So something that I haven't had the time to mention in any of my articles, I am in love with Tactics games. Final Fantasy Tactics is the game that introduced me to them, but I had gone back to games before it, Tactics Ogre, Fire Emblem, and more, and overall these games are a soft spot for me. As long as the game has a great story and pretty solid strategy-based mechanics, along with unit diversity and decent artwork, then it's pretty safe to assume that I'm going to enjoy them. Thus, I was having a hard time getting into Akupara Games' Absolute Tactics: Daughters of Mercy off of G.Round this morning.
As always, I like to start out by reminding people, this is a demo, an alpha, whatever the case may be, and with that in mind, I understand there is a lot to go through before a game is delivered. But just based on the demo, AT: DoM just didn't hit right with me. I wasn't a fan of the sound effects or the music. Which usually sours any experience in a game I play when I cannot connect with the audio in any way shape or form. It sounded very cookie-cutter. In some games, cookie-cutter is okay. side scroller, sports games, hack and slash, action RPGs, and many more, cookie-cutter sound effects are totally okay. I feel if you're going to have a game, and you are going to go down this route for the sound effects, then you should have a strong musical score of some sort. This was not the case with AT: DoM. I didn't FEEL anything from the demo. Now, this very well could be because the demo was super limited, and I totally get that 100%, but is displayed as a demo, you gotta put something on the plate to lure the gamers to your product. And the sound effects, or the music, just wasn't it.
This leads me to the next point which is the graphics. The one thing I really do appreciate in this game was map design. I thought that was pretty well done. I enjoyed the mechanics of destroying the crystals to let out other people on the other side of the map. I thought that type of strategy is warranted in a tactics game. I did not like the character designs though. I thought the character designs were "meh". There's a game called "Darkest Dungeon" that has a similar artwork that works beautifully because of the type of game it is, a 2D side-scrolling dungeon RPG. Along with the dark, dirty, dreadful, and devilish art design, the game's atmosphere worked with the artwork. Absolute Tactics, not so much. It didn't stick or grab me. This could very well be because tactics games have been dominated by pixel sprites for over two or three decades, but even then, that doesn't explain games like Prodigy Tactics and a couple of others. I'm trying not to use AAA titles like Final Fantasy Brave Exvius: War of the Visions because let's just face it, they have millions of dollars backing them up, but it's hard not to because the majority of the tactics games have been dominated by these mega game companies. Which is totally unfair to do. But the graphics here, or the particle sprites, just wasn't captivating to me.
Finally, I want to talk about the gameplay. The gameplay here was, sadly again, not the best. It is very hard to find something momentous or game-breaking in a tactics game. If there is one thing that Ogre Tactics didn't have, was game-breaking mechanics. The reason why Ogre Tactics was so good was that it was story-driven. And that is the reality. Tactics games are games that are great because they are story-driven. Disgaea may have added the ability to pick up people and throw them, which is hilarious to this day, as well as using colored tiles to do extra damage, but it was the story that made Disgaea amazing. So when you have a game, that doesn't have great audio, great graphics, or any type of game mechanics that are even a SLIGHT difference, the only thing that it has left for it would be a great in-depth story. But sadly, this is a demo, and the story wasn't touched. So I couldn't judge the story. In my eyes, the story for AT: DoM is going to need to be well written. Romance of the Three Kingdoms had simple graphics and even simpler sound effects back in the day. Its maps were horrible, but people still loved that Koei game because of the story. THAT is what makes a tactics game a great tactics game.
So in conclusion, did I dislike Absolute Tactics: Daughters of Mercy? Not at all. It's a game getting into a genre that is very hard to break out of because that genre is so limited in what you can or cannot do. Since we didn't get a look at the story, it would be unfair to say that it was a bad game or poorly done, because it really isn't. With some music touches and changes and with a great story written and fleshed out, Absolute Tactics very well has the ability to being a great game. I would really focus hard on the story and audio personally. Since this is a demo, I have no way of knowing if you have other game mechanics planned out, and if you do, awesome. If you don't, I would suggest also finding some mechanic that is unique and not in many other tactics games. To give Daughters of Mercy a hint of uniqueness like games before it. I recognize the hard work that Akupara Games has put into this title, and I hope later down the road, these things get worked on. Yes, there are control issues that I experienced, but I'm not too stickler because I know bugs aren't fully fleshed out. I wanted to focus on what I personally believe could make this game succeed on its official launch. I hope to see a deeper demo that will get me to chomping at the bit.
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