Jagged Alliance 3 Review: Mission Success

Jagged Alliance 3 joins the realms of other late 90’s RPGs that have received a coveted third entry in their series. From Wasteland 3 to Baldur’s Gate 3, there’s a bit of a resurgence in classic trilogies. While Jagged Alliance may not be as well-known as some of the others, Jagged Alliance 3 is a fantastic throw-back in all of the best ways. It’s a tough as nails strategy RPG with a fantastic sense of player choice, and even serves as a great starting point for new players. 

With Jagged Alliance 3 being my first foray into the series, I was a little intimidated and wasn’t sure what to expect. Jagged Alliance 1 and 2 released in the 90s, and just the name brings out nostalgia in many fans of the series. Jagged Alliance 2 specifically is regarded by some as a tactical masterpiece. Fortunately, Jagged Alliance 3 is anything but dated and has embraced the legacy left by its former titles. By giving players the agency to do pretty much whatever they want, Jagged Alliance 3 all about freedom of choice and opportunity, and it’s all the better for it.

Jagged Alliance 3 is available on Steam for $44.99. 

Story: Soldiers of Fortune

Jagged Alliance 3 takes place in 2001 within the fictional country of Grand Chien. The president has been kidnapped by an paramilitary group called The Legion, and the daughter has come up with a dastardly plan: hire a group of mercenaries to infiltrate the Legion and save the president.

Where do we begin? Well, it all starts with the mercenaries. Luckily for us, there are a couple dozen of them looking for work via the internet, complete with an interface that looks like it belongs in Windows 95. As the almighty purveyor of mercenaries, or mercs as the game refers to them, you can hire as many as you want as long as you have money. They can then be sorted and organized into squads with as many as 6 members. Each merc has different skills, abilities, and backstories. Some of them are obviously inspired by action heroes, like the mercenary who goes by Blood. Blood’s special ability gives him unlimited throwing knives, and he sports a sporty red headband to keep the blood out of his eyes. 

There are several dozen mercenaries available for hire, each one with unique skills and abilities.

If the above sounds like it belongs in an 80s action flick, that is intentional. Jagged Alliance 3 has many of these satirical or parody elements that glorify and poke fun at classic action movies. To be honest, it’s a lot of fun to see these references. Likewise, the writing is also a bit silly at times. The humor is a little offbeat at times, and most of it didn’t land. Despite this, I think that it makes the characters a little more memorable even if their jokes and one-liners sometimes fall flat.

Gameplay: Tough as Nails

If I had to compare Jagged Alliance 3 to another game, I’d say it is similar in some ways to Wasteland 3. There’s plenty of inventory management between your squad mates, and the combat is turn based. On your turn, you can position your mercenaries and issue attacks until you run out of AP. As your squads travel throughout the archipelago of Grand Chien, you’ll see enemy squads moving around, towns, and other points of interest. The world map feels organic, and it’s really neat to load into each area and explore, find loot, exterminate your enemies, and talk to NPCs. 

Target specific body parts to lower damage, speed, or accuracy of your opponent.

At the beginning, I was flying blind for the most part. I went with my gut feeling on most mercenaries and tried to have a highly efficient killing squad with every archetype. These decisions at the beginning influenced the rest of the playthrough, and helped me come up with an effective squad later on. Did they doom my squad as well? Yes, but that’s part of the experience in Jagged Alliance 3.

Each mercenary you recruit has entirely different capabilities to go along with their personality. There’s a lot of customization here, including stats, skills, perks, special abilities, and equipment. For example, the Interrupt skill, which is the perfect counter to overwatch. Other skills and abilities are unique to one merc. For example, Igor Dolvich is a boisterous Russian mercenary with a flask that improves his melee capabilities.

NPCs are just as eccentric and strange as your hired mercs.

Tactical Mastery

With all of the different abilities and weapons available, there are so many different approaches to each combat scenario. At one point, I entered an area with a mansion that was heavily guarded by Legion soldiers. Fortunately for me, many of them were congregated in the mansion’s foyer. I spotted three different entrances to this mansion, so I split my six-member team into 3 groups and surrounded the enemy. It was a difficult fight, as most of the fights in Jagged Alliance 3 are, but I can thank my survival to the fact that I took time to evaluate multiple approaches. After the fight, I even spotted a way onto the second floor of the mansion. In future runs, I can imagine taking an alternative strategy with a completely different team of mercenaries.

The above is just one scenario that went well, but most encounters had surprises that threw a wrench into my plans. For example, I had another interesting fight in a large open-air quarry. I was successful in taking out most of the enemies, but imagine my surprise when a rocket wielding Legion soldier popped out from a rooftop and outright killed two of my mercs. It ultimately was my fault for bunching my units together, and it was a hard lesson to learn. Ultimately, I have to give credit to the AI here. The AI can hold its own, and I was frequently impressed by the tactics they used. It is not a walk in the park!

In this desert battle, I had to watch out for for land mines and other traps while battling The Legion. Let’s just say I’m thankful for quick saving!

Find Your Favorite Mercenary

My favorite mercenary, one I’ve had from the beginning, is named Mouse. On the outside, she might seem meek and forgettable, but trust me. Give her a dagger, and she turns into an unstoppable killing machine. In fact, I’ve had so much success with melee attacks that it turned into a major pillar of my strategy. Rather than missing most of my shots and wasting my AP, it was more effective (and more fun) to charge in with a few melee-oriented mercs and chops my enemies into little bits. 

You’re 5 feet away, you better not miss!

On the contrary, I’ve had some frustration with ranged attacks because there’s too little indication of if your shot will connect. There are shot modifiers that will affect your accuracy such as your target being behind cover, how far away the target is, or if the weather is foggy. Rather than a percentage to hit, like shown in other strategy RPGs, the player has to dissect a list of information and determine if the shot will connect. In practice, it’s clunky and is further hampered by large and “retro” interface. I realize that this may be subjective and others may enjoy the interface. However, as a new player to the series, it is off putting. 

Interface Straight Outta 2001

Since the game takes place in 2001, there’s a retro aesthetic to the user interface. The menu is full of blocky windows that look like Windows 95, and even the in-game computer has this style. I don’t have a problem with the look necessarily, but the UI doesn’t convey useful information. Worse yet, it is a chore to navigate because of the chunky buttons and windows.

The UI frequently got in the way of things.

Forget about playing on a controller or on the Steam Deck. Jagged Alliance 3 works best with a mouse and keyboard, as well as a cheat sheet to memorize the hot keys. If you want to survive, even on the lowest difficulty, you’ll need to play efficiently and effectively. When you’re not in combat, there’s no way to pause the game or queue up movements. This makes exploring a treacherous affair, because initial positioning and getting the jump on your opponents often means less money and time spent on healing. You’ll need to make use of hotkeys for split-second decisions.

Blood Diamonds

Running a mercenary group is not cheap, and your mercs will happily leave if you don’t pay them as their contract dictates. Money is always a priority, and you’ll need to find ways to support your ventures if you want to be successful. It’s ain’t as simple as scavenging items and selling them – the best way is to occupy the various diamond mines throughout the country. These bring in a steady revenue stream, letting you hire new mercs and keep your existing mercs happy.

By scrapping your unused items, you can create upgrades for your existing weapons.

Between finishing side quests and defeating your enemies, you’ll find a ton of equipment on your journey. Unfortunately, there’s no way to sell items that you don’t have a use for. Instead, you have to scrap it, and then use the scrap for item upgrades or sell the scrap for loose change. Unfortunately, there’s no way to buy ammunition for your crew. At one point, I ended up running out of ammunition for my sniper because there’s no way to purchase more. Eventually I lucked out and found a few dozen shots on a dead enemy. It would be great if I could order ammunition and supplies via the online, and have it delivered to a stash house but that is not the case.

No Time to Lose

Time is a huge factor to consider when thinking about your overall goal in Jagged Alliance 3. Every action you take in Grand Chien will eat up precious hours. For example, if you’re in a fire fight and your squad is wounded, it can take a full day or more just to get them healed up and ready for the next fight. If you’re moving your squads across vast distances, they’ll likely get tired and need to rest, a task that takes 12 hours. 

This battle was a surprise event that an NPC told me about. I gathered 2 squads to defend the town… it didn’t help!

It’s not only your mercs moving around Grand Chien. The Legion has their own squads exploring and transporting valuables. They also send attack squads to conquer your settlements – these are a little hard to predict and come out of nowhere unless you’re consistently watching for them. Now unless you have multiple squads, your units won’t be able to defend against all incoming offensives. The counter to these frequent attacks is to train a local militia, which also takes time and money. 

One really awesome fact about Jagged Alliance 3 is that any land tile on the map can be fully explored. Even the areas without civilization are worth exploring because they may have valuable resources like medicine. Not only that, but if you’re clever you can turn these wild areas into ambushes. It’s really satisfying to pull off an ambush, and consequently decapitate most of the enemy squad before they have a chance to react.

Every tile can be explored in full 3D.

Graphics/Audio: Right on the Money

Visually, Jagged Alliance 3 looks good from its isometric angle. There are a variety of environments and weather events that change the look and feel of each area. Since the country is in a tropical area, you’ll find plenty of vibrant jungles, mountaintop fortresses, prisons, dense towns, and even deserts. The environments here are really impressive in both look and scope.

Whenever you make a kill with a sniper rifle, you’ll see a kill-cam, similar to other games like XCOM. During these scenes, you get an up close look at the character models, which unfortunately do not look great. Many of the enemy types look identical, and zooming up to them isn’t doing them any favors. The blood spatters and animations are also lackluster, but ultimately these do not hamper the tactical gameplay or detract all that much.

 Jagged Alliance 3 was reviewed on PC with a key provided by THQ Nordic.