Finished the game(overview - lots of spoilers)

[Skull-]

Finally finished this game. So I decided to tell my tale since the begining.

My starting crew: MD - Barry - Malice

MD - I though it would be good to have a good healer since the begining. Always though that healers are main chars in any game. No regreats, MD is awesome, and is a decent shooter

Barry - Though it would be good to have someone with explosives, but we rly dont use a lot of explosives at the begining, so this could be silly choice. For my surprise he is an outstanding shooter, no regreats for taking him

Malice - Needed a good shooter. For my surprise I used meele a lot at the begining, so he was double useful. One of the best mercs on all game.

My patch on the map was basicly Drassen - barracks - Alma - Cambria - Balime - Prison (of course getting everthing on my way too).

Was a silly decision taking cambria so early. So much atacks made my life very hard since I did not had 2 squads to keep the line, so I lost a lot of time going back to take cambria again. After some time I got Static and it was a huge regreat. He was doing a fine job with mechanics but shootguns suck ♥♥♥. Would rather get anyone else. Ira is a bad merc. After some time I figured that she would do better being a mule and carrying my items. After getting the 1m bucks things started to be good and bad at the same time. With that gold I began to full equip my sqaud with guardian vests and night full uniforms(I regreat it, better take something that will give camuflage on more areas) and hired some top mercs.

So I was with 2 squads now

MD - Malice - Gus - Reaper - Magic - Lynx
Grunt - Shadow - Barry - Static - Scully - Danny
Ira (mule)

The game began to be hard, with full equiped enemys against my full equiped mercs. I divided my trops and began to take the map very fast, not letting anything take cambria again. I don't remember exactly where the tanks began to apper, but they are a nightmare. The very much limit where you can walk saftly and since I didn't used the rocket launcher one single time(I regreat it) was rly hard to get the stages with tanks.

One huge mistake that I made was let the upper part of the map unexplored until I almost reached the maze. So I needed to leave my main squad on the maze to stop any invasion(dont want to fight that damn tank on maze again) and leave my second squad to do the top part of the map. When I was missing only San Mona and one Suply depot I sent my fist and second squad to get those 2 together and found that its away easier to get stages with 2 full working squads(should have done it more).

I did that to get back to the air port and requip everyone properly to get the final stage. I fighted the SAM station and the Maze again, and finally got on the mansion. I must say that the final stage is not that hard, but was pretty frustrating to see the final boss charging on my troops before the last room and making me win the game.

Some overviews about my mercs:

MD - Alrdy said
Malice - Alrdy said
Gus - Good merc, nothing more. Not worth all that he costs, but he did a short work on explosives and the machine gun. I recomend it.
Reaper - One of the best shooters on my team. Only malice was better. Definitly awesome.
Magic - The best mechanic easly. And a very good shooter. Go for it.
Lynx - The best sniper. Give him a sniper rifle, and he alone can kill 1/3 of the enemys before they reach your group.
Grunt - Bad. Don't know how people like him. He is mediocre at everything, not worth it.
Shadow - Good sniper. Not as good as Lynx but is good.
Barry - Alrdy said
Static - Bad merc. Mechanis are good, but shootguns suck. Avoid this guy
Scully - My intetion was for him to be a good shooter, but he is just mediocre. Avoid him, there are a lot better mercs.
Danny - Good doc for the second squad.
Free mercs - Mules, nothing else.

Points of the game:

Limited Edition Doritos - Save it :) I sold it on cambria, and whe I discovered what its rly worth I run back to it. Made my game awesome.

Sniper Rifles - Get the KH-PSG 1 on all your snipers. This is easly the best sniper rifle on the game. Good rate of fire and good dmg. Nothing can go against it.

"Defense mode" - I didnt used it on the early and mid game, but I regreat it. On the late game, setting the mercs to always be on on defense mode made shoort work of waves and waves of enemys. Was like 6 mercs x 20 enemys. In the worst case one merc would go down.

Tanks - Your worst enemy. Still don't know how to deal with it very well. I just go always behind cover until I have killed all enemys and can just approuch and throw granades at it.

Land mines - I didnt used a single one, but I think it can be good to hold down enemy invansions.

Militia - Bad as ♥♥♥♥. Don't waste your time and money on it. They are useless.

Granades. Awesome. The gas granade is useless. The stun granade is very situational. The smoke grande is incredible good when you learn how to use it. The grenade is a true weapon, it can simple destroy enemy lines or your team.

Overall opinion about the game:

Good points:

- Very fun to play
- Fun merc lines
- Fun merc voices
- Good mechanics for combat
- Hard game at some points
- Good xp and lvl up system
- Very addictve
- Very fun eastereggs on all game
- Very interesting locations with good battles
- Very strategic game

Bad Points:

- Horrible AI
- Worst inventory managemant that I EVER saw(you spend half of your game play just doing it)
- Annoying bugs and limitations on all game
- Frustrating last battle and ending
- Bad mechanics for bullet penetration, you can rarely do that
- Not imersive history
- No way to create your own merc
- Few shops around the map

Thats whay I can think for now. Judging all of it, I belive they spent more money on propaganda then on the game it self. It's a beta, and no one should buy it. It need to be heavly patched. For now it's not worth 40 $. 20$ is a lot for it now, if you ask me, it's a very frustrating game. It have good points but on my opinion, it's not enoght to compesate the huge flaws it have.

[PolecatEZ]

Same thing happened to me with the Diedranna on the last map, she rushed out of the room after I spent about 15 minutes doing careful planning to take it down. Never got to see my plan in action.

My initial team was about the same as yours, but Grunty was a good MG gunner for me.

My second playthrough I went with the "Animals" theme for squad 1 - Bull, Grizzly, Wolf, Raven, Lynx, and Fox. Wish I could get Cougar to replace Bull later, but no MERC mercs yet.

Team 2 is the russian "I" Team - Ira, Iggy, Ivan, and Igor + Trevor and Danny for support.

Team 3 hold Cambria, made up mostly of free mercs. Once you lock down the SW SAM site, you're free to take the rest of the map.

San Mona is an early must, for both the cash reward and huge arms cache you can sell next door (or keep) for good money.

Question though, where did you find the limited edition doritos? :)

[NephilimNexus]

While the PSG1 is better latter in the game when your enemies start wearing body armor, I like using the Vintorez sniper rifle early on. Due to Kalypso not doing their homework, I can fit the same 9mm into it as my HK-MP5SDs - meaning I can have a full squad using silenced weapons at all ranges & all using the same ammunition.

While the Vintorez lacks the stopping power of the PSG1, it has a much, much faster rate of fire. When dealing with the hordes of machete zerglings that the game throws at you in the early part of the game that higher ROF matters more than hitting power (one to the legs and then one to the head usually does the trick, and does it quickly)

[Abura Soba]

Deidranna in my game was EXTREMELY disappointing... but yeah...

As for tanks, I found them extremely easy. At the gas station just be sure you approach with the building blocking his LOS, at the maze, you better just dash a few feet to the cover at that building.

A LAW kills it in one hit (even though it says 50% expected damage) the auto rocket rifle kills it in two.

All you have to do is make one of your mercs attract its main cannon turret towards him/her, then once its turned far enough, make that merc take cover behind the building, have your other merc on the other side (where the turret isnt pointing anymore) to fire the rocket. ezpz.

As for the limited edition, I believe they're somewhere in Alma.

[Delphic77]

Skull, that was easily the best and most complete review I've seen and was constructively stated.

I bought this game because I fell in love with JA2 and have been anxiously awaiting the games release. I knew about the changes and had played the demo before buying. I'll also admit to having bought Dungeons another title from Kalypso. The only item I would add to your review is the likely event of DLC gouging.

The very fast release of the very beneficial equipment DLCs, that make the beginning of this game much more playable, seems typical of Klepto (Kalypso) game marketing. We saw it with Dungeons and sequel. That bothers me greatly, a DLC should not be required to make a game more playable but expand the experience. I don't even like the idea of having to buy additional Mercs as DLC. New Game locations, Large significant charcter expansions that include a plethora of new weaponry and armour I might pay for. Especially if they bring back some of the JA2 features for better inventory management which is part of what made JA2 such a revolutionary game, it solved many of the management issues the Fallout series had. MACRO Vs micro management.

I think $20 with all DLC content would be a much more reasonable price as it currently stands.

[Skull-]

Fallout 1 and 2 where top games and stil are for me. I can't stand playing fallout new vegas or fallout 3. I simple don't fell like playing fallout with those games, and the same goes for jagged alliance BiA. But BiA is more close to JA 2 then Fallout 3 is to Fallout 2. So in this part its ok. I'm not against changes, but I'm against bad/rushed developed games like this one. If I could go back I would definitly not buy it. It's very addictive and I'm trying to play it again to make all quests, since a lost a lot on my first game play, but I find that I don't the patience that I had the first time I played, so I'm playing very little. Like 15 minutes, getting in rage for some aspects, leaving the game, and coming back after some time.