Welcome to Grand Chien, a Third World Country. The juicy 2000s in Jagged Alliance 3

Little is known about the time and place where Jagged Alliance 3 takes place. Fortunately, the developers have hidden many interesting references and clues in this title. Thanks to this, discovering a country plunged into civil war is pure pleasure.

The material may contain minor spoilers regarding the location!!!
Content translated automatically with GTranslate!

I’m 72 hours into Jagged Alliance 3 and I don’t regret any of it. Exploring the fictional country of Grand Chien is a pleasure. And we get to know him in the best way possible. By traveling. You won’t find many descriptions or encyclopedias with a huge list of notes here. But we will talk to expressive locals, collect unique items and discover almost 160 minimaps to roam around.

GrandChien. What a hole…

We find ourselves as mercenaries around the year 2000 in a fictional country – Grand Chien. The country is in crisis and our goal will be to help whoever pays. So much for the introduction to the plot, because it is not the most important thing. As in action films of this period, it is the action that is important, not the reason for the fight itself.

Third World

The setting is, as was often the case in these low-budget films of the VHS era, some non-existent Third World country. And here is the first pleasant surprise. The creators captured the spirit of these films. Grand Chien is certainly a young country, founded recently – by Généralissime Chien (hence probably the name).

It is certainly also a post-colonial country. This is evidenced by numerous references to various colonial powers. Many towns still have German names (Landsbach), some inhabitants speak French. Many environmental names also come from French. And the inconspicuous German is still doing business here.

So where is Grand Chien? It’s hard to say. We are certainly talking about the area of ​​Third World countries, and this is a very broad definition. As you can see on the map above, these are countries from South America, Africa and the Middle East and Asia.

If I were to shoot, I would place Grand Chien somewhere on the coast around the Indian Ocean. This country is located in the delta of the fictional Adjani River. And the topography is very rich in diversity.

There is a hot savanna here, but also a humid jungle, marshy swamps and large hills. A wide cross-section that also forces the player to adopt different strategies and that’s also cool!

It’s supposed to be fiction, but it’s serious. Well, a little…

Grand Chien is definitely a completely fictional country, but the creators took their work really seriously to give this land a grain of authenticity. Sometimes there are titles where the entire lore is huge and well described, and yet we feel that it is all not serious. And here? The scant information is hidden on the map in such an interesting and creative way that we get to know the country quite instinctively. And it works.

The country is built on its local history, but was taken over by colonial powers several hundred years ago, only to regain “authoritarianism” a few years ago. This entire veiled history of the region is provided in conversations and fragmentary information. Kudos to the creators for this aspect.

Architectural postcolonialism

Being a former colonial country has its consequences. Primarily architectural. It has long been known that colonists in the areas they occupied in the 19th and 20th centuries built buildings modeled on their own. Sometimes they were only forced to slightly adapt them to the environmental conditions of a given place. And this is clearly visible in Grand Chien.

Unfortunately, the monuments were destroyed in the conflicts that have been ravaging the country for decades. The nicer buildings are located only in city centers or are the main dominants of villages. Nay. Grand Chien bears traces of the revolution, but also of World War II. There are numerous bunkers and former firing positions from the times of this major conflict scattered around the map (hence my guess regarding the location).

The country is also a hotbed of crime (based mainly on the trade in diamonds, the mines of which can be found in Grand Chien), and where there is crime, there is money. And where there is money, there are beautiful villas. We couldn’t miss these!

These amazing buildings look completely different from most of the buildings in Grand Chien. Apart from their unquestionable wealth, however, they have no common element. This may mean that people from different parts of the world have been and are doing business in the country.

We see Spanish haciendas and German colonial villas, but I found no visible references to French colonial architecture. Perhaps the locals, after throwing off the yoke of the previous lords, destroyed or modified these buildings? Or I simply haven’t reached the places where they occur.

However, what impressed me the most so far was not the villas and churches in forgotten villages, but a brothel connected to a former bathhouse. Although the architecture of these buildings itself does not have much to offer, I will remember the duel I fought around the beautiful tiles and pillars supporting the ceiling for a long time.

Adjani Valley

Since playing Mad Max, I really like it when the game offers the same biome, but with different variants. There are titles that go a bit overboard in this matter, providing players with snow, desert and who knows what else. Fortunately, in Jagged Alliance 3 the biomes are diverse, but they stick to certain assumptions.

So we visit wet areas in the jungle bordering the sea, dry savannah areas and musty swamps. Each of these places has a completely different climate, and environmental conditions also influence tactics. For example, in rain and wet areas, weapons wear out faster. Enemies can also see at a shorter distance and hear worse. On the other hand, on the savannah, due to the ubiquitous sand, the weapon jams more often.

What I also really liked was the fact that the map was divided. While conducting tactics, we see the game in isometric projection, where we can direct our mercenaries. But already during the strategy, when we plan where to go or what activities to plan, we see a satellite view.

The map is then divided into squares (approx. 160 areas). And we can fire absolutely every one of them in tactical view! What’s more, we can go from one to the other without opening the satellite map. It’s a cut-up sandbox. And let me give you a hint that it is worth visiting them, because most of them have something interesting to offer.

Applause for… the references!

I certainly didn’t visit every corner during the game, but I had a lot of fun where I was. And all this is not only due to the gameplay itself, but simply to various interesting places. I will definitely remember tasks with a disappearing German or an archaeologist who resembles Indiana Jones for a long time.

My favorite interesting coincidence is certainly the presence of the PT-109 boat in the port of Cacao. Consciously or not, this is a nice reference to the anime and manga Black Lagoon, which is also about a group of mercenaries. The PT-109 boat, which was used by the Black Lagoon crew members, is moored in the port.

Is this actually their boat? Hard to say. The place and time of action of both titles are correct, but, for example, the boat is equipped with a gun on the bow, while in the series the boat was devoid of this weapon. I noticed that they are also working on this on Reddit 😉

The atmosphere of old movies is great

To sum up. I was counting on a decent tactical game, but what I received was a very carefully crafted title, with cool mechanics and an incredible atmosphere of absurdity in 90s movies. All the dialogues and objects we find. Plot twists like from the American Ninja movies. This was what I was waiting for this holiday.

Moreover, the world presented was not naive, but constructed with thought and idea. And I didn’t expect this at all. Jagged Alliance 3 touched my heart much better than the XCOM or Wasteland series. I will also add that I have not played the previous versions.

I purchased the title with private funds!
If you like the content I prepare, you can support me as an author by buying me a coffee 🙂