* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: There's a big one with the issue of the Emperor, [[spoiler: Sun Li]], and the gods as relating to the drought which afflicted the kingdom. [[spoiler: We only know the actions of the Emperor and Sun Li after the drought, which include massacring the Spirit Monks as well as enslaving the Water Dragon but some fans believe their behavior may have been bad beforehand and resulted in the gods sending the drought to punish them. Others believe they may have been motivated by IDidWhatIHadToDo and RageAgainstTheHeavens to save their Empire against a horrific curse. Others may note the gods may simply have been maintaining the natural order that would have caused the drought in the first place while others believe that's yet another reason for the Sun family's actions. In the end, the game gives no clue to the moral character of either man before they ended up JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope.]]
* AnticlimaxBoss: The final boss is inexplicably vulnerable to stun attacks. You can easily take them out with minimal preparation.
* CharacterSelectForcing: Mana and Focus don't automatically replenish, forcing you to fight with your basic skills if you expend it all. Since you're only allowed to bring one character at a time, it's not unusual to bring Dawn Star or Sky along with you at all times, since they can do so as their character skills. Dawn especially, since Mana also allows you to heal.
* CompleteMonster:
** [[spoiler:[[BigBad Sun Li]], also known as [[TheChessmaster the Glorious Strategist]], helped to organize the extermination of the Spirit Monks with his brother. In truth, Sun Li was plotting to usurp Sun Hai with the intent of [[GodhoodSeeker becoming a god himself]]. Murdering a final Spirit Monk to take the baby protagonist and raise them to kill his brother, Sun Li then takes the powers of the Water Dragon for himself and plots to have more souls imprisoned within the golems, intending to create a "utopia" where [[AGodAmI everyone blindly worships Sun Li as a god]], and the mere act of questioning him can bring death.]]
** [[TheEmperor Emperor Sun Hai]] led the effort to [[FinalSolution exterminate the Spirit Monks]] to slay the divine Water Dragon and steal its heart. Upon being betrayed by his brothers Sun Kin and Sun Li, Sun Hai slew Sun Kin and [[AndIMustScream imprisoned his tormented soul]] in Sun Li's armor to create [[TheDragon Death's Hand]], his enforcer. With a tyrannical reign that destabilizes reality itself, undead and monsters running rampant, Sun Hai violently punishes any dissent and has many abducted to tear free their souls and [[LivingStatue imprison them within golems to craft a new army]].
** [[OneBadMother The Mother]] is a demon and enemy of the Forest Shadow who resides in the [[InnOfNoReturn Pilgrim's Rest Inn]], using her powers of [[TheCorrupter corruption]] to pollute the Great Southern Forest to weaken the Forest Shadow's power. The Mother lures in men with the promise of power to turn them into demonic [[ImAHumanitarian cannibals]] who worship her, having many people killed for food, or converted into her worshippers by starving them until they start craving human flesh.
* CultClassic: While well received, it didn't quite set the world on fire the way Bioware's other two major franchises have. Despite that, there's still a dedicated fanbase for the game still asking for a sequel.
* DemonicSpiders:
** Lost Spirits have the potential to become these. Especially at higher difficulties or NewGamePlus, which automatically makes your game much more difficult. They have an annoying homing ranged attack, are immune to many useful styles and tend to move away from the player while shooting at him. At lower difficulties, they avoid being DemonicSpiders due to having low health. On higher difficulties, they have huge amounts of health, making them ridiculously hard to kill, while doing insane amounts of damage, turning every fight against them into a frustrating ordeal.
** Horse Demons are relatively weak, but have a damage reflecting shield that means that you will inevitably take damage from them.
* DisappointingLastLevel: The game loses its way in the final three chapters (which, it should be noted, are far smaller than Chapters 2 and 3, which contain hub levels). The morality becomes far more black and white, with none of the nuanced exploration of the Closed Fist philosophy that was attempted in previous chapters, each chapter is a straightforward slog through an army of enemies with very little dialogue and only a handful of trivial side quests, [[LastSecondEndingChoice the ending is decided by a single choice that completely overrides your existing karma]], and the whole thing feels rushed.
* EnsembleDarkhorse: Aishi the Mournful Blade, despite [[PropRecycling sharing her character model with other female bandis]] and only appearing on one side-quest, is well received due to her DarkAndTroubledPast.
* FairForItsDay: The LGBT representation in this game is lackluster compared to Bioware's later games. [[note]]The [[HideYourGays kissing scene before the final battle is censored]], but the PC version has a mod that restores it. And Sky, the male GayOption, is [[GuideDangIt a lot harder to achieve]] compared to romancing him as a female, and involves a deliberate process of rejecting both Dawn Star and Silk Fox.[[/note]] But during the time ''Jade Empire'' was published, onscreen intimacy for same sex couples was still considered taboo and was a result of ExecutiveMeddling.
* GameBreaker: Mirabelle: a gun in a setting with swords and fists. It's somewhat balanced by the large amount of focus and the time needed to load after each shot (both significant even when fully upgraded), the occasional misfire, and an arguable lack of power compared to its rate of fire. However, it is incredibly unfair in the arena and other one-on-one duels due to the fact that it deals enough knockback to throw the opponent far enough away that you can reload another shot. Similarly, the FinalBoss is laughably easy to defeat with Mirabelle as you can simply stun-lock him with it until he croaks.
** In-universe, [[DoppelgangerSpin Phoenix Unity Style]] was banned from Arena matches for being overpowered.
* GameBreakingBug: [=PCs=] with integrated '''Intel''' graphics cards crash in the Level Up screen.
* GoddamnedBats:
** Lost Spirits attack in groups (that tend to be spread out), have homing ranged attacks that drain both your HP and Chi, and give ridiculously paltry EXP. They turn into DemonicSpiders when they're supporting an actual dangerous boss. Also, they respawn in most areas you find them in. At least their strong attack doesn't home...
** Ghost Lords are equally annoying--their attacks are less powerful, but they have ridiculous amounts of health.
** Red Ministers even more so, since they constantly sap your Chi, have stupid amounts of HP and constantly block. Thankfully there are perhaps three or four in the entire game.
* HilariousInHindsight: The only way to learn [[BlowYouAway the Tempest fighting style]] is to [[KarmaMeter lean on the Closed fist philosophy]]. Years later, come ''Franchise/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' and air is strongly associated with pacifism and non-violence, leaning to the Open palm philosophy.
* ItWasHisSled: [[spoiler: Master Li being evil]] is pretty much known to everyone nowadays.
* MagnificentBastard: [[spoiler: [[TreacherousAdvisor Master Sun Li]], the "[[TheStrategist Glorious Strategist]]", once orchestrated the downfall of the Spirit Monks and upon failing to overthrow his brother, Emperor Sun Hai, kills the guardian of the last Spirit Monk and becomes his caretaker in the wilderness. Training the Spirit Monk to defeat Sun Hai one day, Sun Li uses him to defeat his brother and leave the throne of the Jade Empire open before revealing he trained his student with a [[CrazyPrepared flaw in his fighting style]] so Sun Li could exploit it and kill him, before claiming the throne. Taking over, Sun Li plans to [[TheConqueror conquer all he can]] and even if fatally wounded by the Spirit Monk, merely dies with pride in his own teaching ability, repeatedly showing himself worthy of the moniker for which he is known]].
* MoralEventHorizon:
** [[spoiler:Sun Li crosses it for the player when he kills them and reveals that he was using them as a pawn the entire time, and then crosses it for Dawn Star, ''his own daughter'', during the final battle when he coldly brushes off her attempts to reason with him and smugly declares that she was "just another tool".]]
** [[spoiler:Emperor Sun Hai crosses it when it is revealed that he was ''knowingly'' responsible for everything the Lotus Assassins did]].
** Gao the Lesser crosses the line from "arrogant and petulant" after murdering junior student Si Pat for [[spoiler:impeding his kidnapping of Dawn Star]] and leaving his body burning in the street. Everyone in town is horrified and/or enraged by this act.
** As a child, Captain Sen pushed a young boy into a river and let him drown rather than save him and let anyone know his part in the incident.
** [[spoiler: In the eyes of Dawn Star (unless Closed Fist romanced), Silk Fox (unless Closed Fist romanced), Sky (unless Closed Fist romanced), and Henpecked Hou (always), ''you'' cross the Moral Event Horizon if you bind the Water Dragon's power to yourself instead of killing her and releasing her from the machine.]]
* OneSceneWonder: [[OverlyLongName Sir Roderick Ponce von Fontlebottom the Magnificent Bastard]] only appears in one side quest but stands out due to being a MightyWhitey caricature and can give you [[GameBreaker the most powerful weapon in the game]], he was significant enough to get his own slide in the WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue. It doesn't hurt he's voiced by the inestimable Creator/JohnCleese.
* SpiritualLicensee: ''Jade Empire'' is not a straight rip-off of ''Literature/BridgeOfBirds'', but it is certainly heavily inspired by its concept and takes several important character names (Master Li, Henpecked Hou) straight from the novel, although the characters themselves are different. Additionally, "Lu the Prodigy" seems much like ''Lu'' Yu, a.k.a. Number Ten Ox, and they share a plot point: [[spoiler:a flooded city hiding a secret artifact.]]
* ThatOneBoss: When playing on Jade Master difficulty, most bosses will, at best, be bosses with stupidly-high health, but some will be like this.
** [[spoiler:The Dirge clones]] are perhaps the platonic ideal. With normal difficulty, you can use the Jade Golem transformation style and/or focus mode to beat them relatively easily easily. However, with Jade Master difficulty all the enemies can take much more damage than in the normal mode, which means your magic and focus bars have probably run out before you've defeated even one of the three [[spoiler:clones]]. The only way to defeat them without insane amounts of practice and very good reflexes is to exploit the weaknesses of the game's [=AI=], and even then it's hardly easy. Compared to the [[spoiler:clones]], the final boss of the game is much easier to beat, even with Jade Master difficulty.
** DiscOneFinalBoss [[spoiler:Emperor Sun Hai]] is a BarrierChangeBoss who can make himself immune to whatever style he is using at the moment; for example, if he is wielding his staff, he will be immune to all weapon damage. This can cause problems if you're too reliant on one form or another, and if you run out of both Chi and Focus, he'll be almost impossible to defeat, since he'll shift to using his martial style and become immune to the only type of damage that doesn't cost Chi or Focus.
* ThatOneLevel:
** Rather late in the game [[spoiler: you are killed, must navigate the afterlife and the defiled temple of the Water Dragon, and face one of the hardest battle in the game against three very tough copies of yourself and no support character, in order to be resurrected.]]
** Dawn Star and Silk Fox needing to protect Kang from a horde of enemies while he places explosives can be rather difficult as the camera changes to something that's almost purely 2D. Movement is hindered, targeting is wonky, and some enemies just spawn right past you to attack Kang, who can't take many hits.
** The Necropolis can be one due to wearing your character down throughout all the fights. It's a huge area full of the above mentioned GoddamnBats of the Lost Spirits. And especially since most of the enemies are ghosts, anyone who specialized in weapons will be near helpless against the onslaught of ghosts attacking him.
* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot:
** The description of the philosophies behind Open Palm and Closed Fist given by Smiling Mountain at the beginning was an interesting new take on morality, with Open Palm being gentle and supportive while Closed Fist advocated for tough love and teaching people to support themselves.[[note]]Smiling Mountain explained the difference between Closed Fist and evil thusly: If a traveler was attacked by bandits, an evil man would ignore the cries for help, but that's because he doesn't care. An adherent of Closed Fist would argue that the traveler should learn to take care of it himself, because there won't always be someone nearby to rescue him. On the other hand, the CF follower might intervene if he felt the odds were unreasonable.[[/note]] It had the potential to make the in-game morality meter less about what was being achieved, in both cases improving the life of the recipient, and more about the method in which it was accomplished. Unfortunately, the description given at the beginning is [[StoryAndGameplaySegregation rarely representative of how it actually functions in-game]], almost always forgetting the complexities and nuances of the philosophies in favor of a [[BlackAndWhiteMorality good/bad]] karma meter.
*** The reason why Your Mileage May Vary is the fact that while it failed as a game mechanic; the philosophies themselves are mostly well represented within the game's world. Most of your Closed Fist party members are well developed (even sympathetic) and will actually, ultimately favor an Open Palm player character (likely part of the reason why it failed as a game mechanic). And Fifth Brother Shangjin[[note]]a Closed Fist disciple from in the Black Leopard School[[/note]] is actually courteous and pleasant to converse with.
** Near the end of the game, after you [[spoiler:release Death's Hand from Sun Hai's control]], a dialogue option allows you to remind the villain of his crimes. Considering that the character becomes TheAtoner if in the party for a good ending, one would think that this would imply that you could convince him to join to seek redemption, but there is no such option- either you force him to join against his and your companions' wishes, or you let him go.
* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Henpecked Hou. He's a ButtMonkey whose entire character was DoubleStandardAbuseFemaleOnMale played for laughs, yet he himself comes off as a massive sociopath when he nonchalantly mentions that he accidentally poisoned the ''entire family'' of his wife's uncle to death in an attempt to kill his wife.
* {{Vaporware}}: Creator/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. Concepts from it have found their way into ''Franchise/MassEffect'' and ''Franchise/DragonAge'', however.
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