Jagged Alliance (JA) was one of the the first turn-based tactical games I ever played, I think. Bear with me; I’m getting old and it isn’t important anyway.
The story was, you were a leader of mercenaries. You got hired to retake an island with a revolutionary medicinal plant plantation on it, captured by a bad employee of the resident scientist.
Day by day you sent out your mercenaries, taking new areas, defending the few you already got. Your payment was based off of the few plants controlled and harvested. With the cash you needed to pay your mercenaries, hire guards and possibly more mercenaries. Some mercenaries’ effectiveness was ruled by traits triggered by chance, environment or other mercenaries.
In the next game, JA2, the mercenary organisation had grown, and this time you were to free an island state ruled by a dictatorial queen. It was her exiled, and presumed dead, husband who hired you. This game is like the first one, but with more of what made it good. More RPG goodness, more intricacies, more strategy layer business. It is the game that couldn’t be good, but managed to turn out as a gem.
After that, a lot of JA themed games followed, and they couldn’t succeed. Each player of JA and JA2 loved some part of the game, and tolerated what was left. Any change to that magic mix, and you took away something that someone loved. Or added more of what another really didn’t like. Or both. At the same time.
RAGE!?
Recently JA: Rage! was released, and the outcry where there again. “THIS IS NOT MY JAGGED ALLIANCE!” People screamed, and yet I think it is the best possible JA game that could have been at this point in time. Why? It isn’t a game like JA and JA2. True, it is a turn-based tactical game. But there is no character improvement or progression, no real strategy layer. You do not have a base, hold no land. The only thing that makes it a JA game is the theme and characters. It is again a small island, and it is a few of the mercenaries from 20 years ago.
In a way it is much of the same that was done with XCOM recently. The team sat down and removed all that was not needed for a tactical turn-based game, and then after that– added some JA touches.
The good
The turn-based part is really simple, and the characters are as well. There is no big, bad ball of stats that interact in obtuse ways.
You (usually) got 12 Action Points (AP). Walking or crawling takes 2 AP, while running one square takes 1 AP, but makes sound. Weapons and items takes different amounts of AP for different actions, and you can increase aim by a few AP extra.
You are visible when you stand up, you can hide behind hard stuff, or in high grass, which makes you harder to spot. Unless you’re the big guy. Then you are visible anyway. Or the camouflaged fellow, then you are invisible.
If you are silent, and hide bodies, you may get through an area without any trouble, making noise or being detected by other means will have the AI storm you with superior numbers, if they know where you are. A good diversion may make them run, or look, in the wrong direction. So diversion is good. Unless they are under pressure and start killing civilians.
What sets the mercenaries apart from each others, are traits and rage! abilities.
The traits are simple stuff like being better with hand to hand combat, or having extra inventory because you are big. And they usually come with negatives, like a negative modifier to hit with guns… or being so big you can’t hide at all unless you are prone.
Rage is increased with adrenaline; by taking damage or killing enemies. With some rage point the mercs get more AP and a bit of damage resistance. Rage points can be used on the abilities, which differ in effect and usefulness. Ivan, the big, bad merc can taunt enemies. He also doubles the damage resistance effect of rage, so it is perhaps worth it to save.
The rage! abilities are abilities for each merc that range from ok to incredible. They are the “see me, not my buddy” effect for Ivan. Others are a (essentially) teleportation, a free (as in AP) shot that ignore armor, free (AP) shot at several enemies in range, extra AP, a tiny bit of free healing and more. This and the traits and the different weapons and attachments create a span of choices for how to play out the maps.
It feels like a game that work in the right way, with lots of small touches.
The bad
There are a few complex systems that I feel isn’t very well described. Perhaps the systems were supposed to be more complex, perhaps I’m overrating the complexity. I think “Stability” on items are meant to be how long stuff last, or how well armor holds up when damaged. Weapons have different stats, including two sets of four fields that are sometimes filled with solid or shaded blocks.
What I think would be the best improvement would be some quality of life fixes.
When you are done with an area, you still need to move around in turns. If you got weapons to reload, you might have to skip a few turns. If there is any optional objectives, you might need to run around and search for that character to talk to. You can loot any box or body on the whole map, but you need to click each and move items between your mercenaries. Free movement and a loot all container would make this quite a bit better.
Also, there are only a few equipment slots, so that is quite nice. But there is one bit that is off, which is the head slot. This fits a helmet that helps protect, or you can put on vision related equipment that helps aiming. This sounds like a choice to be made, but looting and switching around equipment is currently free… so bonus for aiming, shoot stuff and then you can change back to helmet for the defensive bonus.
The Ugly
The bugs. Really. Bugs, and lots of them. This is probably a section you can skip, as I’m just going to list bugs.
Items disappearing. Entering a map, and then my sniper is missing the other (not equipped) head slot equipment piece.
Items disappearing. One merc is holding a two-slot weapon, and I drag that over to a row in the backpack with two combat knives. Expected behavior is the weapon is put in the backpack, and the knives in the hand equipment slots. Actual effect… all three items disappears.
Item cannot be picked up into some slot (not backpack, just hands) or not by one merc, but fine by some other merc.
Item with usage (first-aid) or thrown (knife) doesn’t disappear / reduce count when used/thrown.
Game hanging on AI turn, because enemy tries to do something illegal. Need to quit (Alt+F4) and reload, do something else and hope the AI chooses differently. Really irritating on that one map where AI fights AI when you are undiscovered / in stealth. Need to be discovered by at least one faction in order to affect AI choice.
Game hanging on player turn. When you do an action, you can confirm by clicking the “Do it” button on the screen, or by pressing space-bar. In some situations I’ve tried to throw a knife, press space and then the game hangs. Load the latest save and have the same hang on the same action sequence, but if I click the “Do it” button, it all works out fine.
I’ve also had an enemy fall out of the target-able list of enemies. He stood in the open, could shoot my mercs but could not be targeted. Took him out with a (free-aimed) thrown grenade, and didn’t check if a save-quit-load would fix it. I think he was down to one (or two) hit-point and bleeding, then bandaging himself.
The verdict
I’m really enjoying this trip back into history. If the bugs are fixed, I can deal with the bad. I’d love other mercs and stories as expansions. Maps are, according to the devs, handmade, and needs some love to have path finding and line of sight work correctly. At least in edge cases. Else, procedurally generated maps and stories would be a brilliant thing.
Less than 30 hours for me on normal, although reloading on bugs, painstakingly creeping through maps in stealth and some “game is running while I’m away” has to account for quite a bit of that. I’d guess that a no hang bugs would see this at 18-22 hours end to end (for someone as slow as me).
I’ll definitely be playing this more, perhaps not on hard but at least to try out other mercenaries.
I’d put it at 3/5 fun-stars, with at least one deducted for the bugs. Would suggest “Hold” for now, and wait for a patch or three. Then again, I’ve had loads of fun and do not regret buying it.
Thoughts and Responses 