Jagged Alliance 3 from Haemimont Games

[ArchAngel]

There's no plausible excuse for your JA2 mercs starting with the crap weaponry they do (World War era pistols in the 90s) beyond balance/fun/challenge.

1.13 fixes that by letting you choose between 5 weapon kits. If you can afford it almost all mercs can come with decent weapons

 

[J_C]

This is the ugliest and most visually confusing game I've ever seen. I can barely see what's going on. Has everyone lost their minds? What the fuck?

This is the perfect example of people saying negative things just to be negative. What is is that you cannot see there? Maybe you should check your eyesight.

 

[oscar]

World War era pistols in the 90s.

The m1911 predates the great war even, and the improved revision from '26 was used by the armed forces up until the mid 80s and is still mass produced so yeah it's not shocking seeing it being used. Wouldn't be shocked if they still made hipowers either.

Sidearm? Sure. Sole armament of an American (or any nationality really) mercenary heading overseas? It did feel pretty weird that you don't get guns that even a random American redneck hunter, Russian conscript or Crip gangbanger would easily have access to until halfway through the campaign.

 

[Strange Fellow]

It's a good thing that fun trumps realism if the alternative is to have no gear progression.

 

[ArchAngel]

It's a good thing that fun trumps realism if the alternative is to have no gear progression.

You can always have gear progression, especially with weapon modding system. See Tarkov for example.
Even UFO is good example. You start with rifles and explosives one can expect but you can always go bigger.
JA3 can still give you some rifles at start and then let you get better ones and find more rare mods for those.
Also JA3 like JA2 1.13 has perks which make you better with certain kind of weapons. That is also a way to balance weapon access as not everyone will want to use a rifle.

 

[Ladonna]

Holy shit, they did him dirty

View attachment 39237

 

[udm]

Holy shit, they did him dirty

View attachment 39237

More like

Spoiler

 

[mediocrepoet]

Holy shit, they did him dirty

View attachment 39237

More like

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

[Strange Fellow]

The Machete G-Rated Physical Assault Squad is tearing up the countryside, even while triggering a certain twist very early on. Melee is very viable in this game, but you have to think about it a bit more than you would the standard mole-popping. Melee-related perks are really good, and with Grit you can get extremely tanky. Do recommend for a second playthrough.

I'm also pleased to report that the hardest difficulty mode actually is noticeably harder, even while accounting for the self-imposed melee restriction. Snipers are a menace now, while I didn't give a single shit about them before. Those fuckers can pop heads too.

 

[Abu Antar]

I cleaned up a wilderness are without being seen. It was a map with two packs of hyenas. Barry took care of both with an explosive each.

I also managed to get my custom merc killed in another fight. It has been my first reload. I can accept any loss but him!

 

[spectre]

Yeah, Scully's one thing, at least he's got the proper rape-face on for knife work, but they really did a number starting Vicky on hormone therapy:

Also, Fox I am pretty sure is not supposed to be a poster child for FAS.

Can't be bothered to link the originals, they're easily found on the wiki for those who can't remember.


***
I ended up making a bit of time to demo this. My gut instinct was not to get overly enthusiastic, but also try and keep the prejudice in check somewhat.
I didn't expect anything close to 1.13, nobody sane did, but in the end, it does say Jagged Alliance on the tin, so let's see but let's see how it holds up to vanilla JA2.

A lot of the stuff looked familiar, the stats, the layouts, (some of) the faces. Turns out each character now has a unique perk, a special ability of sorts, just for themselves,
and will get to pick more from a predefined list as xe levels up.
The setting felt familiar enough, only this time we're having former french colonies. This means you get to listen to heavily accented blabbering straight out of 'Allo 'Allo
and frankly speaking, It ended up annoying the fuck out of me in less than an hour. And you will be hearing a lot of dialogue, with choices, helpfully marked with an
asterisk indicating "there will be consequences if you go with this". Ominous.
Characters also interject in the conversations all the time. I haven't tested them all, but it seems a mixed bag. I already noticed some are really fucking annoying,
but that's part and parcel of jagged alliance, there's more to the merc than just the stats.
So, a success by the devs? Let's say partial.

The bad guys seem to be really into skulls and bodypaint and witch-doctor accessories, from what I've seen. Can't say if the elite troops share this fetish.
Game also features a lynching of a person of color as a conclusion to one of the early quests (by other persons of color, so I guess it's a'ight) so it's probably not all bad.

The terrain looks tropical pacific, littered with all sorts of remnants from WW2, bunkers, guns, big guns, graves and monuments.
Not terrible, although I have issues with presentation. It gets better when you get used to it, but finding shit though all the visual clutter is annoying.

So, what about my gripes? I had a few, but let me just focus on one. As seen from the earliest preview materials, I knew the scramble turn for the enemies will be a hard sell.
And it really does. It really fucks over any attempts to plan a silent takedown or even a defense. Something I could probably get used to,
but when coupled with dubious interface and enemies moving in real time - as it's not yet combat time, it becomes an exercise in frustration.

When compounded, these issues were sufficient to make quit and not bother with the game anymore.
The situation was as follows: I planned to ease my entry into the final camp on the tutorial island by doing a bit of covert knifework.
The pieces seemed to be there, the game gives you all the cues when you're hidden and when you're about to be spotted.
Doesn't always work, sometimes it seems enemies become alerted even while having their backs turned, but it might have been me missing a sentry with LoS.

Silent knife kill is a tad complicated on the interface, cause you first need to prep it by selecting the appropriate option from the aiming menu (which isn't terribly handy to use),
then sneak towards the recipient and click through the attack. Awfully inconvenient to do when enemies are still moving in real time.
I heard there's a mod for it, and I really recommend everyone to get it.
Could be easier with supressed firearms, but if you miss but one shot, the immediate follow up is the scramble turn.
The straw that broke the camel's back, as far as I'm concerned, was when I tried to get a drop on a sniper guy hanging out on a tower.
Was able to get up all nice and silent, but when I wanted to click and make the attack happen, the dumb cunt under my control turned around and fucking started climbing down the
ladder for whatever reason, botching the whole thing and alarming everyone.

I probably shouldn't get so worked up over this in a game that's essentially about shooting guns. The basic mechanics here looked okay at the first glance,
burst fire can hit multiple targets and do collateral damage (with exploding cars, something the game jokes about but still does)
though some of the damage values feel extremely iffy - basic grenades which seem to be based off stielhandgranate only do something like 22 damage,
not enough to even drop a guy, kar98 headshot does a nice 68, but two shotgun blasts to the head at point blank only left a guy on "severely wounded",
leaving me scratching my head.
All in all, the mechanics are very boardgamey with special attacks, stacking bonuses and status effects. Some immediately disqualify
the game as a simulation (I died a little inside when the in-game description flat out told me a character has an endless supply of throwing knives),
like the "Grit" mechanic in which you earn points when entering melee range, which are ticked off by damage before the character's health, acting as a magical shield of sorts.

There's also other stuff like free movement points which appear to reward characters using and specializing in light armor,
as well as perks giving some characters free attacks (and even free grenade throws, however that one works in practice).

Perhaps people who are comfortable by the formula as well as those who wanted jagged alliance to take a turn towards an rpg-lite
(I swear, we condemned games into that subforum for less) might have more luck with it.
As far as I am concerned, I'm having difficulty enjoying a "strategy" game in which both sides don't really seem to play by the same rules.
Perhaps it gets better as you go, as for now I need to set it aside cause for some of the first impression to wear off. It was very mixed.

 

[Alienman]

Snipers are a menace now, while I didn't give a single shit about them before. Those fuckers can pop heads too

My IMP guy died from one shot, or well, they downed him and the next turn he bled out. Almost fell a tear.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Silent knife kill is a tad complicated on the interface, cause you first need to prep it by selecting the appropriate option from the aiming menu (which isn't terribly handy to use), then sneak towards the recipient and click through the attack. Awfully inconvenient to do when enemies are still moving in real time.

You don't actually have to click to attack, as long as you've prepared a takedown the attack is executed automatically when you get in melee range. But yeah, the pause mod is a must.

 

[Alienman]

By the way Strange Fellow, what is changed on the hardest setting? Is it in form of health bloat, or just harder hitting bullets?

 

[Strange Fellow]

By the way Strange Fellow, what is changed on the hardest setting? Is it in form of health bloat, or just harder hitting bullets?

I wish the game itself were clearer. All it says is that more elite enemies will appear, and that's what I'm seeing. Enemies may also be more accurate in general, but that could just be my imagination, or a natural consequence of facing more advanced enemies earlier on. I don't think there are any changes to enemy health or damage.

Like I said, the main thing I've noticed is that snipers are about ten times deadlier. Heavy gunners also seem to be a lot more threatening than they used to be.

 

[Alienman]

Sounds good, will have to do a run on maximum difficulty. Because on Commando it's way too easy to get mega rich, which removes a lot of the worry. It also means you can afford big squads.

 

[spectre]

Silent knife kill is a tad complicated on the interface, cause you first need to prep it by selecting the appropriate option from the aiming menu (which isn't terribly handy to use), then sneak towards the recipient and click through the attack. Awfully inconvenient to do when enemies are still moving in real time.

You don't actually have to click to attack, as long as you've prepared a takedown the attack is executed automatically when you get in melee range. But yeah, the pause mod is a must.

Interesting. That's what I'd thought how it should work, but ended up clicking anyway just to make sure.
Takes some save-scumming to get this one right.

 

[Shaki]

Sounds good, will have to do a run on maximum difficulty. Because on Commando it's way too easy to get mega rich, which removes a lot of the worry. It also means you can afford big squads.

It happens on every difficulty, no matter what you do you'll be swimming in money sooner or later, it's inevitable since there is nothing to spend it on other than mercs, and you can only have 15 of them.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Sounds good, will have to do a run on maximum difficulty. Because on Commando it's way too easy to get mega rich, which removes a lot of the worry. It also means you can afford big squads.

Unfortunately the hardest difficulty isn't much better in that respect. Two or three mines will still keep you well in the black with a balanced squad.

At least this seems like something that should be trivial to fix with a mod. It's as easy as lowering mine income across the board. I checked the existing enhanced options mod, but it's not in there. Hopefully someone steps up.

 

[spectre]

At least it's good they didn't resort to HP-bloating enemies on higher difficulties.
More and earlier elite enemies sounds good. I reckon reducing drops was their way of preventing the player from gearing up too early, or is this one still an issue?
Gotta say, I didn't even realize how spoiled I was by the "enemies drop all weapons." Feels down to mow down 8 dunces and only get one an AK for the trouble.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

I've had Fox clear entire maps with a knife, without the pause mod. You just have to wait for targets to stop moving (easier on some maps than others). If she misses the throat slit, brutalize always works. If there are two guards, shank one and brutalize the other in the surprise turn.

Interesting that some people are saying the game is too easy which is evidence of bad design. Yet when a veteran player struggles at the game, instead of praising the difficulty, that too is evidence of bad design.

The best are comments like "This game is total shit way too easy piss garbage awful casual trash but I ran out of money and ammo so I had to quit."

 

[Shaki]

I've had Fox clear entire maps with a knife, without the pause mod. You just have to wait for targets to stop moving (easier on some maps than others). If she misses the throat slit, brutalize always works. If there are two guards, shank one and brutalize the other in the surprise turn.

Interesting that some people are saying the game is too easy which is evidence of bad design. Yet when a veteran player struggles at the game, instead of praising the difficulty, that too is evidence of bad design.

The best are comments like "This game is total shit way too easy piss garbage awful casual trash but I ran out of money and ammo so I had to quit."

Are there actually people saying it's too hard? So far I only saw complaints about it being too easy, even normies on reddit seem to have realized that rifles + explosives are absolutely broken and trivialize everything.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Are there actually people saying it's too hard?

Comment on the previous page all about how hard the game was, couldn't hit things, couldn't get stealth kills, free enemy alert movement and "unfair" stats, etc. etc.

Commenter a few pages back said the game was too easy followed immediately that they quit because of no ammo. I don't even know what to say about that. Steam forums are full of similar complaints. "No ammo." "No money" "Mercs left me" "Overwhelmed by constant raids" etc.

 

[raeven]

Nice review!

BTW - you should be able to execute melee attacks that you've "prepared" in advance just by walking next to the enemy - there's no need for a second click to make it happen. If you pick the game back up, that might solve some of your frustrations with melee.

 

[raeven]

I've had Fox clear entire maps with a knife, without the pause mod. You just have to wait for targets to stop moving (easier on some maps than others). If she misses the throat slit, brutalize always works. If there are two guards, shank one and brutalize the other in the surprise turn.

Interesting that some people are saying the game is too easy which is evidence of bad design. Yet when a veteran player struggles at the game, instead of praising the difficulty, that too is evidence of bad design.

The best are comments like "This game is total shit way too easy piss garbage awful casual trash but I ran out of money and ammo so I had to quit."

Are there actually people saying it's too hard? So far I only saw complaints about it being too easy, even normies on reddit seem to have realized that rifles + explosives are absolutely broken and trivialize everything.

No one is saying it's too hard, just that the game is designed wrong because they are running out of certain types of ammo, money, or meds during their run.

The culprit is obviously a combination of incompetence and laziness on the part of the developers.