The Mercy Killing of Pharteus (MKP) is really solid, following the trend of TheRepeat games, here we have a really tight design that put the focus on two unique mechanics, on one side Dual Attacks and counters that happen whenever 2 units stay one besides the other, the tricky part? Enemies do it too.

 And Pivot, allowing not only to jump over allies, but also to get to move once again, basically doubling the characters move.

 With only this two mechanics taking front center, the map is tighly build, with a simple but effective first turn that teachs us how they work, and then open the game up to let us decide how to tackle it by giving us various secondary objectives that are introduced just when one is getting confortable to keep us on our toes. The secondary objectives are nicely paced, and the cultist persecution in particular require a lot of effort to get the "reward" character.

Now even after taking on all of the map challenges, the final room is no push over, the guys inside are really tough and the killed half my units in my rushed attemp at overwhelming them. Luckly, the reward girl came with lance that sealed the boss, so I could kill him easily, otherwise it would have killed the other half of my team trying.

 I really enjoyed the gameplay here, there wasn't a moment when  I would not be thinking about pivoting or setting up dual attacks.

 But lets move on to the story, the game has an interesting plot of a "after the war ended" kind of mission, were your army is lead into killing one of the last remnants of some empire, and then also cultist appear, and something important happened a while ago... and your army were the heroes of that previous conflict... woah, there seems to be a whole lot of lore behind this one, and a cliffhanger for more conflict in the future too. All of these could come up as too much, but actually the dialog is on point and doesn't over stay is welcome neither goes into more detail that it needs to, clearly pointing that we are just seeing an small part of the story of the world. Actually, you know what it reminds me about? The battle of bywater in the lord of the rings, that one small battle at the end where the hobbits claim the shire from Saruman and his last minions, just like that battle, this one too happens after the major conflict has ended, or at least that is what the dialog implies.

And last, I cannot mention the amazing UI and graphics work that is in this, small detail like the cursor changin color or adding a marker for events, the changin of partner or weapons on the battle forecast of the neat changes to the level up window, everything beatifully functional.

In short, another great game that keeps up with TheRepeat's track record for innovative tightly designed gameplay and functional UI, with lots of polish.

It took me a while to get through, but I finally managed to beat the whole thing, and without losing anyone. It was a pretty fun and well put together map, with lots of fun surprises and happenings here and there. I enjoyed all the opportunities for different character interactions you could make happen, though I'm not sure how often I saw the stat increases help me out on the battlefield, and generally enjoyed the writing of the game a fair amount. Shoutouts to that character who joins you after the villagers are all saved from the cultists who was so strong she functioned as a wall for the incoming soldiers down below. Overall, this felt like a fun little slice of a larger game I would enjoy playing.