I remember playing this years ago immediately after wrapping up JA2 and found this one really short. Unlike JA2 with tons of little side locations to liberate, NPC characters to talk to (convince locals to help you, find an NPC to chopper you around), different ways to enter sectors (I'll cut through this swamp to stay off the road and dodge their forces!), and a large meta game overlaid on the map (build up security forces, mine for gold, hidden events, eliminate anti-air batteries to chopper your forces around), this one lacked almost all of that. One of the biggest issues I had was there was only like 18 sectors and a few underground bits. It played out a lot more linearly, compared to JA2's ~15x15 grid -- definitely over a 100 sectors to find some interesting bits in. There were still NPCs to talk to, mostly merchants, but I found it didn't compare to JA2. The earliest JA2 choice you make concerns mercs -- you can hire up to 18 of them for daily/weekly/monthly contracts. Want to field a comedic 18 soup-sandwiches for 3 months? Go ahead--all missed shots you'll quickly discover you should have hired 6 medium rate mercs. This leads into the RPG elements a little bit more -- your mercs can level up and gain skills as the game progresses. The main key issue JA2UB has: you can only hire 6 mercs indefinitely for the duration of the mission -- a sign that this isn't necessarily balanced for longer gameplay. In addition, you'll receive late-game items fairly early which kind of ruins that feeling of longer progression. One last thing: JA2 had all major NPCs fully voiced. JA2's main antagonist had actual cutscenes whenever you liberated towns or major victories, berating her assistants. JA2UB's had text over the commander. Overall, it's not bad -- it's just a compressed version of JA2 but should definitely be enjoyed after.
