Another sensation one gets while playing this game is that Bioware have fallen in love with their own genre-bending game mechanics. The very same cyclical conversations that once seemed so fresh in KOTOR now seem obligatory and gratuitous, and the dialogue uninspired. The pacing of Jade Empire exacerbates this. Less free-roaming and more tightly scripted than KOTOR (there is nothing, naturally, in the Empire that would encourage planet-hopping around the galaxy as in KOTOR), Jade Empire leads you on a tightly controlled path peppered with "optional" quests. These quests, while not mandatory, have no reason not to be fulfilled, as any player would realize it's in his own benefit to complete them. Whether it's saving some old lady's daughter, or negotiating with a giant, guilt-ridden ogre to return to his master's farm, Empire offers a ton of intermittent diversions. This doesn't stop Jade Empire from being astoundingly linear, though, which stifles the feeling of "choice" so liberally given in past Bioware efforts. That the developer also chose to restrict you from visually customizing your character moves away from the liberties so generously embraced in games like KOTOR and Fable, and closer to the confines of staid, old Japanese RPGs of old.