Jagged Alliance 3 from Haemimont Games

[Star Citizen]

It's great so far. Only an hour in but can tell I'm gonna love this.

 

[0wca]

Really enjoying it so far and the only complaints I have can be solved by patches/mods:

• Militia can't move from their spot and there's no mobile militia.
• Pathfinding breaks sometimes.
• HP damage doesn't seem to affect AP.
• Canceling movement on water makes squad return to original position.

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

Is this better or worse than Xcom 2? I never got around to putting much time into either one.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Is this better or worse than Xcom 2? I never got around to putting much time into either one.

Much better.

 

[Star Citizen]

I'm just amazed at how tight it is for something made today. Like it's a genuinely legit attempt with actual effort put into it.

 

[spectre]

Is this better or worse than Xcom 2? I never got around to putting much time into either one.

I couldn't stomach EXCUM2 (managed to force my way through modded EXCUM1 fwiw), with a few mods, JA3 was playable for me,
but the rpg-ization made it too tedious to manage a full playthrough. Also, a lot of the mods I was interested in required a restart.

I'm just amazed at how tight it is for something made today. Like it's a genuinely legit attempt with actual effort put into it.

And this my friends is the low expectations I'd expect of a true fan of the genre, who has followed the development and suffered through JA3D and JA:BiAtch. No sarcasm.

 

[Shaki]

Is this better or worse than Xcom 2? I never got around to putting much time into either one.

Much worse, XCOM2 for all its faults had difficult parts sometimes, this is piss poor easy. Also XCOM offers much more viable character builds, loadouts, items, etc while JA3 is basically give everyone rifles and explosives, gg 5h in you just won the entire game - Inventory/character management is the worst I've seen in a tacticool from a balance standpoint, game pretty much plays itself.

Also XCOM actually had a story, while admittedly it's a dogshit one, it allowed *some* semblance of immersion, while JA3 has parody turned up to 11, it's worse than Larian's DOS/DOS2.

Couple of days ago, I actually noticed a comment on youtube of all places, that perfectly describes my feeling about the story/setting in this game:

JA3 is actually a really good example of one of the common pitfalls of adapting or iterating on someone else's work: being reductive. When you're given the chance to work with source material you really like, it's so easy to focus on only the parts that personally appealed to you, the ones that struck you the most, at the expense of everything else, of all the pieces that make the work a coherent whole. JA2 wasn't Hot Shots 2. It wasn't a parody of a war story; it was a war story with a comedic tone. But if that comedic tone is what stuck with you while playing, then of course your takeaway for a sequel is going to have it set in a violent cartoon world

Only way in which it could be better than XCOM, would be the fact that it's more "RPGish", it's filled with shitty quests and interactions, constant dialogues, and you have some choice&consequence etc. XCOM was a goyslop mediocre tacticool but still a tacticool, JA 3 is mediocre parody RPG with some half-cooked tacticool elements. If you think tacticools are too hard and boring, but like Disco Elysium, JA3 probably wins over XCOM.

Also I guess if you REALLY prefer team members with personality, rather than playing your own customized chars, then JA3 might be better, but it depends on how immune to cringe you are. Mercs are another thing from JA2 that they turned up to 11 in terms of parody, every merc that had any kind of a gimmick but otherwise was mostly professional, now is 200% gimmick. No more professional killers, now everybody is a clown.

 

[0wca]

The guns need a balance patch.

Currently, sniper rifles and knives are the most powerful in game. I probably did 70% of kills with those two weapons.

Melee weapons especially have an insane crit damage and are near impossible to defend against when the enemy gets close.

They need to nerf melee crit dmg and slighly lower rifle CtH. If my sniper is prone with his rifle its basically 1 guaranteed headshot per turn.

 

[Gambler]

The game is pretty good overall. Some of the worst things that have been there initially are now patched.

Worst aspects of the game:
- AI. Especially for allied forces (militia and NPCs that sometimes fight on your side).
- Scripted scenes that sometimes (not often, thankfully) force you into a bad position with enemies magically appearing around you.
- Forced spots for deployment when defending a sector. (Although, this is much less of an issue now that they've added active pause.)
- Some scripting bugs that randomly trigger wrong events. (These are being fixed with patches.)

Some mercs have one-dimensional personalities, but the overall writing is pretty good. Voiceovers are good. Some exchanges are really funny.

The best part is that there is a lot of different stuff to do, it's all interconnected and you're free to experiment with how you do it. Skill checks frequently give you additional options. Perks sometimes open entirely new dialog lines. Mercs have their own likes and dislikes. In many ways the game world feels more alive than in most RPGs. NPCs move around and do stuff. (Not in real time, but they can appear in different sectors based on scripts.)

Best aspects of the game:
- Like someone said above, the game is very good at connecting local battles and "quests" to the overall sense of having a mission and waging a war.
- As you explore sectors and talk to people, you get better and better sense of what's going on, who is involved, and how the country of Grand Chien functions.

 

[ArchAngel]

The guns need a balance patch.

Currently, sniper rifles and knives are the most powerful in game. I probably did 70% of kills with those two weapons.

Melee weapons especially have an insane crit damage and are near impossible to defend against when the enemy gets close.

They need to nerf melee crit dmg and slighly lower rifle CtH. If my sniper is prone with his rifle its basically 1 guaranteed headshot per turn.

Those things are mostly realistic then. They just need to buff burst fire.
Good snipers will mostly always hit their shots at effective range and with decent time to aim. Close up, knifes will beat almost any other weapon except maybe some pistols.

Snipers are well balanced in JA2, they got a very narrow vision range and if one runs outside of it, it takes a whole round to setup to aim at different direction.

 

[0wca]

The guns need a balance patch.

Currently, sniper rifles and knives are the most powerful in game. I probably did 70% of kills with those two weapons.

Melee weapons especially have an insane crit damage and are near impossible to defend against when the enemy gets close.

They need to nerf melee crit dmg and slighly lower rifle CtH. If my sniper is prone with his rifle its basically 1 guaranteed headshot per turn.

Close up, knifes will beat almost any other weapon except maybe some pistols.

You have to take into account that stabbing a person once or twice doesn't necessarily kill them (unless you go for the throat). People can get stabbed a surprisingly large amount of times before they go down compared to bullets (unless of course you directly hit a vital organ). It also hits a bit too often. A trained merc would have a descent chance to dodge a knife attack, whereas I'm almost constantly hitting. Vice versa, my knife guy also gets hit very often which doesn't make too much sense as he would be able to dodge it better.

They should lower the hit chance for knives a bit and instead make them ignore armor (since you're stabbing the exposed parts of the body) and cause more bleeding. Melee attacks should also take the target's melee skill more into effect when defending against other melee attacks. Also the crit damage needs a nerf for knives as they sometimes do 150+ crit damage vs a sniper crit which is like 70+.

 

[raeven]

They should lower the hit chance for knives a bit and instead make them ignore armor

They do ignore armor.

 

[0wca]

They should lower the hit chance for knives a bit and instead make them ignore armor

They do ignore armor.

Do they? I felt like they always dealt less damage to my heavily armored mercs...

 

[AlwaysBrotoMen]

Is this the GOTY contender this year?

 

[raeven]

Is this the GOTY contender this year?

There's another RPG this year that I would imagine might be a little more popular as a choice ...

 

[Beowulf]

Is this the GOTY contender this year?

There's another RPG this year that I would imagine might be a little more popular as a choice ...

Most likely, but personally BG3 captivated me completely right from the beginning, but now (right after the first Act) I'm struggling to find motivation to sit down and finish the game. Whereas I already completed 2 playthroughs of JA3.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Is this the GOTY contender this year?

There's another RPG this year that I would imagine might be a little more popular as a choice ...

versus

 

[Krivol]

He was talking about Starfield...

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Caves of Lore deserves the nomination, unless we get something else during Q4.

 

[Modron]

Colony Ship is still on track to be released this year. Was Space Wreck on last year's goty vote? If not Space Wreck is scheduled to come out in October (it was in a bit of gray zone in that it was a feature complete release to ea in late '22 with the plan being to improve and quash bugs over the course of the EA rather than finish off content). I am also looking forward to Wandering Sword based off the demo.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Too many good RPGs coming out. This is horrible.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Colony Ship is still on track to be released this year. Was Space Wreck on last year's goty vote? If not Space Wreck is scheduled to come out in October (it was in a bit of gray zone in that it was a feature complete release to ea in late '22 with the plan being to improve and quash bugs over the course of the EA rather than finish off content). I am also looking forward to Wandering Sword based off the demo.

Yeah, I forgot about those while moping about that Urban Strife and Project Haven still don't have set release date.

 

[toro]

Too many good RPGs coming out. This is horrible.

Where?

 

[raeven]

He was talking about Starfield...

She wasn't.

I haven't played BG3 that much yet but JA3 was awesome, it's definitely my personal goty. I just don't imagine it will likely beat out Baldurs Gate either here or elsewhere.

 

[0wca]

Alright I finally finished the game, here are my thoughts.

The good:

• Cool story with a cool setting. The NPCs are fun to interact with and range from interesting to hilarious.
• Lots of humorous moments throughout the game.
• Great C&C with multiple endings.
• Lots of fun quests.
• Tactical combat very akin to JA2, no CtH just bonuses and minuses and your own evaluation.
• Strategic gameplay faithful to JA2 for the most part.
• Good AI for the most part (played on 2nd difficulty).
• Mercs can move pretty much anywhere and jump over obstacles much like JA2.
• Good weapon customization.
• Decent range of classes and perks.

The meh:

• Weapon variety is a little lacking. Could be addressed with a patch or mod.
• Perk variety is a little lacking for IMP merc.
• Militia can't move outside its sector even if in the same town.
• Some timed quests which are pretty hard to complete in time.
• No tanks to fight

The bad:

• The old cheese exploit from JA2 still works where you can position your mercs in one spot and just mow down everyone in a chokepoint with overwatch. They start running towards you and dying. Although, the AI sometimes breaks this tactic with mortar fire.
• Headshots don't debilitate the target as far as I can tell and just deals extra damage. Should severely debilitate anyone who survived one.
• Rifles are pretty OP. With 3 snipers you can pretty much mow down any opposition.
• Some performance drops on a few maps.
• Sound tends to bug out sometimes.

Overall, I give it an 8,5/10 maybe even a 9. With further patches and mods we could get a 1.13 type of gameplay easily deserving of a 10.