ShadowMagic

Ow I'm sorry. You are absolutely right. They didn't put a clown face on him..

They're turning the game into a YMCA gettogether with all these clownesque Mercs (RIP Gaylord Shadow, Plastic Fantastic Housewife Raven, Frankensteined Ivan, Mime player Igor, Tapdancer Magic, Hitman the fat Turk and all others) and you are complaining about some color scheme that you can alter ingame... *Sigh*

Such a poor showcase man. Animation are so/so for which I can forgive them (they simply can't do any better) but not for what they have done to some of the most iconic mercs. Raven looks like one of those from Desperate HouseWives but most of all my all time favorite Shadow looks like one of the guys from WestLife with his gay crop top. OMFG Haemimont. Please don't tell me this is the end result of 2 years of work. So many examples of what he could be portrayed like. Take this for example:

Well I shared my concerns more than enough and will leave it here.

Agreed. This is a game breaker. Instead of doing it like in JA2 they came up with their own idea and somehow got approved by the game diretor. Just shows how much he knows about TBS and JA in general.

Yup also curious. They fact Mercs can't seem to just simply 'walk' through a sector but are on a constant running speed as if they are all high on meth, is cringe worthy. Also when moving as a group you can see they all move alike. As if you are playing Command & Conquer back in the days. It really dazzles me that with todays knowledge and tech possibilities, programmers still can't get basic stuff like movement animations (animations in general) right here. Perhaps they used the wrong engine for this game.

Funny to see how two peeps responded to my post with a 'confused' face. Sweet summer childs how can you be so ignorant? Either you guys have low standards when it comes to a worthy successor of the JA franchise or grown so old you are as blind as a bat and unable to see the clear differences in mug shots. No offence. Point is (and I stand by my opinion): Characters is what made JA succesful, not some fancy environments in high res. Unfortunately the latter has gotten a lot of attention whilst the former needs a lot more. And no, @Lunokhod I don't bite. You took one of the characters that comes the closest as the original portrayed one but take a look at: Magic, Ice, Scully, Igor, Ivan, Vicki, Raiden, Fidel, Grizzly, Grunty - heck I won't even going to mention them all again. You guys just be aware your hype doesn't make you blind to details. This is probably the last chance to have a dev do it right and save the franchise from being shelved once and for all due to poor execution and sales. But hey, I already noticed this developer doesn't pay attention to details when you look at the description of their website in Google: "Jagged Alliance 3 is a tactical game with role-playing elements, where you fight with the A.I.M. mercs your way to a war-torn country in Central Africa." Even I as a non professional/ native- English speaker know grammar is incorrect here. Sigh.

This area, they completely misfired. As with combat animations. Both look really silly and even worse than JA2 even though 25 years have passed. Imagine not being able to produce better portraits and animations with modern tech. SirTech just happened to have more talented personnel I guess.

Yeah, the environments are done nicely but the true soul of Jagged Alliance lies, as you must know, within the CHARACTERS; their portraits and the interaction you have with them. Especially this most important part has not seen enough attention. Characters are drawn in a most goofy manner and there is little to no interaction let alone animating faces. Also you guys completely exaggerated with profiling them, turning it more into a comedy game rather than a game in a somewhat serious / gritty setting. You still have a few weeks to improve this CRUCIAL part of the game in order to make it look less like "Tropico Alliance meets Settlers" and more like Jagged Alliance. Seriously, don't simply ignore. In it's current state this game is still a no-go for me and many others. You say you want to revive the franchise and pay tribute to the classic games? Well you can talk the talk but now its time to walk the walk.

This. I did not express myself in the most convenient way. Sorry for that.

What I meant was, that elements that once were set in the background (you couldn't see nor alter most perks/traits unless with the mod) and were an intergral part of the character (your IMP was assigned some extra's based on the Q/A list, thats it) now being so explicitely there on the foreground. Personally I never really took notice of any of those perks nor spend much time 'balancing' a squad because for me JA1 and JA2 (Vanilla) were basically all about picking the Mercs with highest stats (not hidden) affordable, and steamroll the enemy. Even on difficult settings. Using quicksave only when the biggest bullcrap situations led to the dead of your pointmen. Comparison with COD (maybe a long shot, yes): once they start bloating / exaggerating stuff like characters, perks (and now with crafting) it took the fun out of the game. That's all.

Those talents, traits and perks. It's just... too much. Why do all games have to have these nowadays? The exact same reason why I dropped the COD series after COD2 when all that silly stuff made it into COD:MW. Won't be suprised we can buy weapon skins in JA later on too. You know, to trade on Steam Marketplace.

Seeing the red shirt, probably a random enemy and not a Merc.

Now you know why the game is already 20% discounted in pre-order (not just because of gaining a kick-start) and, again, possibly the reason why game seems to be rushed into release (hence, little attention to character portraying, hence borrowing parts of the game from existing projects). 😉 Already came up with this theory before. And don't blindy believe anything that is being promised on forehand ("just trying to break even with costs and sales income", "free DLC will come after") because those with at least basic knowledge of marketing, know how things roll 😉 In any case, let's just see how Tropico Alliance will land. Pre-order if you like (it doesn't break a leg) or wait for a sale later on.

Hi Ian. What is your most favorite Merc? Or even better which Merc do you identify most with 🙂

Point is, why not doing it right the first time (which is actually a way of working in IT world). Now there is a chance many potential customers won't buy the game because they simply hate the way it looks or how their beloved characters are portrayed with poor writing accompanied. This increases the chance the game will be a massive flop (again) thus burying the franchise for good. So you should embrace the criticasters instead of putting them in a corner point at them and calling them ungrateful. Without criticasters, devs won't learn and the industry will do what they want and stop improving.

Since this forum only lets you edit messages for a very short time (*sigh*) I stand by my opinion it's too much of a masquerade ball. With many things they simply exaggerated here. Things that make or break a game in my personal believes. You don't have to agree of course that's fine. 😉 We'll see how sales will go but I doubt this game will make an impact from what I have seen so far. I think they took a wrong path when it comes down to portraying the characters and the general art style that was chosen.

I know. Then why only 1 dude in that squad dressed up like a bee keeper with his niqab? The rest of them are immune? Doesn't make sense to me.

Horrible. What the hell with those kiddy face masks? Did they have COVID back 2000 or what? That bottom enemy looks like a bee hive keeper man, seriously what genius at Haemimont came up with THAT?

Who says it's the new standard. Perhaps they had their in game settings altered or turned off glare in videocard settings to having the game run more smoothly?

You can count on it, they will exaggerate big time. Also happen to notice Steriod has this 'special' trait which is some sort of Hulk meets Iron man meets TJ Combo (Killer Instinct, red.) punch that let's it enemy fly 3 feet through the air? Saw it on ingame footage. Cringeworthy and completely over the top. It's despicable if you ask me, to portrait Mercs this way as if they are some sort of Marvel figures. It's simply not funny anymore and completely (i'm gonna use that term from now on) 'Flandarized' indeed. I'm sure as hell the mod community will mod this game to the ground and pay tribute to JA once available. Starting with a complete rework of character portraits and dialogues. You probably won't even recognize Haemimont's product anymore 😄

A lot of work seems to be put in this. For some that'll be good news. But I'm afraid many fans dislike the amount of micro management and (in many cases) unneeded amount of detailed info the strategy map alone contains now. It's almost a game on its own where with classic JA it was there but not so much demanding. Other than that, the art style in general doesn't appeal to me but guess it is what it is. Just... mediocre. Just wished a more classic view/approach was used in order to capture that old JA atmosphere. Icons look like they come straight from CounterStrike. All those pictures under each menu weren't neccesary. Could have just used the classic way of selecting the name of the merc directly from the squad list and have a direct option menu as of what assignment to give. The grid looks taken straight from the latest CIV games (which isn't really a good thing). In order words, it looks to polished to remind me this is supposed to be a JA game. It should be less colorful and cartoonish/goofy and darker/grittier instead. But heck, let's just call it Tropico Alliance from now on shall we? 😄 Just make sure our Mercs can wear Hawaii shirts and flip flops and be armed with water pistols. 😄

As for the Sci-Fi mode in JA2.. I find it adding little to nothing and more of a nuisance really. It only slows down the game since you now have to go down the mines to finish off some creatures which ain't much of a challenge when having a full squad of Mercs, armed to the teeth. Perhaps that is, that I make thankful use of the quicksave and quickload options in game now and then (hell no any of my elite Mercs get to die) 😄 Never got the urge to play the ironman version for some reason either. Probably because I don't have the patience of doing everything carefully step by step but rather rush in with a few skilled Mercs and clear the sector already 😐

It's hard to come up with anything original these days in gaming world. Everything has been done already. And now that most game developers lack any imagination, they go back milking classic games. Mostly done in a horrid way (with some exceptions).