After a couple of poor attempts we finally have a worthy sequel to Jagged Alliance 2, a game, I might add, is on my list of top 5 games in history. The nostalgia factor and expectations were very high with this one as you can imagine.

One of the biggest flaws and positive aspects of the game at the same time is how faithful to the original this game is with only a few improvements and many outdated and, quite frankly annoying, mechanics.

Thankfully it's not a simple remake as you get a new country to free from a [put a cliche trait] villain.

Combat is very neat with quite a few possible ways of approaching each encounter. If you really want to dig deep, you can pick a time of day to improve your chances especially if you have night vision goggles. You can also count on the weather to level the playing field. Being stealthy or explosive are also options. Everything is valid. You can even kill all your enemies with machetes/knives if you fancy (there are multiple achievs for that). AI is pretty decent and only occasionally makes idiotic mistakes for your benefit. The recruits you train are painfully dumb, but veterans and elite soldier are quite lethal, so that adds up.

In the original aiming always felt even more random than xcom, but it surely makes more sense now. It seems to be a die roll relying on marksmanship, weapon range and its modifications, time of day, weather conditions and the cover taken by the enemy. Sand storm will make it very hard to do proper damage and rain will make your weapon jam more often - both make real impact on the battlefield.

There are a few memorable grids with terrain or structures putting you on your toes and rethinking your approach. Every time I grew too comfortable the game had a curve ball right around the corner. This factor made it a lot more engaging.

Resources are just on the level of sufficient once you get past first 10 hours which can be a struggle. It makes sense the weapon store from the original game is gone, however, it's coming with a patch soon.

What definitely doesn't work is the humour, the level of cringe and pastiche can be unbearable. The writers had no ambition of updating the dialogues and jokes. If you are very PC, turn off the volume. You have misogyny, racism, nationalism, sexism - all the isms really. One particular dialogue between Wolf and Fox will leave you traumatized for life. Ironically, this problem makes it feel like your mercs are real people and I cared about them more than I ever could for any soldier in xcom for example.

Paying for contracts is the same as the original - lots of clicking which could have been automated in this dasy and age. Backtracking to take over control of areas you lost along the way can be a pain, but it's part of the game's charm as well. Healing, resting, r&r and repairing your equipment might be a hassle too, but at least it has impact on your combat abilities, so it's worth doing.

One big difference is the amount of side missions and people you can talk to. Most side stuff is really not worth it, but you get an occasional surprise and they are all optional.

Is there a plot? Yeah, I guess, but it's paper thin. You won't care for it.

With rich tactical combat, solid visuals and amount of battles to go through it's really good competition for xcom. It is by no means flawless, but the original never was either and that is part of its charm. Once you overlook the bad you will notice plenty of good to enjoy.