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When a video game is trying to get released for two decades, it is usually a bad sign with the final product ending up lacklustre, janky and looking extremely aged. Jagged Alliance 3 was originally announced in 2004 so you can see where the concerns are coming from.
Thankfully, the game has upended all the standards and expectations by being a genuinely good time for dozens of hours per playthrough. And yes, it has enough replayability to keep you coming back.
Story and satire
The story in Jagged Alliance 3 is pretty straightforward - you command a team of mercenaries and all of you are hired to rescue the president of Grand Chien. While the focus is on saving the president on the opposite side of the map, you will run into countless smaller stories on the way as well as a few plot twists, depending on whether you explore the entire map or just beeline it to The Major's fort.
Grand Chien's huge map could easily be just an excuse to throw a bunch of filler in it but Haemimont refused to go the Ubisoft way and just copy-paste content all over. Each village, settlement, depot or hospital has unique stories that are relayed to you through both narrative and gameplay.
Choices will have some sort of effect and they are far from meaningless. Sometimes it's as simple as getting additional loyalty or loot and other times it results in resolving mysteries or conspiracies, giving the game a massive amount of variety every step of the way.
All of this is elegantly packed in a box of satire as you will see numerous references and parodies almost at every step. While it may sound off-putting to some, this is the spirit of the Jagged Alliance series and Haemimont understood it perfectly, allowing them to honour the expectations of the longtime fans as well as offer something unique on the market for newcomers.
In the end, the story is competently written and alternates between serious and satiric tones beautifully, which is something the game also shows through one of its biggest assets - the massive character library.
Characters and voice acting
Jagged Alliance 3 allows you to create a team of your own by recruiting up to six mercenaries per squad from the roster of 38 premade characters and one custom creation. On top of that, there are additional mercenaries around the world that you can recruit during your adventures and the one thing all these characters have in common is the impeccable voice acting.
Each of them have unique personalities that have been written with great care and then followed up by voice acting to match. As a result, the mercenaries become endearing rather quickly and switching one out for a new addition that may have better stats become difficult as you just can't get enough of their quirks, be it Steroid with an awesome Arnold impersonation, Fox with ceaseless innuendos, Barry who talks like a countryball or any other individual on the list.
The same goes for the mercenaries you can recruit and even the custom-made one that you get in a special way. Despite their character being a blank slate, they are voiced as a tough no-nonsense soldier who fits the environment perfectly.
Gameplay
Even though the writing and voice acting did a fantastic job, it is gameplay that takes the cake. There is just too much depth to be able to describe it all in a review as the game just keeps giving you more options and hurdles as you go, enriching the experience every step of the way.
Mercenary stats, destructible environments, weapon modification, the stance you're in, distance, weather, the time of day and elevation are just a handful of factors that will decide how the battle goes.
You get to pick and modify some of those, allowing you to assert control of the battlefield while things like the weather add an element of randomness that you will have to adapt to. This amounts to combat gameplay that will never leave you feeling like you've done the same thing twice and it is absolutely the bee's knees.
Oh, and you are not spoon-fed all the info, like the percentage chance to hit a target - you will have to develop an instinct for that based on your character's stats, body part you're aiming at, range, weapon mods, elevation, stance and aim level.
There were a couple of difficulty spikes I encountered but they were more about adding memorable situations like surviving impossible odds in the list of impressions the game had on me. Even though the difficulty in those situations went up suddenly, the game didn't become oppressive nor did it require cheesing as viable tactics still existed, even though RNG could result in a mishap or two.
Situations where the difficulty was known in advance were different as taking a fort packed with enemy soldiers through a combination of sneaking, precise shooting and eventually overwhelming firepower became a real treat, especially because those encounters had character of their own. A subversive leader might attempt to lead you into a trap where your squad becomes mince meat or a career soldier could rely on one too many rocket launchers. In short, these handmade encounters made the already good times even better.
The one part of gameplay that I took issue with is that some things were not explained all that well or they were buried under piles of other information the game was throwing at me in the beginning. As such, I had to learn them later on by specifically having to go through in-game options, manuals and testing.
Graphics and performance
This is easily the weakest part of Jagged Alliance 3. The graphics are not bad but they are not something to write home about either, sitting in that comfy zone where this aspect doesn't drag the game down. However, the performance does.
Several issues popped up during my playthrough JA3 - from stuttering over lighting issues to slideshow-like frame rate. Thankfully, these issues weren't constant and would only happen in a few densely-packed areas. One of the workarounds was to disable the UI element that showed lootable fallen enemies while others I just had to endure.
That said, none of the issues were game-breaking and they were fairly far away from each other, leaving the vast majority of the game to be enjoyable with stable performance.
One standout element when it comes to JA3 graphics is the character design and the way 50 or so mercenary models faithfully resemble their portraits, which is something you don't always see in games without astronomical budgets.
Verdict
Having completed the game, it left me wanting more but thankfully, the way the aforementioned factors create virtually limitless scenarios, I have a feeling Jagged Alliance 3 will have a whole lot of replay value.
In short - Jagged Alliance 3 is a deep and lovingly crafted adventure that is a triumphant ode to its predecessors from more than two decades ago, when games weren't afraid of complexity. Don't worry, it translates extremely well to modern-day gaming.
Standing at $45 / €45 / ₤40, this game is more than worth the price of admission as you are going to have fun with it for weeks, if not months, depending on how much gaming your schedule allows.
The Good
Story has good twists but doesn't drag on- Satire is spot on
- Great character detail
- Amazing gameplay depth
- High replayability
The Bad
Dreadful frame rate in a few spots- Issues with relaying some gameplay info
