Absolute Tactics: Daughters of Mercy from Akupara Games and Curious Fate is a turn-based RPG that pays homage to classic tactics-style games. Learn more in our Absolute Tactics: Daughters of Mercy review!
Absolute Tactics: Daughters of Mercy from Akupara Games and Curious Fate is a turn-based RPG that pays homage to classic tactics-style games. You’ll be taking on the role of hero Huxley Rhinehart who must build up a team of allies to be able to defend his home against an invading army. Oh, and he’ll also be joined by a dog named Max, who he finds early in the game! On your way home, you see some soldiers terrorizing the owners of a small farm. They’re looking for someone known as a Fallen Daughter and searching for a source of Adenine. You’ll be fighting against the mighty Father Eldritch and the titular Daughters of Mercy as you uncover the reasons why they’re sacrificing people to extract this valuable resource.
You can play Absolute Tactics: Daughters of Mercy in one of three difficulty settings: Easy, Normal, and Hard. For Easy, you’ll be taking on easier foes, and allies will be much stronger. Normal offers the standard experience, balanced just as the developers wanted you to experience the game. Hard is reserved for more experienced gamers since foes are tougher, and you’ll have to battle against more enemies in each fight. There’s also a Full Goth Mode option that you can unlock, which dials up everything to 11.
When in combat, you’ll be able to move a character by selecting the move command from the action menu and then selecting the square to which you want to move. You can attack when an enemy is within range or use a skill from one of your characters. Do know that using a skill will require you to spend some SP. You can also use an item during your turn, which will usually allow you to use something to heal an ally’s wounds. If there’s nothing else to do, you can always select to wait, making sure to turn your character in the right direction so that it’s not surprised by an attack from behind. You’ll get to try the basics when you find a Lunaberry bush since you’re starving, and attacking the bush will allow you to cut down some Lunaberries. A trifling victory, but a victory nevertheless!
When facing off against enemies, you can select them to see their stats in the lower right corner of the screen. The two swords are for attack damage. The shield is for defense. The swirly thing is for skill damage, and the shield with a swirly thing at its center is for skill defense. Some enemies have a weakness against regular attacks, while others have a weakness for skills. You must pay attention to these elements in order to make the most of every turn in combat. Attacking an enemy from behind will unleash a critical hit, which will deal a lot of extra damage. If one of your units has lost all of its HP, it will be in a KO state. You can use a Divine Intervention item to heal them and bring them back into action with 25 HP so that they can continue to fight the good fight.
Attacking enemies and defeating them before they deal damage to your units is very important, but so is interacting with the items you can find on each map. You might need to pull on a lever to open a door, or maybe you can collect the contents of a treasure chest so that you can use its contents to save the day. You can use the money earned from the enemies you defeat and the treasure chest you crack open to buy new stuff for your group.
Visit the pharmacy, and you might find an HP booster that can permanently increase a character’s HP by an extra point. The item shop might be selling Meds to recover 35 HP, Divine Intervention to, as mentioned before, revive a character that has been KOed while also helping it recover 25 HP, an Easy Cure to recover from all status ailments or a powerful Elixir that can help a character recover 25 MP. You can also visit the equipment shop, where you can purchase weapon kits to improve your attack power, helmet or armor kits to boost a character’s defense or class handbooks.
Since there are 21 classes in total in Absolute Tactics: Daughters of Mercy, there are many potential combinations for your party! Fighters excel at close-range combat. Guardians are good at defending the rest of the group, even setting themselves up as a barricade to provide some extra protection. A Sorcerer is a practitioner of the dark arts, making the most of SP and skills to deal damage – usually from a safe distance. Or maybe you’d like to have a Conduit in your team, charging up SP to unleash powerful abilities that can turn the tide of battle? There are many more classes to discover, but you’ll have to play the game to learn more!
Defeat an enemy, and that character will receive some experience points. Once someone has obtained enough experience points, it will get a chance to level up, which will improve some of its stats – HP, SP, attack, defense, skill, or skill defense. Leveling up will also allow your characters to learn new skills that can be put to good use in battle. Leveling up in the middle of battle also has another very important benefit since it will completely heal all HP for that character, which can make a huge difference during some of the more challenging fights.
Along with progressing through the game’s story, you can also take on optional missions to boost your character’s experience points, obtain some extra items, as well as search for the secret piece of gear hidden in that mission – usually in a spot where it’s not easy to see. This is why it’s important that you also work on completing some optional missions, since you could find valuable items such as a class handbook upgrade that can be used at the barracks to boost a class handbook, giving an extra stat boost to that character, as well as improved skills. The game will let you know when one of the characters in your group does not meet the suggested minimum level for taking on the next story mission and will kindly nudge you into playing one of the optional missions.
Absolute Tactics: Daughters of Mercy is an entertaining turn-based RPG that pays homage to classic tactics-style games on Nintendo Switch. There’s a lot of content to enjoy, a variety of classes to mix and match as needed, and a journey with a good challenge. As long as you take on optional missions to level up your characters and search for the hidden secret for the powerful items that can greatly increase your odds of victory. And once you get into Horde Mode, there’s a lot of additional replay value. Absolute Tactics: Daughters of Mercy is out today on Nintendo Switch with a $24.99 asking price.
Disclaimer
This Absolute Tactics: Daughters of Mercy review is based on a Nintendo Switch copy provided by Akupara Games.
