Jagged Alliance 3

The game has many weirdnesses (fewer now than on release), many of the characters are caricatures (though many of them still grow on you), the campaign pacing is not so terrific, the AI is dire especially towards the end... But it just keeps me playing. And replaying. And replaying. Higher difficulty level, solo challenge, iron man run... and then back to the easier challenge but with the "crappy" mercs with no teaching, or no explosives skill... or focus on grit and heavy weapons instead of stealth, do things out of order, play with the campaign triggers... There's something about it that keeps me up until the wee hours of the morning, for the first time since Civ 4? 5? I can't quite remember when that series lost its hold on me.

Great strategy game. Reminds me of the original SWAT PC game back in the 90s. Characters are fun.

Choosing which mercs you hire for your squad feels satisfying and since the enemy force will actively try to retake locations you capture makes the world feel more alive.

Grew up playing Jagged Alliance 2 and spent my college years depressed about the majority of people abusing the license. This is the closest thing to JA2 with the team and overworld management from the original game as well as the destructive environments and environmental mobility of those games as well. It's not perfect but its so damn close.

In effect, Jagged Alliance 3 is an exaggerated remake of the second game, which is more or less what the fans of the series wanted for twenty plus years. It doesn't introduce much new, and it turns its characters into caricatures, but what it does, it does well.