Absolute Tactics: Daughters of Mercy

Game itself was mediocre. Classes are "meh" and every level requires tons of walking. Here's the catch for me: Got to a level (after Galena) where the game bugged, and despite replaying a level multiple times, you get to the end, not objectives, and no monsters, but the game won't progress. Wrote support, not replies. Cannot even PLAY this game anymore if I wanted to because of bugs.

About an hour in already and I really love it.

What I liked - I love the character builder system so far. Lots of choices. Quite a bit of learning by using which works great for me, I enjoy that exploration of it. Optional missions that are replayable and with some secrets to find is also quite fun.

Monsters already have seemed varied and different. I enjoy that it's not all just a different color and call it good.

I was actually surprised at how much I enjoyed the art style.

The game feels like the true tactics games, with fun RPG elements in how you set up your characters. If you really like tactics games, you don't really need to read any longer, it's worth the cost.

Concerns - There are a few UI aspects I wish they'd adjust, and the speed you scroll on the map you may want to change to the slowest possible as it's quite fast on any other setting. Took a little bit to get used to, but once I got things where I wanted them it was fine.

The Meh - The story so far seems pretty cut and dry. You are effectively to weak to fight the big bad while they do some terrible stuff. But they let you live so you can get stronger and defeat them. (Guessing). However! This is an early thought and not only could there be a twist I haven't seen. Also, really it doesn't bother me.

The first tactics game I ever played was Final Fantasy tactics. Have always been a big fan of the genre. Absolute Tactics *absolutely* does the genre justice ;D. Would definitely recommend if you're a tactics fan and looking for something with a fun story line and accessible mechanics. Well done!

Was really hyped about this game. In the 20 minutes I played I found issues with my controller, it changed my display resolution, it really disappointed me with the quality of the animations and it softlocked me in the menu that I opened to see if the "Keyboard and Mouse" had some keybinds because it seemed like it was only using my mouse which was terrible to play with.

Can't recommend the game in its current state but I really hope they fix this issues.

After a short tutorial to get your bearings on controls and game play, you're set right into an expansive mission with unique characters and monsters, with weapons and skills.
The story keeps you engaged, optional loot and side missions make every session unique, adding to the RPG feel of gearing up your characters.

Looking forward to challenging myself and finding out what's in store with the Daughters of Mercy!

Bought it day 1 and played for an hour. The game runs alright on the steam deck. No issue booting it up and the controls work just fine.

The game in itself seems alright so far. Nothing too crazy either. The plot feels like it's going to be cliché as hell and the gameplay in itself is nothing more nor less than you'd expect from the genre. I'm a bit confused about the class leveling system though and I wish the menu you get in between main story missions were a bit more than "just a menu". No world map, just a couple stores, a sidequest list and your roster and that's it. I think any character can equip any sort of equipment as well, which is a bummer. I'd have liked see a bit more diversity in what and who could equip different sorts of equipment, but hey.

I guess it'll scratch the itch for a dozen hours, but I would wait to get it on sale with a 50% discount at least. Not worth it at full price.

Game is buuunnnkkk.
No hot keys. Lots of tedious clicking. Mundane and easily manipulated combat system. Poor camera control.

These glowing reviews are most certainly paid shills. Or the didn't realize they were reviewing the wrong game. I wouldn't keep playing this if you paid me 25 bucks.

I enjoyed the combat system and the art of this game. I really appreciate how much detail the developer put into the different levels. The soundtrack is particularly enjoyable, too! I loved the music. The game has some VO as well, which is always nice to hear in an indie game, and it even has story to keep you entertained as you play. It's definitely geared towards fans of classic tactics-style games.

Edit: All of the things I said earlier in my initial review hold true. Unfortunately, the missions get to be very long and tedious, without the ability to save and take a break. This is especially taxing with the rather basic combat, so I'm dropping the game and changing my recommendation. If changes are made that alleviate these issues, I'd be willing to look at this again since it's close to being something I can enjoy.

My first impressions are largely positive.

In terms of combat, there doesn't seem to be the level of complexity seen in Final Fantasy Tactics or Fell Seal. That said, what's there is pretty good. Each of the main characters has a unique attack pattern and a few unique attacks. Outside of that, classes come in the form of manuals which each character can equip two of. These provide both stat bonuses and additional skills. Enemies tend to be vulnerable to skills or basic attacks, which can end up heavily influencing positioning. Certainly a nice wrinkle. In terms of skills, you have your standard array of ranged attacks, aoes, buffs, debuffs, etc. The buffs and debuffs I've encountered so far are impactful. I've only played a few maps so far, but there seems to be a focus on having a variety of scenarios. For instance, one mission had 3 phases: an initial "stealth" phase, a large castle fight, and finally an escape in a carriage.

I'm enjoying the art quite a bit. It's certainly a step up over many other indie strategy games, and has it's own charm.

The writing so far has been fine. I saw another review say that it was bad middle school fan fiction level, which is way overblown. A lot of the characters have a fairly strong anime trope feel to them. The main character is a head strong hero who won't listen when someone says to stay back. One of the main antagonists is a petulant young witch/demon/not sure yet and comes across a bit strong. I'm sure this somewhat tropey style will come across negatively to many, but I don't mind it. While the main story is coming across as fairly standard fair to this point, I'm still enjoying myself. I doubt there will be anything ground breaking, but that's fine. There's a nice bit of a tongue in cheek humor to it that's had me grinning fairly often.

I'll update the review if my opinion changes as I go further, but I wanted to go ahead and give some first impressions for potential buyers.

I’ve been looking forward to this game for awhile because I love SRPGs and graphics that look like high quality hand-drawn animation like Arc Systems Works games, for example. Absolute Tactics doesn’t disappoint and is a worthy successor to classics like Fire Emblem, Vandal Hearts, Shining Force and Final Fantasy Tactics. It’s able to take the best from these famous games that probably inspired it while adding plenty of unique and interesting features of its own. Between its stunning visuals, great gameplay and fun dialogue, this is a game that’s not to be missed. Considering this is the first title from Curious Fate, their future looks bright, indeed!

Very fun game. Nice art style and animations, there is a lot of character customization which is kind of lacking in modern SRPG games these days so that's nice to see! The story has been a bit forgettable so far but everything else makes up for it.

This game strongly reminds me of Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Ogre, Disgaea and other similar tactical RPGs, but ultimately adds nothing new to a genre. While I wouldn’t call this game bad or unplayable, it is somewhat boring and predictable.
After a very short tutorial you find yourself in a caravan (hub), where player can change equipment on heroes, buy/sell things and embark on story/side missions.
Story missions are occurring on different and unique grid-based maps, where you fight enemies, pick up loot and occasionally interact with environment (chests, herbs, breakable stuff) in a turn-based fashion.
Side missions usually (but not always) reuse already completed story mission’s maps with new goals and enemies for some bonus rewards and can be grinded for exp/money should you desire to do so.

PROS:

+ decent visual style
+ several different heroes, some variety of builds and possible strategies of playing
+ music is not annoying, although not very diverse

CONS:

- difficulty is rather easy.
I played this on hard, but had 0 issues with clearing everything deathless on the 1st try, mainly because enemies on map do not react unless you walk into their aggro range. So naturally you just pick em off one by one and this is why gameplay becomes boring pretty fast – there is no real tactical depth, just same approach all the time.
- no hot keys, lots of clicking to do stuff
- annoying bugs.
When I first opened the game I was softlocked in the options screen and had to Alt+f4 to actually play it.
During side-missions you can loot “secret” chests only with main character, because otherwise the items will disappear from your inventory after you complete the mission.
- college humor suitable for edgy teenagers.
While I did chuckle a couple of times, the majority of dialogs, jokes and plot in general are not really mature, which doesn’t help with immersion and caring about your crew.
- enemy variety is rather low

TL;DR

Average tactical RPG which you can buy on a sale if you don’t have better things to play…or you can skip it entirely and won’t really miss anything.

its an alright mid-tier tactics game. The leveling system is not very fun. Its more along the lines of gaining resource points for your items. I am about 6 stages in and not really interested in playing more. The classes arent really classes they are pieces of equipment that dont change playstyle a whole lot.

There are a lot better and lot worse tactics games out there. Worth a buy on sale.

needs quite a bit of work. controls are inverted for game-pad and when finishing levels if you don't loot all the items in the area before killing the mobs you wont be-able to get them after the fight is done...

I don't even write reviews that much, but I honestly can't recommend this game. The good is that the developers seem to be reading the feedback and are responding. The bad is that unfortunately the issues still aren't fixed. Bugged achievements are a big pet peeve for me, if you make a player do x task and they can't get the achievement - it feels like an insult. The latest update seems to have made the game more unstable. Freezes and other bugs showed up which I hadn't seen in my first playthrough. I've put almost 100 hours into this game so you can see I really wanted to like it, but I am just left feeling upset.

If you play tactics games for the sake of tactics then this is probably fine. Unfortunately, generic anime protagonist and subpar writing just doesn't cut it for me these days. So, for the average jerk out there looking for something that's not... anime (and trust me, you'll pick up on the influences fast enough), this is probably not what you're looking for. If that's up your alley, though, then I'd for sure say give it a try.

I wanted to like this one.

I really did. I need another tactical RPG in my life right now.

That said: it's not the tactical mechanics that turned me off on this one.

Some issues:

The game tells you how to play every single level so far up at least through the first major boss fight, going out of its way to re-explain mechanics that it has used multiple levels in a row.

The dialogue just... look, a joke is funny once. A character's opinion is interesting a few times. Having a character tell me how reckless the tactics we're using are when we're forced into those tactics by the level design, four levels in a row, is... wearying.

The options menu literally has no volume knob for sound effects, and even at the lowest for music, it is still -quite loud-.

The buy menu does not let you buy items except one at a time, but encourages you to use items in a big way.

It's just... a game with a lot of little flaws that have added up to a bad experience for me. Can't recommend this one, folks.

Beautiful soundtrack, difficult and rewarding combat, immersive 2D environment. I'm loving it so far!

This is a great indie game. It has great gameplay and reasonable price. Please add more image for different weapons and armors, thanks.

At first, I thought that the bugs were the problems and that with a proper early access period, this would have been a good game.

But, after playing for more time, I realized that, no, even without the plethora of bugs, this wouldnot be a good game, mostly because the AI is dumb as a rock. Well, actually, there's almost no IA : opponents don't move until you enter their aggro zone and once you do, they juste move to you and attack, that's it. You can stay in formation, activate the opponents one by one and pick them up. The lack of AI triviliazes the game.

Right now, the only thrill vibe you get from the game is "will a bug eat the loot I just got or will I actually receive it after the mission ?".

Simple, fun, and quite well presented. A very casual Tactics game with lots of hidden depth for those (like me) that love combos.
Kudos to the devs!

Is pretty good. Classes are interesting, and the different combos you can come up with are fun. However, if you're not a fan of Adventure Quest-esque writing, you may not have the best time. Other than that, solid 8/10 for Gameplay.

Great, love it. Very good tactics game. I do not really see a lot wrong. Not really any class building, but the adding of jobs ability is very good. Combat is fun and challenging enough, and it still gives you a good feel of having to work through a strategy. Graphics are very nice and colorful, game runs smooth. Story is ok, nothing mind blowing. If you are a tactics fan you will enjoy this game so go ahead and gab it.

A great turn-based tactical game, with plenty of class combinations to consider. All characters are story-based, and each have inherent strengths in the form of stat distribution and attack patterns, but this can be extensively augmented through equipping upgradeable class books with give further stat bonuses and extra skills.

Level ups happen during the battles, resulting in immediately stat increases and the unit getting its health and spirit replenished (Battle of Wesnoth style), and that's always satisfying. All my units stayed within 2 levels of each other throughout the game, so XP seems to scale based on some calculation of action taken and current level. I found my healer was consistently the lowest level, while the units that regularly damaged or dispatched enemies were the front-runners.

A lot of the learning curve has to do with mastering positioning and knowing how far each of your characters can attack. Once you figure this out, and assuming you have equipped classes that provide HP and Skill Point (SP) replenishment, the game becomes straightforward. I played on the normal difficulty level and found it a bit easy, as each larger battle really plays out as a series of smaller battles, with distant enemies not moving in to engage until I approached them. This means that as long as you pause far enough away from the next pod you can take your time to refill your health and skill pools, get your party in formation, and buff up before proceeding.

I found the length to be about perfect- it didn't drag on, and I didn't feel the need to grind for levels or gold. Enemy variety was appropriate, and all the visuals were excellent. I enjoyed the various maps and the secrets they so often contained. Progressing from map to map was satisfying.

In terms of story, it is tropey and aware of it, with many fourth wall breaks and plenty of charm. I liked the characters, although I think there is some room for additional dialogue and character development, perhaps during the interludes between battles.

The developer has been active and responsive in the Steam forums, which is great to see, and they already released a patch to address some of the more urgent feedback they received. I believe the game will continue to improve over time. In particular, here are a few things I'd like to see:

More data! I mentioned this in the forum, and my understanding is that it will be addressed, but it isn't very clear what certain statuses or skills mean. One of my characters ended up equipping an item that gave him the "love" buff, but other than some hearts that displayed around him in battle, I have no idea how that might have benefited him. It would be great to open a screen from the battle maps that showed you your units, their equipment, their abilities, their buffs and debuffs (along with an explanation), and their current XP and how much was needed to level up. Would also be great to see anticipated damage when queueing up an attack on an enemy, as sometimes it would be negligible, as well as the move and attack ranges of enemies.

Speed: I'd like to be able to hold down a button and make the enemies and allies move at 2x or 3x their normal speed. This became very desirable during the large war maps, which stood out to me as one of the most innovative aspects of the game.

Camera: the camera jumps around quite a bit, and I feel a lot of it is unnecessary. I'd like this to be an option which could be disabled.

Orientation/unit facing: you can only orient your units after moving, using an item, or ending your turn manually (either moving only or acting without moving), which can leave you open to crits from behind.

AI improvements: the AI only moves towards their optimal attacking range. Once engaged, they don't move away from you unless they can't attack you from where they are, even if they're a squishy magic user or close to death. A less expendable approach would be more challenging, particularly if skills that involved pushing/pulling units could be implemented.

Ults: I found the ultimate skills underwhelming ( except for the guard captain's one. That helped quite a bit on the Hordes mission ). Seeing the damage breakdowns would help, but other than the aforementioned they are all extremely situational, at absolute best. I'd like to see them beefed up, with an increased SP cost and possibly a cool-down.

New game+: redoing the story missions would be a nice touch, as there are some more interesting maps, objectives, and enemy variety than we see during the repeatable optional missions. Plus, another attempt to recover missed loot is always an added plus.

End-game: the final boss didn't actually attack me. It just kept spawning dragon bombs, which can be disabled from afar or melee range without damaging your units. I think this needs to be reworked, as the map and the look of the boss suggested something much more epic

Post-game: the Hordes map was frustrating- I defeated enemy after enemy without ever feeling overwhelmed, and eventually suicided at 215. I saw on the "defeated" screen that there were tiered rewards for progressing up to 250- a hint along those lines would have been nice. As it stands, I don't see making a second attempt, as the first one was a bit tedious and took a couple of hours

Great game! Fun combat system using the book system you can customize a character to make them more of what you need them to be.

battle too slow pace and easy, boss fight is totally anti climax. Entire play through from beginning to ending is almost similar, not much changes even by increasing character or classes

This is one of those games where it's 90% done and then the developers stopped trying for the last 10%, not dissimilar to submitting an essay for homework but forgetting to spellcheck or proofread it and it's littered with spelling mistakes.

Does the game have great art? Absolutely.

Gameplay? There's a fun, enjoyable loop here, but there are some questionable design decisions, such as tight spaces and allies blocking your movement path, or being unable to set the starting position of your characters.

Story? Nothing remarkable and leans more towards anime-style cut scenes, but nothing where you're invested in.

Where the game really suffers (the absent 10%) is the User Interface.

The game is mostly done but how come you can't load games outside of the main menu? Or buy/sell multiple items? Or check your character's stats during combat?

There's also some weird bugs that just shows the game lacks polish. For example, when characters level up, items you used to increase your stats are forgotten and you're left with your base stats. Same applies to items that regenerate health or mana.

Another example of this is in a patch, developers introduced video settings (the game launched without this!). Unfortunately, the game doesn't remember your settings so you have to set it every time you start the game.

If you can live with those shortcomings and its notably lack of polish, then it's a forgettable, fun game.

One of the best strategy turn-based RPG out there! Whenever you see the game also release in Nin*****, it must be a high quality best piece of game! Worth the buy!

I very sadly, will have to not recommend. When I looked at the play time and saw 118 I had to think a long time and then decided to refund.

I am always looking out for good strategy rpgs and thus decided to give this a try. The main advertised thing I see is the class swapping and comboing. Its... eh. The classes usually give 1 skill, and can be leveled up twice to max level 3. Which means the class swapping can give you character a total of 6 skills (assuming none are passive). This... isnt that much.

The probable nail in the coffin is (as many have stated) UI. When you go to attack someone you have no dmg prediction. I know how RESISTANT the enemy is between 0-4 stars, but I dont see how much dmg I expect to do. When I levelup a skill book, I see that stat increases and the name of the new skill. I have no idea what that skill will DO, which since leveling up books takes a item rather than EXP feels bad to not know what im getting.

I think once you beat the game you unlock a 4th difficulty, but on hard I wasn't challenged. I did have one of my 4 units 'KO'd' but since letting the timer run out just means you cannot resurrect him for the rest of the fight I didn't care. The game (at my time) gave me no starting healers or class books to buy to become healers. But then you levelup the oracle class to 3 and can drop a rune that does AOE healing of like 75% of my units life, and can trigger twice.

Levels somewhat vary, but still dont add a lot. In one I had a dragonmancer spawning eggs that would explode if I didnt kill them. I only had 3 units and he spawned them between my units on stairs. so its taking 33% of my turn to clean them out so my units can move up a 1 width walkway. It was more tedious than challenge inducing. That said (while also not hard) the next mission had me on a small tileset while flying units charged me from 1 direction... certainly a little change up at least and I appreciate that effort for it. Small final note is even the 'find the right levers' just turned into kill everyone anyways.

Text will be very hit or miss. Some small chuckles and also mainly face palms. This will vary though, one part that made me grind my teeth is this high-fantasy setting and the edgy villainous says 'later NERDS' and teleports out. It (as much as it existed) killed immersion as IT MADE NO SENSE. But then again when I told my wife she laughed and appreciated it, so mileage will vary.

A good note though, I appreciated the main character Huxley, his childlike fantasy of adventure and heroism was cute and I wanted to make him succeed. And the effort to animate cut-scenes was also noticed and appreciated.

In the end the same indie-style game I choose to compare it to was Fell Seal Arbiters Mark. Loved that game (sadly never finished) But it also does the not-so-new class mixing vis a via set primary / secondary with no penalty for changing, but each class there had 8-12 skills, special spots for passives. Difficulty on hard i died multiple times on level 1, story not really worth anything either, but i didn't cringe. Had a decent UI, dmg predictions, and explained skills before you got them.

Final thoughts I guess (more constructive) is that in this game I didnt have the drive of working towards anything. The story didnt keep me gripped, the books were released randomly so no idea when Id have new classes, and even when I did I had no idea what skills did what to hype and drive me on. The difficulty didn't necessitate needing anything new or exciting either.

TL:DR The game is maybe worth it on a sale. It has a few too many shortcomings compared to others in the genre, the worst of which is UI. Dont expect to be challenged either.

Happy hunting.

I really enjoyed this Vandal Heart-style SRPG. Got to be a bit of a slog towards the end. Also, the variety of bad guys were a bit lacking. As was the variety of boss stage design. Plenty of positive aspects to this gem.