wiping out the Spirit Monks to the last, so that none will remain to protect the Water Dragon, allowing him to enslave her for great power. However, he missed you, the Player Character, who was hidden away and raised by the Emperor's brother. This trope then turns out to be.
 * Not So Different: Certainly if you follow the Way of the Closed Fist.
 * No One Could Have Survived That: Near the end of Chapter 3,
 * No Pronunciation Guide: The voice actors were evidently not given one, as some characters' names are pronounced very wrong (at least from a Pinyin-Mandarin standpoint). Zhong the Ox Carrier comes to mind: it should be more like "djoong", not "jong". Similarly, Qui the Promoter should be "chwee", not "kwee".
 * Possibly intended for Qui, given that he mispronounced every other word.
 * Obviously Evil: Gao the Lesser. He's an arrogant dick, constantly talks down to you and the other students, sexually harasses Dawn Star on multiple occasions, and doesn't feel the least bit sorry for when a group of his bodyguards get drunk and try to murder the PC, nor is he at all concerned about their resultant deaths. And yet, despite all this, Master Li doesn't even consider tossing him out of the academy on his ass until he cheats during your sparring match with him.
 * Oh Crap
 * Gao the Lesser when he's cornered in the cave.
 * Three Sheets Dutong, when he finds out that he drunkenly confessed to forging the writ.
 * Only Six Faces / You All Look Familiar: Just about every NPC has at least three or four identical twin siblings, which gets rather confusing when even quest givers and significant story NPCs (such as your Two Rivers classmates) will share the same faces.
 * Pamphlet Shelf: All books, scrollstands, and similar text items only have a few paragraphs worth of text at most.
 * Panty Shot: Doing a forward roll as Radiant Jen Zi gives you a quick flash of her panties.
 * Perfectly Cromulent Word: Qui the promoter is a major offender. Extra credit for actually using the phrase.
 * One wonders if, since this is actually Chinese they're talking, he's just mangling the pronunciation.
 * Perpetual Poverty: An odd example: in the Imperial City, one NPC is, in fact, a young noble with expensive tastes, who is begging nonetheless. He explains that he's doing just out of principle, rather than work.
 * The Plan: And a borderline roulette, if the guy weren't so GOOD at it.
 * On top of this, the Water Dragon herself plays one.  Of course, if you're evil, you can also screw them both over.
 * He claims that working would take away time from his other pastimes.
 * Power Crutch: The Dragon Amulet isn't strictly necessary for the Spirit Monk to use their powers, but it does make doing so a lot easier.
 * Powered by a Forsaken Child: The Emperor's golem army are animated by the trapped souls of the recently dead, and they have to be killed painfully for the best effects!
 * Proud Warrior Race Guy: The Spirit Monk, aka you.
 * Punk Punk: Jade Empire ticks off a lot of the requirements for a Punk Punk story. Technology is ubiquitous? Mm-hmm. "The actual form of government varies, but it is usually somewhat sinister and oppressive"? Turns out so. "Can make people stronger, faster, more perceptive, etc"? Yes. "can create Artificial Humans, Clockwork Creatures, or Ridiculously Human Robots" and "is developed with little regard for harmful consequences to society or nature"? Hells yeah.
 * Reality Is Unrealistic: Sir Roderick may be a caricature, but the quest is based on an actual recorded event, despite how ridiculous it seems.
 * Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves:.
 * Rival Dojos
 * Royally Screwed-Up
 * Save Scumming: Defied. It's possible to farm money off of the High-Low game in the Imperial Arena.
 * Shaped Like Itself: If you ask Scholar Kongyu about his research, he will simply give a longer version of the name of the area of study.
 * Shaped Like Itself: If you ask Scholar Kongyu about his research, he will simply give a longer version of the name of the area of study.

"Sagacious Zu: [in reference to the Lotus Assassins] I... I was one."
 * She Who Must Not Be Seen: Henpecked Hou's wife, a monstrous woman of incredible girth that gives him nightmares. You only know of her from the stories he tells.
 * Shout-Out: Numerous to Water Margin. The hard-drinking, hard-fighting Black Whirlwind acts like Lu Zhishen and is named after Li Kui. Sagacious Zu is named after Lu Zhishen, a.k.a. "Sagacious Lu". The fact that the heroes face a father and son, Gao the Greater and Gao the Lesser, is very similar to how the outlaws in Water Margin oppose Magistrate Gao and his son Gao.
 * Also a couple to Austin Powers, with a straight rip-off of the master debator/cunning linguist joke, and a reference to a sketch of some dolphins with a strange apparatus on their heads and a scribbled note saying, "No, sharks!" What's the betting the the apparatus is a frickin' laser...?
 * Master Li and Henpecked Hou are both named after characters in Bridge of Birds.
 * Lustful Lao is a parody of The Simpsons Comic Book Guy. One of the subjects you can discuss with him prompts him to say "Worst. Subject. Ever."
 * Not the only shout out to the Simpsons: Qui the Promoter has a line of 'Everything I say is perfectly cromulent, and it might do you well to embiggen your vocabulary.'
 * When talking to Qui the Promoter about fighting in the Arena, he will tell you "You are indeed mysterious, stranger", a reference to the first KOTOR, in which the main character had the option of dueling under the name "The Mysterious Stranger".
 * Leaping Tiger Style turns you into Wolverine.
 * On two separate occasions- including the very first dialogue option- you have the opportunity to tell someone they "fight with all the grace of a cow."
 * "I find your optimism... disturbing."
 * Big Tian, the farmer, and his description of marriage seems to be a reference to The Good Earth.
 * Silk Fox appears to borrow a fair chunk of her character concept and design from Jade Fox's apprentice in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, as well as a small part of her motivation (at one point, she mentions that she's worried that the Lotus Assassins might convince her to marry one of their number).
 * One of the graves in the Imperial city necropolis reads "To the Nameless One. His Torments have ended."
 * In the tea house at Tien's Landing, there's a cook that challenges you to eat some of his meals that will damage one of your stats (depending on the meal) at the end he'll up the challenge and ask you to try a truly disgusting meal, if you don't pass out after eating he asks you to describe it and he says "...and remember, this is for posterity, so please... be honest."
 * In the epilogue: "As for Percival, he tired of being called Shirley, and returned to his village."
 * If you try to go to the outer courtyard of Dirge before talking to your party, the game tells you "You must gather your party before venturing forth."
 * Gravedigger Shen makes a pun joke and says "Eh-heh. A little graveyard humor there, see." This is a shout out to Igor's (from Quest for Glory IV: Shadows of Darkness) pun jokes and trademark Catch Phrase.
 * Significant Anagram:.
 * Single Woman Seeks Good Man: In one town, Ai Ling is the resident gang leader, but wishes to settle down with a normal life.
 * Social Darwinist: The Closed Fist philosophy in a nutshell, at least according to Word of God.
 * Problem is that this usally translate to Jerkass. Keep in mind this was before Mass Effect and was probably where they got the idea for Mass Effect's version of the Karma Meter
 * There are sometimes situations in which you can do a Jerkass move or a more Social Darwinist one. In the bandit base, you can free a slave (Open Palm), enslave her(former Closed Fist) or tell her to fight for her freedom (latter Closed Fist).
 * Statistically Speaking: You can influence aspects of the plot based on certain stats, but you're still not going to get past story-created obstacles.
 * Stripperiffic: Both men and women tend towards this. Lampshaded and justified by a loading page comment: "Ornate, flowing and even revealing clothing are seen as a sign of confidence and respect."
 * Stupid Sacrifice: The player is given this choice towards the end.  Fortunately, you don't have to do this at all and if you're aggressive enough, you don't even get the option.
 * Tactical Rock-Paper-Scissors: Fast attacks, power attacks and shielding. Fast attacks typically can be launched before power attacks can connect, power attacks break shields, and shields protect against fast attacks.
 * Talking Is a Free Action: As in all BioWare RPGs, no matter how urgent the situation, you always have time to natter away to NPCs.
 * Tear Jerker: The Open Palm ending to the orphanage quest in the ruins of old Tien's Landing.
 * Wild Flower as well, since  Her fate in the closing text, either Open or Closed, is tearjerking, whether in a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming or Downer Ending way, again, depending on Open or Closed.
 * Tempting Fate: "No power in the mortal realm can save you now!" Cue Dead Ex Machina.
 * The Man Behind the Man: Played with a fair bit.
 * The War Sequence: The invasion of the army at the end of the game. Due to processing limitations, this still had to be handled in waves, but The Black Whirlwind's segment is literally an endless wave of them.
 * Third-Person Seductress: Just about averted. The female player characters are predictably attractive, and their costumes do little to hide their charms, but their slim figures don't stoop to the blatant exaggeration of some notoriously top-heavy heroines. Also has a Spear Counterpart in that two of the male PC models are constantly shirtless.
 * Those Magnificent Flying Machines: Oh, yes. Based around insects, and the better quality ones are designed by Kang the Mad. Reading about their history in one particular Pamphlet Shelf reveals that they're based around the idea that real-life Chinese bureaucrat Wan Hu had being followed up on.
 * Translation Convention: The cast mostly speaks English with North American accents. Bizarrely however, some NPCs speak "the Old Tongue" (Tho Fan), a weird, not-very-Chinese-sounding, Jabba-the-Hutt language invented for the game by a Canadian linguist. This was intended both for flavor (as it mimics the split between Cantonese and Mandarin in modern day China), and also to save on space as Tho Fan only has a limited number of stock sound clips and can be recycled over and over without being readily apparent.
 * Unexpected Gameplay Change: The Marvelous Dragonfly missions emulate classic 2D flight combat games such as Galaga. Also may count as a Scrappy Level, though they can be ignored for the most part.
 * Unfinished Business: The ghosts in the graveyard of the Imperial City. Though technically all ghosts are supposed to have this - it's only that the state of things in the world now won't let anyone pass, business or no business.
 * Ungrateful Bastard: Turnkey Shiji tried to save his prisoners from drowning in the flood of Old Tien's Landing. Unfortunately, the first guy he unlocked was a murderous sociopath who responded to his mercy by killing him.
 * Updated Rerelease: The PC version adds content, some of which was already in the Xbox Limited Edition.
 * Unwitting Pawn:
 * Vaporware: BioWare stated in the past that a sequel was planned and apparently at one point was actually in development, though it vanished in the wake of the EA buyout and hasn't been heard from since.
 * Video Game Caring Potential: While the Closed Fist choices tend to be more rewarding, it's hard to not want to avoid them simply because of how much of jerkass you are in them
 * Video Game Cruelty Potential: Closed Fist is supposedly based on certain philosophy, but the vast majority of the choices are pretty much just about being a Jerkass. Most notably when you have to solve a problem with a love triangle, the Closed Fist choices are involve murder, the worst being killing EVERY person involved.
 * We Buy Anything: Handwaved - Essence Gems are your only equipment and are considered somewhat valuable, so anyone will buy and sell them (though only Spirit Monks can use them properly). This is the only non-quest item in your inventory anyway, so obviously all stores should be equipped for this.
 * Well-Intentioned Extremist: Emperor Sun Hai destroys Dirge, slaughters the Spirit Monks and kills the Water Dragon so he can end the drought that has killed hundreds of thousands of his people. Since he goes mad with power afterwards, though, it is questionable how well-intentioned he actually is.
 * Wham! Episode:
 * Wham! Line:
 * Wham! Line:

"Sun Li: Your abilities have grown immensely. But it also does my heart good to see that you have remembered the basics of what I taught. ""
 * And also:

"Old Man: Aishi the Mournful Blade was"
 * At the end of Aishi the Mournful Blade's quest.


 * What Happened to the Mouse?: If you give Kia Min the medicine that heals her, she will fight off her enemies, but it is never revealed what happens to her after the fall of Two Rivers.
 * What the Hell, Hero?: On the Closed Fist path, you begin as a Jerkass and progress down the slippery slope from there. The more moral members of your party will complain about this..
 * Where It All Began: The player's Last Stand is held at the temple of Dirge, where all of the Spirit Monks were slaughtered twenty years ago.
 * Wolverine Claws: Leaping Tiger style causes claws to grow from your hands in battle.
 * Worthy Opponent: Crimson Khana considers you one if you warn her about the poison.
 * Wuxia: Probably the most notable video game example.
 * Zen Survivor / Shell Shocked Senior: Sagacious Zu fits both of these marvelously.