It is true that the battles in this game are tightly crafted, but I feel that is mostly due to the very limited amount of skills as well as how they exhaust themselves for a turn. I often felt I was just going through the motions of using one skill, then the other, then the first, etc. I can't say it felt very strategic.
Regarding the spare vs. sacrifice mechanic: it's neat in concept, but also each choice felt obvious to me and I was able to get through the whole game without any difficulty. I feel like these scenes could have had a bit more dramatic weight to them as well considering the framing of killing sapient creatures. I didn't help that every character felt way too robotic; I couldn't relate to them at all.
If this had more time to be fleshed out with more combat options and more engaging encounters to use them in, I think this could have been an entertaining mash-up of fantasy with office comedy, but as is I don't have any strong emotions about it.