Jagged Alliance 3 is the same as its predecessors, you’re invading a fictional country with a dysfunctional team of freelance mercenaries, managing their equipment and clashing personalities through guerrilla warfare on an open world map with turn-based battles in every sector. It challenges the all-smothering XCOM standard of “two actions per turn” by restoring the ancient way of the Action Point. The chance to hit is never stated, but accuracy can be improved by spending extra action points. Each player has a dozen or so action points per turn to split between movement, shooting, or miscellaneous contextual actions. The game also innovates by giving everyone a limited amount of free movement, keeping battles moving, and expanding tactical possibilities. In most cases, it is better because it uses as much modern design as possible.
Each weapon class adds a special attack, such as holding a lane with a machine gun, or running while spraying multiple potshots with an SMG, as well as suppressing or reducing accuracy. Mods to guns are made from spare parts rather than purchased or found. As characters level, they now gain perks, but they’re limited by their stats, preventing min-maxing and highlighting one of the series’ most distinctive features: unique characters. Mechanically, they’re great. There are no classes, and everyone has wildly different skills, but since they improve with use, you can shape them in any way you desire. All of them have their own abilities, which adds to their character without pigeonholing them. As for the others, they have personalities too, or rather they have one thing, which they are constantly mentioning. Buns is efficient. Meltdown is now an insufferable tryhard. Ice is a Black American Guy.
The game didn’t seem malicious to me, and mercenary guerrillas always visit poor, war-torn places. The writing, however, lacks the tongue-in-cheek personality that could lift it out of that mire. Nevertheless, seeing Africa reduced to shanty towns, warlords, and shamans is at best quite boring. To its credit, the game offers a lot of hidden and side jobs, and its map is very open. Despite being smaller, sectors are more interesting than ever, with fewer empty jungles to waddle through, and many maps taking full advantage of the 3D engine’s multiple elevations. There are couriers to ambush now, but they suffer from that perennial turn-based shooter problem: stealth.
It’s great that JA3 has ditched interrupts in favor of an overwatch system, thankfully based on the Phoenix Point/Stirring Abyss model of setting a specific field of fire. However, the mercs shoot at center mass without you having a say. This bothers me more than most players, but I love the chance to hit system. After a decade of tactical games that coddle you with exact odds, it will alienate some.It’s more of a simulation game than a cold boring board game, because it’s based on eyeballing it. It’s not “-5% enemy accuracy”; it’s “better than nothing, and maybe worth it to draw fire from my sniper or pressure the guys flanking me, so I’ll be able to hit them both in full auto”. Since repeat shots increase accuracy, it would seem worth it to punt a few bullets this way.
Combat, the heart of JA3, is really damn good. And this is why I’ll be playing it more. In shootouts, there is a lot of variety, the tactical challenge is real enough that I’ve never lost by accident, but because I didn’t bring enough dudes or put too much pressure on one key merc or failed to cover someone’s position. For the fun of it, I replayed a couple of shootouts and experimented with it. I’m really enjoying it! While XCOM bore me to tears, and Phoenix Point made me feel more spiteful than triumphant, I cherish all wins, and I especially love moments when Ivan zaps two dudes in a turn, Vicky flanks a sucker, or Ice baguettes a guy.
Honestly, I think it’s a success. It’s a strong push to move the genre beyond the model we’ve been stagnating in for years while still acknowledging its strengths (so far that it copies some things I wish it wouldn’t, like the godawful panic system). Because of that, it will be divisive, alienating even the most obdurate purists as well, which it does not deserve. From a technical standpoint, it’s mostly a miss, and aspects of its user interface like travel, merchant selection, transferring, and splitting inventory need another quality-of-life pass. Even so, the combat / strategy / management elements keep me coming back for quite some time, and I suspect they’ll carry me through those disappointments.
