Absolute Tactics: Daughters of Mercy Review: Beggin’ For Mercy

Every great adventure begins with a first step. For Huxley, the protagonist in Absolute Tactics: Daughters of Mercy, his adventure begins when he finds a magical statue with a spirit that possesses him. While that might be disturbing to most people, Huxley is cool with it because that means his adventure has begun! It also means he hears an otherworldly voice that helps guide him during his journey, but what’s a little psychosis in the face of adventure?

Absolute Tactics is a turn-based, tactical RPG in which you command Huxley and, eventually, five of his companions through grid-based levels, fighting enemies, solving basic puzzles, and gathering items and gold because no one is bankrolling this adventure except you. The basic gameplay is like old-school Fire Emblem and other tactical games except there’s no permadeath. The goal is to defeat Father Eldritch (yeah, he’s a horror) and his titular daughters of mercy. They’re running up and down the countryside slaughtering innocents and harvesting Adenine, an energy source used in their schemes, from the corpses.

It’s Super Effective!

Absolute Tactics sets itself apart from other entries in the genre through its class system. “Class” is a bit misleading; the game’s classes are tied to books that you can equip and unequip on anyone at any time. Some books you’ll find in the wild and others you must buy. Each character can equip two books with zero restrictions. Books can be upgraded with special items that grant additional stat boosts and skills.

While combat is what you’d expect from the genre, the underlying mechanics are somewhat different. Each character has a weapon with a unique attack pattern. For example, Callie’s flail hits three units in a row but at two spaces away; Arkyn’s battering ram attacks through two columns. If you attack an enemy from behind or get attacked from behind, it’s always a critical hit, which can be devastating for both sides. You also can’t move through your units, which is crucial to understand the second you start playing.

There are also two damage types: physical and skill. Physical damage is caused by standard weapon attacks. Skill damage is caused by skills, which use SP, but some skills also cause physical damage, depending on the class. It took me a while to adjust to that because it feels like all skills would cause skill damage, which is not the case.

I Read It Somewhere

Enemies generally fall into one of the two types; however, stronger units often have high defense against both damage types. A meter summarizes this information for each enemy: zero to three dots—more dots, more defense. Unfortunately, that’s the only information you do get. You’re unable to see any enemy’s stats, movement range, or attack range. You can’t see your stats either, which seems like an odd choice. It does encourage you to become familiar with your team, but…I fail to see how hiding the player’s stats adds to the challenge.

Notably, there’s no accuracy, so no one’s attacks ever miss. There are three status ailments: bleed, poison, and burn, but they function identically. The only difference is the duration and damage of the ailment. Aside from these, you just have to watch your HP. You do get the ability to cast sleep, unlike the enemy, but it only lasts a single turn.

The combat system is flexible and highly customizable. Absolute Tactics encourages experimentation, and this is one of the game’s highlights. I routinely changed books to create the army I needed. Your units can specialize in a damage type or be generalists. I chose books based on each unit’s base stats and weapon attack pattern, but you can handle it however you’d like. Throw in a bunch of equipment, too, and there’s a shocking number of ways to customize your force. My personal favorite is the Chessmaster class. All its skills have attack ranges modeled after how chess pieces move. The damage is devastating if you can get yourself lined up properly!

This Means War!

While Absolute Tactics’ combat system is layered and engaging, the level design is straightforward; however, there are a few elements to help spice things up. Each level does contain switches, crystals, and hidden items. Crystals are used to create barriers, both to your movement and chests. Some levels have bonus objectives, like getting a reward for protecting the town’s guard and not injuring friendly units that have been hypnotized. Sometimes, the narrative suggests that you have to defend an object, but that’s never the case, aside from an exception in the bonus missions. Regardless of the narrative, you almost always have to kill everything.

In every chapter, you get to participate once in war! During war missions, you and your units fight on a perfectly flat, square field. You have about a dozen allied NPCs, which aren’t under your control. The enemy has an equal force. From there…you just try to kill everyone while saving your force. The narrative builds it up as an earth-shattering battle between two well-armed armies, but the reality is that it just doesn’t add much to the experience. These fights take forever due to all the units, the AI isn’t especially smart, and the whole thing just…drags.

You Look Familiar

Unfortunately, level variety is lacking. Even though those light puzzle elements and the war battles mix things up a bit, there’s just not enough variety. There are no defense levels (there’s one as a bonus mission; that’s it), and even the levels that require you to obtain or destroy specific objects still require you to kill everyone. The Daughters of Mercy’s army had the potential to offset some of this tedium.

But they don’t. You’ll encounter plenty of zombies and a variety of soldiers, but what you see in the first few hours of the game is what you’ll be fighting the entire game. The enemies don’t seem to have access to your skillsets; their attacks are extremely limited. They don’t seem to have multi-target spells either. And sometimes, they’re just not smart. On hard mode, they stood next to explosives (almost always an instant kill) and failed to consistently attack from behind. Even the addition of invisible enemies fails to excite because they’re just the same enemies but invisible. You can see them if your cursor lands on them.

It’s a Bomb

Even Absolute Tactics’ bosses fail to liven up the action. These gargantuan, menacing monsters are not at all what they appear. For whatever reason, they mostly summon bombs, anywhere between one and four every turn. They explode the turn after they’re summoned, and they’ll almost always kill you if you happen to be next to one. You can kill them with literally any attack of either damage type. The bosses also debuff your characters, and they occasionally have a basic physical attack if you stand in front of them…and that’s it. Even the final boss is shockingly anticlimactic.

Oh, there’s also a regular enemy that summons bombs, too, so you’ll spend the entire game dealing with bombs. Bombs aren’t even threatening. All they manage to do is slow everything to a crawl while you waste turns to destroy them. It just doesn’t make sense. Here I am, fighting this giant dragon in the sky, and instead of clawing me, hitting me, breathing fire on me…literally anything else you’d expect a dragon to do…it’s summoning bombs. Again, and again, and again. I grew to dread boss fights for this exact reason.

A compelling narrative could have also helped offset some of the tedium from these design choices, but while the narrative serves its purpose, it’s predictable. A total lack of character development doesn’t help matters either. Huxley’s spirit pretty much tells you the plot’s twist, so it’s not exactly surprising when it happens. And Eldritch’s twisted reason for his actions…no surprise there either. Still, the dialogue is frequently humorous, despite the dark content, so it’s not a total loss.

Oh, Look. More Bombs

Fortunately, the world of Absolute Tactics is solid. The environments are inviting, the enemies are frequently disgusting (check out the puking zombie), and the effects are large, bright, and attractive. The soundtrack is your typical high fantasy stuff, but it works well enough. Only the narrator is voice-acted, but her lines are convincing. Overall, it’s a solid production, but I do wish the storyline had taken me to more diverse locations.

While Absolute Tactics nails the fundamentals and its twists on combat, the lack of variety hampered my enjoyment. You can switch up your tactics as frequently as you want, but it’s not essential when you’re constantly fighting the same enemies. Once you find a mix that works, you’ll probably stick to it. And the game, unfortunately, became tedious the longer I played because there just weren’t any surprises to keep things fresh. And the bombs! I just can’t with those things.

Lastly, I didn’t find the game particularly challenging. I played the first chapter on normal but the rest on hard, which adds more enemies, and they pack a punch. Still, it’s just more of the same. Beating the game unlocks a hardcore difficulty mode. In this mode, a lethal enemy, the grim reaper, is summoned a few turns after each mission begins. I doubt you can kill him, so he’ll just run around killing your army. I suppose that does increase the difficulty, but it does little to alleviate the other issues I’ve noted.

Entry-level Tactics

Absolute Tactics: Daughters of Mercy is a solid entry-level tactical RPG that just needs…more. More enemies, more level variety, and a more compelling story. Newcomers to the genre will find a lot to like here; experts, your mileage may vary.

Final Verdict: 3.5/5

Available on: Switch (reviewed), Steam; Publisher: Akupara Games; Developer: Curious Fate; Players: 1; Release Date: September 15, 2022; ESRB: T for Teen; MSRP: $24.99

Editor’s note: The publisher provided a review copy to Hey Poor Player.