I believe it was Socrates who said, “I love it when a plan comes together!” Jagged Alliance 3’s deep but approachable tactical combat delivers that satisfaction on just about every mission. Managing a team of memorable mercs to set up turn-based takedowns feels even better with in-depth squad customization and many viable playstyles. Its sense of humor rarely managed to make me chuckle, but that hardly mattered when I was orchestrating a beautiful symphony of destruction… or watching it all come crashing down because everyone missed an easy shot on the same turn. That makes me chuckle.
The Plot
The basic plot is easy to understand but not without some moral complexity: The president of the fictional West African nation of Grand Chien has been kidnapped by a mysterious bad guy calling himself The Major, and your team of international mercenaries has been hired to rescue him. Set in early 2001, Jagged Alliance 3 loves to play up the cliches of pre-9/11 action movies while presenting a conflict that feels like it could be ripped from the headlines. Those two flavors don’t always taste great together, and the middle school dudebro humor hardly ever really lands for me. But for the most part it’s not mean-spirited, so I can usually just ignore it. And that got easy once I became engrossed in the turn-based tactical combat, which is among the best I’ve seen in years.
Tactical Combat
Your custom squad of up to six mercs can specialize in everything from heavy weapons to sniper rifles to demolitions, and I never felt forced to bring a role I don’t enjoy simply to fill a niche. Because I’m kind of boring and predictable, I basically made a team of five marksmen and one medic (who was also a pretty good marksman), and approached each mission by trying to stay unseen and snipe all the enemies one by one. I wasn’t punished for lacking a token shotgun guy or melee expert, outside of a few times when I had to break into a compound with very short firing lines. There’s a great balance here between maintaining a consistent difficulty and allowing a lot of freedom in your playstyle.
Unique Mercenaries
One area where Jagged Alliance has always differed from its cousins like XCOM is that most of the available mercs are pre-written characters instead of blank slates, and come with a distinct personality and visual style. Some even have unique combat traits. While I might not have always found the archetypes they were based on especially entertaining, I did like that they weren’t just an endless procession of mostly indistinguishable grunts. My Canadian medic, Michael “M.D.” Dawson’s whole schtick is that he’s very timid and self-conscious. He’s not even supposed to be here today! But his character trait causes him to make the whole squad feel inspired when he makes a tough shot and is surprised by his own competence. Livewire, my hacker, is written as an almost exasperating stereotype of a snarky college student, but her practicality occasionally opened up some new options for me in quest dialogue when I had her on my team.
Co-op Mode
Jagged Alliance 3 features a drop-in/drop-out co-op mode for two players that allows you each to hire and control your own squad of mercs from a common pool of funds. You don’t have strategic independence to go pursue objectives in different sectors simultaneously, though, so you’ll have to stick together.
World Map and Battle Maps
An area where Jagged Alliance 3 stands out from a lot of tactics games is its truly impressive world map. It has well over 100 accessible tiles, each of which comes with its own custom 3D battle map. You’ll find everything from dense urban areas to open savannah infested by hostile wildlife, and even the ones with no enemies or campaign objectives are worth visiting to collect resources like medicinal herbs and even sometimes come across hidden supply caches. Each map is attractive and readable, with great use of color and lighting. Playing on the permadeath setting, which I would definitely recommend, can be nail-bitingly stressful.
Mercenary Progression
There are plenty of other options for merc progression, though. For instance, dismantling items gives you components that can be used to craft useful weapon mods. These might give you bonuses to aimed shots or a higher critical chance. Armor can be customized with different plate configurations to give you more protection against specific types of weapons or add utility features like extra carrying capacity. I really like the diversity of options available here, and it adds depth to the tactical decision-making.
Conclusion
The entire campaign took me more than 40 hours as I meticulously combed almost all of the map and did nearly all of the side quests offered to me, but it never really overstayed its welcome. I will say that on default difficulty the economics side eventually became a bit too easy to manage: I could have technically hired multiple squads of mercs once I was stacking cash to the ceiling, but I got attached to my Alpha Team and never felt like I wasn’t able to accomplish all of the main objectives with them while keeping a decent defensive line using local militia recruits. It made me wish there were more ways to spend my money, since even buying new gear is usually a one-time transaction that is only available in select places. You can’t just order up crates of bullets or six full sets of advanced body armor.
Recommended
Jagged Alliance 3 offers deep but approachable tactical combat and in-depth squad customization. While the sense of humor may not land for everyone, the turn-based takedowns and freedom in playstyle make up for it. The world map and battle maps are impressive, and the unique mercenaries add personality to the game. The drop-in/drop-out co-op mode allows for cooperative play, and the options for mercenary progression give depth to tactical decision-making. Overall, Jagged Alliance 3 is a satisfying turn-based tactics game with plenty of content to keep you engaged.