In Jade Empire, we start you out with some pretty easy choices. What do you want your character to look like? What are his or her basic abilities? What style do you want first? It is only after character creation that the choices get much deeper and progressively more interesting!

For example, once you've played through a fight or two with Legendary Fist style, you can apply style points to make the style faster, add more damage to its attacks, or add effects that knock opponents back or even make them explode like water balloons -- er, that is, water balloons filled with blood. Or you could decide to pick up a magic style like Dire Flame that lets you attack enemies at long range. Or a style like Hidden Fist that lets you disable, blind, and confuse your enemies. Or a weapon style with a short-ranged fast primary attack to complement a slow martial style. Within each of the more than thirty styles in Jade, the player has multiple upgrade paths and lots of options for improvement.