This may not be the best game ever, but it's still probably my personal favourite game of all time. I don't think there's any game I've replayed more than this.
The camera is part of the charm for me. True, you can't perform lightning fast orders, or steer your units all around the map (although you can give orders on the minimap too), but I feel that's kinda like complaining that Dark Souls doesn't have a Dynasty Warriors-style room-clearing superattack. Yes, it'd make things easier, but that's not how Dark Souls is supposed to be played. And Sacrifice isn't suppoed to be a Starcraft-style clickfest, IMHO. Good thing too, cause I don't like that all that much. I tend to get by quite well with numbered groups of units, set in specific formations and with orders to guard either my wizard or another one of my units. That greatly reducs the amount of micromanaging you have to do. I never use the pause-function.
Same thing with the souls-system. I'll admit that it can be annoying to have the enemy wizard swoop back in and get all his souls back, especially in the first levels when you don't really have the firepower to stop him from doing that. But on the whole I've think it works. It means you do have to pay attention to what you attack, and where you fight (hint: don't expect to capture any souls if you fight right beside an enemy manafount).
That said, the game isn't perfect. The problem is that, due to the camera and the soul system, there isn't any real strategic manoeuvering going on during fights. You always have to be there when your troups fight, and usually the enemy wizard will and his army will be around where you are (or he'll be attacking your base, in which case, you need to teleport back and defend). The only real kind of battle you'll see is the two main armies slugging it out in frontal matches. Only the highest tier fliers could conceivably be used to attack the enemy base while you keep the wizard busy.
On top of that, the best way to win given the soul system and camera is to camp near your most forward base with your entire army, wait for the wizard to come, and settle in for a battle of attrition. Try to kill the wizard as soon as possible, then take out his army, steal as many souls as you can before he comes back, rinse and repeat until he's lost so many souls he can no longer attack, then mop up the map. It works better than anything else, but it's not very exciting.
It would be nice if they'd manage to incorporate a way to let groups fight semi-effectively without your presence. (The Guardian system kinda works that way for defense, but it'll only delay a wizard-led army for a bit.) And maybe make it a bit slower to recreate armies, especially at low level, so that even a wizard gets all his creature's souls back, he'll be out of the fight for a bit longer and he'll have to either concede more territory to his opponent, or face that opponent with an incomplete army.
Still, whatever imperfections the game may have, the humor and characters make up for it.
"Kill the blasfemer!"
"Charnel! Death is not the answer to everything.
"Yes. Torture also has its merrits."
Oh, and that one multiplayer match against a friend when we started at mid level: On the first encounter of our armies, I cast an Explosion that launched him and half his army clear off the side of the map, killing his wizard and destroying his souls, while I could finish of the other half and steal their souls. That was fun.
