The Jagged Alliance series dates back nearly three decades with the release of the first game for MS-DOS in 1995. The series received a number of spin-offs over the years, but the only other numbered title in the series was Jagged Alliance 2 in 1999. Unfortunately, the numerous spin-offs mostly were received quite poorly, especially with the rash of entries that were released in the early 2010s. All the waiting for a good outing for the series was very worth it though when the critically praised Jagged Alliance 3 was released for PC earlier this past summer, and now that game has made its way to consoles.

Save the President

Jagged Alliance 3’s story takes place only a couple of years after the original in the year 2001 when the fictional African country Grand Chien has its president kidnapped by a military organization that wants to take advantage of the country’s rich resources. In response, the President’s family hires your team full of mercenaries to save him. The story here is nothing special, but it gets the job done with the pretty topical themes of the time.

At the start of the game, the first thing you will do is hire mercenaries that you will then use in battle. You start with an initial bank of money that you work to increase by looting, trading, and most importantly taking control of areas on the map. If you manage to take over the right areas, you can start to bring in more cash flow and thus be able to hire the more expensive mercenaries. Learning which mercenaries to hire early on and managing to keep them alive does have a good bit of a learning curve regardless of the difficulty level that you choose.

One nice feature that is included for those looking for a less intense experience is Forgiving Mode, which gives you more of a boost at the beginning of the game with more money and makes the consequences of your mistakes less severe. Faster healing is also very important here, as that can play a big role in your survival if you are new to the series or genre as a whole. This is handled well as a way of not reducing the all-around difficulty but just giving you a few perks to help you survive. For those that are up for the challenge, there are also two additional difficulty levels above normal as well that you can select, so the game really lets you tailor the experience in the way you would like.

Building your team in Jagged Alliance 3 is where the game really shines brightest, as you can try different variations of your team of mercenaries to try and survive in the game’s lengthy campaign. There are six different mercenary classes to choose from, including All Rounder, Marksman, Mechanic, Explosive Expert, Leader, and Doctor, and each has different roles to play. You can choose to go heavy on one type of class or make a team with a mix of them. The game starts with you having up to five in your squad, but this is later elevated to six with you being able to simultaneously have multiple squads.

The more than 40 mercenaries available in the game are not just blank canvas with a class attached to them either, as each one has their own personality that comes out during the game. Some of the funnier moments happen when contacting the mercenaries to hire them, sometimes even getting turned down for various reasons. The voice acting here is quite good and fits the type of game that this was trying to go for. Each specific mercenary also has their own Skills, Traits, and Equipment that come with them as well, which can come in handy or cause some issues in the field.

The mercenaries you hire can be improved by leveling them up over time, which can be done quicker if the mercenaries are fulfilling their specific jobs on the team. After leveling up the mercenaries a bit, you will eventually want to hire other mercenaries to take their place if it makes your team better and more cost-effective. The team management aspect of the game really adds a lot of strategy to Jagged Alliance 3 in what is already like a game of chess at times.

The tactical turn-based combat in Jagged Alliance 3 is just as you would expect from the series, with an isometric view for your mercenaries as they traverse each environment. There is free movement for the characters as you move either one mercenary or multiple at a time by moving around the cursor, which is far from as precise as on PC. This is no surprise for anyone who has played a game such as this on a PC versus a console, but the good thing is that the movement still works quite well on consoles. When in this style, you can also use stealth to sneak up on enemies and try to take them out before a battle is actually engaged.

Once you come across an enemy and are spotted, however, a grid-based battle will start and stay that way until you either take out all of the enemies, retreat, or have your entire party wiped out. As you would expect, you take turns making moves on the battlefield and either attacking or using other skills you have at your disposal such as healing using the amount of AP that you have available.

Once you choose to attack the enemy, you want to make sure you are in the best position to do so for the type of attack you are about to make. When about to attack, you have the option of which part of the body you want to aim for, which will obviously affect the amount of damage it will do but also lead to less accuracy and such for others. Going for a headshot every time would be ideal, but you will often outright miss by trying this even when pretty close so you have to be very careful and often aim for other parts of the body. The enemies also have their fair share of misses when taking shots at you, which was always a welcome occurrence. You also have to remember that there are many different types of enemies, so you have to strategize accordingly.

The battles are not always won on the actual battlefield either, as the map setup really helps to scratch that RTS itch where you choose where to move your mercenaries. Regions will be won and some regions will be lost on the map, which will continually keep you on your toes, especially in the more rich mine areas that are a big source of your in-game income. You even have the option to sim some battles here, which is a nice touch when wanting to push things along in longer play sessions.

Porting Pains

While a majority of the game carried over very well to the console port, the movement during battles was often a bit troublesome. This is because the cursor lacks the precision of a mouse that you could be using to maneuver. This especially got frustrating when moving the cursor around the edge of the battle grid when trying to place it in specific areas, as the cursor would then jump and be completely out of place. This is where the turn-based aspect really comes in clutch, as you aren’t in a rush here while trying to fight the cursor’s lack of precision.

Coming over from the PC version are some of the issues with the actual battle grid as well, where it’s hard to see everything on the map with the way the outlines are utilized in places. Many obstacles are often in your way here, so this can cause some issues when trying to move around the grid. This is something you really get used to over time, but it can lead to some major mistakes early when you make a misplay due to this.

When looking at the performance of the game, Jagged Alliance 3 really isn’t a powerhouse that you would expect to have trouble outside of PC, which proved to be true with the console port. For the console port, players have two options to choose from, Quality mode and Performance mode. Quality mode gives you a higher resolution with better visuals, though at the expense of 30fps. Performance mode on the other hand runs with less visual fidelity at 60fps, though there are still some frame drops regardless. The actual performance is pretty decent with a frame rate that works pretty well most of the time for both. However, I tend to lean towards the Performance side in games like this especially where visuals do not really matter all that much.

The move to consoles also means using a controller rather than a mouse and keyboard. We already discussed how the cursor was less precise on the controller as expected, but the rest of the controller setup is quite nice. After you get used to them, the controls are very well assigned on the controller to where you can easily perform pretty much any command you want, which is vital for a game you are looking to sink many hours into such as this.

Verdict

Fans of the Jagged Alliance series were anxiously awaiting a return to the quality found in the original games in the series and Jagged Alliance 3 managed to deliver both on PC and now on console. While the PC version would still be the preferred option here if given an option, the console port is very well done. There is no doubt the developers put a lot of love into not only the game itself but also ensuring that the console port was on par with the PC version as well. The intense style of gameplay is certainly not going to be for everyone, but Jagged Alliance 3 is still one of the best that the genre has to offer on modern platforms.

Score: 8/10

Pros:

• Return to form for the series
• Nice variety of mercenaries with different skills and personalities
• Ranging difficulty options and Forgiving Mode
• Console port is mostly solid with Quality and Performance mode options

Cons:

• Style of game is not for everyone
• Isometric view often obscures parts of the battlefield
• Cursor movement in battle is less precise on console

Jagged Alliance 3 review code was provided by the publisher. You can read MP1st’s review and scoring policy right here.