Combat in Jade Empire is 3D fighting game lite (as in yogurt).
Its all real time, you have to dodge around, time your attacks and avoid enemy attacks. You CAN pause whenever you like, you can swing the camera around and see who's attacking from where, but other than that its of little tactical benefit. You cannot queue up actions and watch the fun happen.
It is difficult, at least early on. At the start of Jade Empire you have very little hit points in the tradition of nearly every rpg. So if you're still getting used to how to dodge AWAY from bad guys and when its safe to hit back then you can die quite a lot. Even I set the difficulty to low on my first time through the beach assault. I recommend picking the sword as your weapon, it does the best damage and has a good swing speed (this decision comes at the end of the tutorial level).
This is nothing like Mass Effect, where 'real time' combat consists of everyone spotting one another, standing in place or crouching and pulling a trigger. Enemies in Jade Empire will always rush and swarm you, and you have to jump around to an advantageous position, pick some skill you've been building at level up, wail on one or two then jump to another advantageous position.
If you get the hang of it, its fun, but there are some really nasty fights that will perhaps push you to set the difficulty to easy again (if it ever left easy).
The story is fun, it tries to pick up on the kind of humor from the chinese classics 'Journey to the west' and 'Outlaws of the Marsh'. Slightly more high brow than your average episode of Monkey Magic, but a fair slice less humor than the wonderful film, 'Kung Fu Hustle'.
I'm not trying to say the combat is bad, just that for some its a learning curve. There's depth there and I wouldn't be surprised if you played it first on easy, enjoyed the story and came back to it a second time with the intention of challenging yourself.
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