Jagged Alliance 3 - Review @ RPG Codex

The RPG Codex reviewed Jagged Alliance 3:

Jagged Alliance 3 Review

Not at all in the same way that Carlsberg is probably the best beer in the world, Jagged Alliance is probably the best turn-based tactics video game series in the world. It is a perfect blend of small-scale squad management, hilarious action-movie homages and excellent turn-based combat. Jagged Alliance 2 might be my favourite game of all time.

That’s precisely why my reaction when a new game was announced was: not this shit again. The Jagged Alliance games that have been released this century are best described in words not appropriate for a family-friendly magazine such as this. Suffice it to say that each of the studios that made them was forced to shutter its doors more or less immediately, in a rare example of karmic justice in the video game industry.

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Conclusion

What do we have here, then? At its core, we have a game that takes the Jagged Alliance formula, tries to replicate it faithfully, and largely succeeds. For every new feature it introduces to the series, there are two others that work more or less the same as they did in 1999. You will have noticed that a lot of the text in this review is devoted to the game’s faults. The reason for that is that most of its strengths can simply be summed up as: it’s like Jagged Alliance 2. That doesn’t take up a lot of screen space, but it is a big deal. It may sound negative to conclude that the parts that make this game good are the parts that Haemimont Studios stole from the game they were making a sequel to, while the wonky parts are the things they came up with themselves, but that’s mostly how it is. The new stuff ranges from decent to completely idiotic. The much expanded dialogue, quest, and character development systems are competently made, and take the series in a new direction – whether you’ll like them or hate them depends on your taste for such things. Meanwhile, everything having to do with how combat starts reeks of efforts to minimise frustration by giving the player unfair advantages and then giving the enemies different unfair advantages to compensate, resulting in a big mess.

But that’s small potatoes. The fact is that when I finished the game, I immediately started a second playthrough, not for reviewing purposes but because I was having so much fun. I then finished my second playthrough without having to take a break, which is something I very rarely do in a game. Simply put, Jagged Alliance 3 is the worst true entry in the series, but it is that: a true new entry in the series. It may not be the timeless classic we feel any sequel to Jagged Alliance 2 ought to be, as it’s dragged down by some truly baffling design decisions, wonky balance and a lot of horrible clicking, but it’s also the best game of its kind that we’ve had in twenty years.

If I were working for IGN, I would say that the game is too afraid to try new things, and hangs on to obsolete mechanics that don’t belong in the modern era. What I will say instead is that it gets the balance between old and new absolutely bang on, mostly respecting the old while not being afraid to try new things. Whether or not you will like the game depends entirely on how offensive you find the areas where the game tries new things and fails. There is a free demo available, so you can decide for yourself without spending a dime. I myself was sceptical at first, and while there is no denying the game’s flaws, I can safely say that Haemimont Studios won me over. If you like Jagged Alliance, give this a try.