Jade Empire Interview

GameSpy has released a huge nine-page interview with Jade Empire producer Jim Bishop and designer Mike Laidlaw. All of the questions were submitted by readers, so there is a good variety of subjects covered. A snip:
Q: How many magic powers will there be overall?

A: There's two ways to define "magical powers" when your talking about Jade Empire, so I'll try and elaborate a bit.

First off you have your pure Magical styles, which are a type of technique you learn as you progress in your quests across the Jade Empire. These styles cover what you might think of as traditional magic, such as channeling your Chi to create a fireball or other fantastic flame effects. In order to use this kind of ability, you simply switch to Dire Flame in the midst of combat, and your character's stance will change, along with their list of available moves. Suddenly the controls that let you punch or kick have you flinging balls of flame. It's pretty dynamic and fast paced, but easy to learn.

In addition to the magical styles, there are also other elements of the game that you could easily classify as magical powers. You can slip into focus mode in the middle of combat by concentrating intently, causing your perceptions of the world to heighten to the point where your enemies seem to move slower. You can also channel your Chi to heal yourself in or out of combat. Finally, some of the martial styles have some pretty fantastic effects which border on making them magical in nature. All of these types of powers makes it a bit hard to nail down exact numbers, but rest assured that there will be a good selection of magical styles like Dire Flame, and plenty of magical effects to make your fights feel truly epic.