Jagged Alliance 3

I just started JA3 recently. And er...Havent been able to stop playing so far. Its also worth noting, i have a girlfriend, a small family and a full time job. 4 days. 50 hours so far. And i USUALLY get bored pretty quickly. Make with that what you will.

Long review incoming!

Jagged Alliance 3 is a very, very good game. Although not technically flawless this is the first game I have played in a long time where I would load it up to play for an hour, and suddenly it was the small hours of the morning and I found myself wondering where the time had gone.

A little bit about the game - stylistically, JA3 is going to feel immediately familiar to anyone who has played a grid based tactical RPG before - XCOM, Wasteland or the earlier Jagged Alliance games for that matter. There is an overworld strategy map on which you move your mercenary squads around, consisting of a large grid, with most of the grid squares able to be entered to explore on foot. Although some complaints have been leveled at the size of these battlefield areas being small, the overworld map itself is pretty big and the game offers a very large potential for exploration. Importantly, each map area feels quite unique, even open grassland or forest areas with no enemies usually have something interesting to see or do. While inevitably you will see some repeating graphical assets a lot of effort has obviously been put into making every part of the game world feel distinctive. Many of the map areas have associated side quests, hidden items to be found and so on, so the sense of exploration is always present and compels you to keep playing. The environments are also nicely varied without feeling unrealistic to the game’s location ‘somewhere in Africa’– there is savanna, mountain highlands, jungles, swamps, coastal areas, islands, cities and towns and so on.

The storyline is interesting and engaging, but what really makes it outstanding is the writing and the characters you meet. NPCs are all very distinctive and memorable and exactly the sort of people you’d expect to encounter in a stereotypical cheesy 90s action movie, from which this game takes much inspiration. The dialogue is excellent and every single character is fully voice acted. You will admittedly hear a few repeating voice actors which is probably inevitable with a smaller budget title like this, but it doesn’t detract too much from the immersion. The whole game has a great sense of humour, there are a ton of pop culture references (early in the game you can ask an NPC why he’s wearing a number 31 football shirt and he informs you he wanted a 13…) and the characters manage to somehow feel believable and relatable while also being completely ridiculous.

Of particular note are the mercenary characters you hire to play as. Mostly based around action movie stereotypes, many of these guys and girls are absolutely hilarious and they are a strong reason to play the game through multiple times. They all have very distinct personalities, abilities, weapon preferences and so on. There is a ton of unique dialogue you’ll only hear if you have certain characters together on a team which is all the more reason to do multiple playthroughs. I defy you to listen to Tex the Japanese cowboy (yes) say ‘it’s like shooting koi in pond’ as he dispatches some enemies and not at least crack a smile. The voice acting is to an impressively good standard but even more impressive is just how much of it there is. You will definitely hear certain lines a lot more commonly than others, but even after 100 hours in game with the same characters I was still hearing them say new things during battle. Even random villagers offer a huge amount of information and will often give you hints about side quests or just spout some funny throwaway line.

Graphically the game is surprisingly good, although mostly viewed from an overhead perspective you can zoom in fairly close and during certain actions the camera will zoom right down to ground level allowing you to see everything in detail. Unlike many games of this type the graphics hold up well even up close, and the particle effects and lighting are also very good. I will say that I did find performance was sometimes not quite as smooth as I might have expected and I did encounter the occasional slowdown, but mostly it holds up well.

Apart from the voice acting, which is a big highlight, the overall sound design is solid. The music is good, the guns and explosions sound satisfyingly chunky, and I believe the gun sounds are accurate – I’m not a firearms expert but they certainly all sound distinctive, rather than just having generic ‘assault rifle’ noises for example you can comfortably tell the difference between the various weapons.

However, it is the gameplay which is where JA3 really shines. There is a huge amount of stuff to do in this game, apart from the main questline there are masses and masses of side quests and tasks to complete, many of which unlock good rewards and affect how the story plays out. The combat remains satisfying due to the variety of environments you’ll fight in, the enemies which get steadily more challenging as the game progresses and the large number of different weapons you can experiment with and modify extensively. The difficulty level is pretty good – there is a decent level of challenge even in low level encounters; the game rewards you for careful planning and punishes you significantly for rushing in to fights unprepared. I will say you need to understand the mechanics of the game to get the most out of it, and I perhaps wouldn’t recommend it to someone who has never played a game of this type before as their introduction to the genre. There are a few big difficulty spikes which can prove a bit frustrating, but also a strong sense of satisfaction when you overcome these. There is an easy/story mode available but you would really not be seeing the game at its best if you played it like that. Alternatively, various difficulty enhancing options are available for those that want a greater challenge.

The quests usually have multiple different methods of completion, and in fact in many cases you can simply attack and kill everybody, but this rarely offers the best outcome in terms of storyline or reward. On my second playthrough I realized I’d missed entire large chunks of the game because I’d chosen to attack someone I probably shouldn’t have, or hadn’t bothered to explore all the dialogue options with an NPC. Your characters’ abilities will also affect what options are available to you so it pays to have a well thought out team with a variety of skills.

No game is perfect of course and JA3 isn’t an exception, but my gripes are mostly minor. Apart from the previously mentioned occasional performance drops, the controls can sometimes be a bit finicky. For example, it’s very easy when moving a character next to a doorway to accidentally click on the door itself and waste all your action points opening or closing it. Toggling between multiple floor levels (e.g. in a building) can be clumsy and even when you’re viewing the correct level your character will sometimes try and move to the level above or below. Objects that are able to be interacted with can sometimes be difficult to click on even with careful camera rotation. Lastly, I did find a couple of side quests were not very well explained in terms of what I actually needed to do – I don’t want the game to hold my hand too much but sometimes the quest log really didn’t offer enough information on what I should be looking for or doing to complete a questline.

None of these problems detracted from my enjoyment of the game however, and the fact that as soon as I finished my first playthrough, which I spent 100 hours on, I immediately started a second one should hopefully speak to the quality of the game. I managed to pick JA3 up on sale but even at full price I’d say it would have been a bargain for the amount of enjoyment I’ve gotten out of it. Recommended!

Disclaimer:
As someone that loves JA as well as JA2 (Wildfire) this review should be read with a certain grain of salt. For context JA2 is still easily in my top 5 all time favorite single player games while JA3 makes it barely into the top 50.
TL;DR:
Somehow this game succeeds in the deliverance of the Jagged Alliance feeling despite it's absurd list of issues. It did take time and a few Mods though. JA3 still needs a ton of QoL improvements and bug fixes. The entire interface is terrible. Certain design decisions are hard to swallow. Simply put: It does so many things way worse than JA2 (Wildfire) did 20-25 years ago, especially in presenting (or rather hiding) valuable information and combines this with inadequate controls.
Starting with the few but impactful positive aspects:
Pros:
Visually it looks good and the art style is very fitting
Music is really good
Delivers the Jagged Alliance feeling - takes time and Mods though
Quest log and marker on map for quests
Multiple squads to progress on multiple parts of the map simultaneously is still a thing
Perk and trait system allows for diversity
Events are only triggered due to your progress. Hence the game provides you the freedom to take your time
Save scumming is possible but not always necessary. Getting hit can potentially increase your Mercs health. Once again this allows for various playstyles.
Cons:
This section is surprisingly long which is why I separated it logically
Questionable design choices
Zoom level is way too close and doesn't provide a proper map overview -> Mod
Your main resource is weapon parts with which you do a variety of things:
Modification of weapon
Repair gear
Craft ammo + explosives
Once attached weapon mods can not be removed from weapons, so you can't attach them to other weapons afterwards
Item's can't be sold but only dismantled for weapon parts
Training of attributes is different in comparison to JA2:
Travel overweight to gain strength? - No! There is no weight system
Kick doors or boxes to gain strength? - No!
Heal enemies to gain medical skill? - No!
Plant + disarm TNT to gain explosives skill? Not really
Can't specify which Mercs should perform a certain modification since the Mercs with the highest relative skills within in this sector is used.
While it remains possible to train multiple Mercs at once, only one attribute can be selected per sector.
The inventory management in my opinion is by far the most frustrating thing in this game - Mods help only partially
Inventory size of Mercs depend on their strength level and isn't big even at max strength. Equipping various types of grenades to one Merc remains a challenge
Squad stash
The squad shares one stash for the ammo, medicine, weapon parts, crafting mats and can access it automatically on a per sector basis. No micro management of ammo but even worse: Every single time a member of a squad is moved to another squad the squad stash is separated kinda randomly
New squad that doesn't make use a particular caliber, may get all the ammo for it and leaves the other squad none
Same for weapon parts and medical supplies. A Merc crafting ammo, repairing gear or healing may loose the supplies to do so
Mercs with 90+ mechanic skills will fail frequently to mod guns. Failure results in a loss of parts and weapon durability
Sectors are small, one dimensional and require hardly any strategical approach
An enemy spotted you? Be warned! They are going to scream and shoot to alert everybody in the sector about your presence. Unfortunate for them that nobody gives a dam* unless they are literally right next to them. Everything beyond 10 meters ignores noises
Sadly modified sniper rifles are way too overpowered and make everything else kinda obsolete unless you are on the "Lone Wolf" archivement
Locals are framed as stupid fairly often which leaves an unnecessarily racist impression
Missing QoL
General issues
Can't sort sector stash
No smart combine or split functionality for the sector stash
Can't split stacks with full inventory - I'd prefer an auto drop to sector stash
Possible to select next target via key, but not the previous one. The "next" target may very well be across the entire map with 5 buildings of cover in between instead of an enemy right next to you.
Can't manually zoom in the timeline of upcoming events You have squads moving around? Well you won't be able to see further into the future than one day. But what if all squads are stationary? Lucky you, feel free to enjoy this forecast of events for the upcoming two weeks!
Assigned actions aren't visually displayed properly in the sat view until you start the time lapse
Even when no enemies are around you can't transfer items between distant Mercs within sector or via the satellite view. Therefore open map, hand items from Merc A to Merc B into reenter the sector
Can't add custom notes, which would be useful to note open skill checks within sectors
Saving is not possible during a death animation. You better make sure your quick save did actually get registered before you continue with your potentially risky next action
Unclear description of perks. F.e. Is the entire squad or only that one Merc affected?
Landmines are not lava
Neither the game nor the Mercs stop when a landmine is detected -> Mod
Your Mercs don't adjust their pathing according to spottet landmines ... boom
Interface issues
Secondary slots are not permanently visible
Gear isn't shown at all in list of Mercs
Quest log overview and usability
Amount of militia not properly shown
Unable to move militia into a adjacent sector
Travel time not displayed on the route itself
Can't check stats of Merc while in training menu. Close two windows, hover over the Merc, see what stats they should train, get back those two menues to start the training
Be prepared to shoot and get shot through multiple objects without any impact on the trajectory
How likely is a shot to land? Donno -> Mods
How likely is an enemy going to spot you? Donno -> Mods
When are my Mercs going to be tired? Donno -> Mods
List of applicable task may require scrolling
Weapon stats differ depending on view
Keyboard Controls
Can Developers please rediscover the amount of keys a keyboard has? I am so f***ing sick of games restricting the interface and usability to make them viable for controller. Multiple klicks for one action, multiple actions bound to a single key, features being unbindable to keys, ...
Example list of missing keybinds for selection
Previous Merc/Squad
Merc/Squad number x
Next Squad
This is true for both the sector as well as the world view
Mentionable Bugs
Alt tab freezes the entire graphics driver. Requires PC restart: UPDATE: It seems like this was fixed
On a multi monitor setup the mouse the mouse is not caught within game window which disables panning by mouse. Combine this with the previous bug to rage
Reloading a save file often selects a different Merc/Squad than the one you had selected in the moment of save. Inconvenience for save scummers
Crash frequency in range of every 30h to every 2h. Based on number of items (in one sector) as well as number of save files. Can't delete multiple save files at once

Back to old glory.. mostly
Jagged Alliance is one of those niche games, which have a die hard (sometimes over the top critical) followership .. and is subsequently plagued by a stream of sub par follow ups, since the glory days, which were Jagged Alliance 1 and 2.
One of the main problems was, that it requires quite a bit time and love to bring all the details, which made the first two games so great, into a worthy sucessor. Something not really usual anymore in nowadays game making.. sadly.
But finally the little studio called Haemimont Games tried the shoe, which many others couldnt make to fit and lo and behold, it mostly fits. The mercs have still their personalities, the fights are tactical, the story is useful (and offers even quite some choices) and it is already quite modable (with full mod support on the way... way to go so, you so called AAA games like BG3 or Starfield ;) ).
Of course nothing is perfect, they forgot more or less to implement traders (which was thankfully resolved during further development) and the game spikes quite abruptly in difficulty, after a specific moment in the storyline. If you reach that too early, it can even mean game over for your mercs.
These are just little setbacks though, compared to all the small details and also nods to the predecessors, which make JA3 easily the strategy game of the year and finally a worthy sucessor of the series.
Conclusio: My personal game of the year 2023.
Point Score: 9/10

This is the only game that has truly satisfied the thirst that Jagged Alliance 2 left me with. Played it through right after launch (including one restart after 12 hours of gameplay) and loved it. From what I've seen from update logs, the game's gotten better and more balanced with time. The mercs' commenting can get repetitive, and there are other minor gripes. Still, the combat and gameplay, in general, are great fun and can be challenging at times (it also depends on what you are trying to accomplish). Worth your money and time!

Finally a good Jagged Alliance game. Does lack some of the depth of JA2, but the core gameplay is fun, has a good amount of challenge, and continuous updates and modding help to give it a longevity. With so many franchise releasing half-baked and under-developed sequels its nice to have a game that returns to what made the old games great.

As someone who has played a lot of X-COM and related turn based tactical strategy games, I love this game! It is fairly different, but well done and there is much more story line choices and dialog between the characters here than there is in the X-COM games where that isn't such a big part of that game's experience. The characters are interesting and funny, and the choices you make are interesting. It's fun deciding how to gear out your characters and what areas of the map to take over in which order. I have been having a ton of fun with the base game itself and if I get done with that and bored there are a lot of mods. Great game and provides a lot of value and fun. Only bad thing to say, watch the clock if playing late into the night, it is easy to stay up too late with this game!