Jagged Alliance 3 Review

I’ve often thought it would be cool to have a squad-based tactical game where the only reason the group is together is for money and danger. Just a bickering bunch of dangerous babies united by a pile of moolah and the promise of violence.

Jagged Alliance 3 is that game. GameWatcher spends some time with these dangerous guns for hire for our PC review.

Jagged Alliance 3 is the latest entry in a franchise that’s been hibernating for nearly a quarter of a decade. The original and its sequel came out a whopping 28 and 24 years ago respectively, with various expansions, remakes, and sidesteps in the years since. It has brought a particular flavor to the turn-based strategy genre and as such, this third entry comes with a bit of anticipation and baggage.

After all, It’s been in development in some form or another for the better part of two decades. It’s one of those cases where it’s almost a miracle to actually see it happen, even if there have been several side entries in the meantime.

The backdrop behind this turn-based adventure is that the fictional nation of Grand Chien has a good thing going. It’s a source of great natural resources and is thriving on so many levels. Of course, things turn a shade of brown when a paramilitary group takes over the countryside and the president happens to go missing.

Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not, but one thing is for sure. Grand Chien is in some Grand Chien Merde.

So the president’s family gets together with a corporation and funded a mercenary task force to eradicate the paramilitary problem and find the president. The player’s job is to find the team and send them out into a brutal death-dealing melting pot. Easy enough on paper, right? Just buy up the best of the best and send them to hell. Unfortunately for you, even mercenaries have their standards.

Things kick off with a computer terminal and a messaging application for contacting a list of mercs for the job at hand. There are messages back and forth about their demands. Some want more cash, others want particular mercs on the mission with them and others will just tell you no because you already picked someone that they despise.

It’s a pretty cool touch and one that permeates the experience overall. There’s the opportunity to partake of the deadly soup that is permadeath with these characters. So these extra bits of character really help build connections and attachments with your ragtag group of badasses.

That brings us back to the action. In the vein of games such as XCOM, the player clicks on a place in the game map to move characters a few tiles, and when the combat kicks in a second level of interactivity emerges and every choice becomes brutally final. Each merc has its own specialization and skillset, so the options they bring into a fracas are important to remember. At its peak, Jagged Alliance 3 is unforgiving to the point that you simply cannot make a quick decision. Everything matters and that’s intimidating and exciting in equal measure.

It’s probably going to be frustrating for some, but for me, the heavy consequence of failure pays off beautifully in Jagged Alliance 3. The combat carries such risk that it properly sells how deadly the situation is. Taking too much damage means a merc will need medical attention, but it’s not always easy to get done in the middle of a skirmish. So you need to find ways to protect them while the rest pick off the enemies. The moment something goes belly up, the pressure builds. There’s still hope however, you just need to pick the right course of action to turn the tide. Battles tend to be done in small pockets, so there’s not too much chance of brutal escalation while you’re still learning the ropes.

Stealth is thankfully an option if planned correctly. Individual members can continue on a stealthy path if they’ve yet to be seen, and that can be a valuable weapon in gaining the upper hand. Smartly, you can effectively distract some soldiers by being open and noisy elsewhere to allow another merc to slip through somewhere else. Like everything in Jagged Alliance 3, it’s difficult to pull off, but oh-so exciting when executed.

Mercs that successfully complete missions can gain new skills and become increasingly reliable and invaluable. You’ll undoubtedly gather favorites as you go because that’s always the hook of such systems. It will make it all the more devastating when a fumbled mission leaves them looking like a blob of jam.

The only thing that puts you off caring about your merry band of mercs is that they are some of the most painfully stereotypical throwbacks. The oversexed innuendo machine, the overly chatty fish-out-of-water nerd, and the gruff veteran are among the rigid cliches on show. In fairness, I can understand why they are characterized as such, but a little growth is still possible within the confines of stock character types.

I rarely enjoy games that go out of their way to be punishing, but Jagged Alliance 3 has some of that special sauce that makes it compelling and dare I say enjoyable. Failure adds to the personal drama, and success tastes that much sweeter. I just wish it had less reliance on overplayed cliches to give its cast a personality.

Sure it has its moments where frustration kicked in and things felt a little unfair, but these moments are generally fleeting, and are about getting on the game’s learning curve rather than actual faults. The most important thing to note here is that Jagged Alliance 3 continues the series’ legacy very well.