Legend of Kartia :
the word of fate
Super Obsessive Game #8
Type of Game
A kind of mix of an anti-Pokémon and an anti-Final Fantasy Tactics, plus a sleeping pill, an anti-thinner, and an episode of Quantum Leap (I know what I mean).
Release Date on our machines
June 1999—too late; Pokémon already existed. And so did FF Tactics
Developer
Atlus Co., Ltd., which, after numerous acquisitions and name changes, is now known as… Atlus.
Publisher
Konami of Europe GmbH, which ensures that Konami's great products make their way safely to our homes
Legend of Kartia: Available on no platform, in no dimension, in no world. Vanished like a Phantom after a battle.
If I’m not talking nonsens, this game must be one of the last ones I ever played on my PlayStation—after Tony Hawk 2, after Gran Turismo 2, and even after Grandia! My best friend, Randall Geyser, lent it to me after he’d finished it himself, promising me I’d love it. He was usually spot-on with those kinds of guesses. It didn’t hurt that I’d devour any content that came my way, good or bad. So, while everyone else was moving on to the next generation of consoles, I was diving into a tactical JRPG that was already two and a half years old and could easily have run on the Super NES. I even finished it! And I really liked it, too. Just goes to show, I didn’t just jump on every new thing while neglecting the gems of the past. Already conservative and reactionary at fifteen—wonderful. Well, I did put the PS1 away right after that, though.
Last card to play
I had put my computer on hold for about thirty hours to finish Legend of Kartia; I had tons of runs to catch up on in Diablo II, and tons of mage guilds to build in Heroes of Might and Magic III. Still, taking a break from my gaming addictions did me a world of good.
Lots of extras and omissions
I'm not quite sure why, but I've always thought (and sometimes even shouted from the rooftops) that I knew a thing or two about RPGs. You know, those famous role-playing games where you guide one or more characters through a story that's supposed to keep you on the edge of your seat for dozens of hours. Actually, when I talked to people who really knew this niche yet widespread genre, I realized I’d been talking nonsense for years. So, aside from Warriors of the Eternal Sun and Final Fantasy VIII, well, not much else that I’ve played for more than three or four mornings. Here’s another one with Legend of Kartia! Three RPGs on my list—can you believe it? And even then, I’m stretching the definition a bit. Still practically nothing? Fine, okay. In any case, all the ingredients that form the foundation of a solid, meaty turn-based tactical role-playing adventure are right there! A grand, twist-filled storyline, magic divided into multiple elements, characters to equip and transform from apathetic gnats into behemoths on steroids…
A twelve-year-old hero with a huge ego, a heroine who whines constantly, and a slew of supporting characters who just let them do whatever they want without saying a word! Fortunately, a pretty unique mechanic makes up for it and gives this game a fresh twist: you can summon stuff! That’s pretty much all you do, actually. Summon, summon, and summon some more. And to anyone who thinks they can argue with me about the originality by thinking really hard about Pokémon. Uh, shut up. There you go! They’re called Phantoms—the creatures of various sizes and shapes that you summon to fight alongside you. One small downside: you can finish the game without snatching a single one of these critters from their astral plane—or whatever dimension they’re hanging out in. Our squad of heroes can probably even breeze through the content faster in solo mode. Too bad for a concept that’s supposed to highlight a useless feature!
At the time, I had no idea about this abuse. And I’ve always absolutely loved summoning mechanics in video games, so I took full advantage of them. The Necromancer in Diablo II (and later in Last Epoch)—my favorite. The Witch Doctor in Diablo 3? Favorite. Visage in Dota? Yep, favorite! In Titan Quest, I also created a Hunter build with wolves running all over the place. In short, a big part of the gameplay revolves around finding formulas to unlock increasingly powerful Phantoms, as well as gathering resources to unleash them in combat. Oh wait, these Phantoms also gain their own experience during fights! Except that at the end of said fights, they disappear, and their progress goes with them. Well, bravo. Aside from that weird detail, I was blown away. These battles take place in a turn-based format in the purest tactical style, by the way, with its many modifiers related to weapons, terrain elevation, and Phantom types as well.
These follow a simple yet effective rock-paper-scissors pattern, divided into three tiers based on creature type. The “commons”—so far, so good. They deal heavy damage to the second type: the “dolls.” Umm, okay, weird name, but we’ll go with it. The dolls hurt the “shadows,” which in turn hurt the commons. Common, dolls, shadows. This isn’t even the work of a drunk translator—it’s the same in French—but I dare to hope that in Japanese it follows some kind of logic. Naturally, for an RPG noob like me, it strongly reminds me of FF Tactics without a job system. Or rather, where everyone would do the same job: that of a summoner. Resources (three types of materials and “spell words”) are also used to craft equipment and new spells. There’s plenty to do, because not only do our characters wear weapons, helmets, and armor, but the Phantoms do too!
Likewise, the number of spells to unlock is a real treat. When you discover a new power word in a chest or on a boss’s corpse, you can’t wait to see which others it combines with to unlock content (weapons, spells, and/or Phantom types). You already know in advance how many items, spells, or Phantoms exist, thanks to a list of found and missing words. Except that, actually, you don’t know for sure, because you can also discover secret formulas by combining characters without a specific text pattern to follow. I think I found two or three of them, spending hours randomly testing kanji written on cards (the famous Kartia) until it worked. When you get so caught up in a game that you forget to eat, it means you’re having a good time—at least, I think so. I’ve praised all the essential aspects of an RPG found in Legend of Kartia above. Actually, there’s one missing. A pretty huge one.
No world exploration, not even brief, seemingly free-roaming “strolls” with our party. We just alternate between combat and dialogue, often in a pretty abrupt way. Travel happens in the form of cutscenes that give a much-needed boost to the pace, but this prevents us from getting to know the regions around us, as well as the storylines we’re bombarded with during conversations. It wasn’t until much later that I realized how much I’d missed that adventure aspect; I finally pinpointed what I found off about this game (aside from the protagonists’ faces, which I flat-out labeled ugly for the overwhelming majority of them). And so, as for the lore, well, I pretty much ignored it. Not to say I couldn’t care less. I just wanted to max out my spells, items, and Phantoms. But I’d still say I loved the story if someone ever asked me, of course. Just don’t ask me why afterward.
I realized that this kind of lack of world-building is actually pretty common in tactical RPGs. I should have known that back then, huh. For once, the gameplay allowed me to overlook everything that bothered me about the art direction, the graphics, and the combat/cutscene loops without any exploration. Well, for starters, it feels more like a 16-bit machine than a 32-bit one. It didn’t bother me that much, even if I did cringe at times at the moribund look of a certain battle arena, or the deteriorating condition of a certain coffee table during a dialogue scene. On the other hand, the Phantom sprites ooze a crazy charm, especially the “doll”-type ones, which all have a slightly voodoo/undead style that I really appreciate. Probably just my positive outlook—I love life and see the glass as half full. On the other hand, the portraits of real people that appear during conversations are similar to the system in Grandia. Except that, unlike in Grandia, they’re drawn in a very, very unique way.
Some people love it, many hate it. I despised everyone’s face—just like that, no hard feelings. Especially since we have to put up with those filthy bastards all the time! About half the gameplay consists of conversations. But really, half the time, you know. And while you might sometimes grow fond of certain villains, or of your avatars despite their unbearable personalities, it often rings hollow, with lines that are a bit corny. As I mentioned earlier, we have the archetype of the fiery, brash, and insolent warrior who wants to save the world by smashing everything in sight, the kind, peaceful sorceress who wants to save the world with whiny hugs, and the antagonists who want to conquer the planet because their parents didn’t give them enough toys when they were kids. Yeah, it’s impossible to get attached to anyone, really. Especially since, when it comes to the scenery, there’s nothing particularly impressive to feast your eyes on either.
Sometimes we watch our fighters talking in an empty castle room. I mean, there isn’t even a chair lying around. No wonder people want to shake up the institutions of our society. Except that, thanks to that famous summoning system, I put up with it—and eventually even managed to tune out everything else, to the point where I started thinking the story wasn’t so bad after all. I also thought it was cool that we follow the story from two different perspectives, through the two playable characters. Their paths cross and diverge as the plot twists unfold, and even though I found it unnecessarily complicated most of the time, I got sucked into the stakes—nothing less than saving the universe and cosmic balance, of course. With a little eco-friendly message on top of all that, because overusing the Phantoms destroys ecosystems. What are we supposed to do during the fights, again? In order to save the world and biodiversity? Oh right, overuse the Phantoms. Wonderful. Straight out of Fox News' playbook, couldn’t be better.
Legend of Kalimba
The music is by a certain Kenichi Tsuchiya, known for his work on the Persona and Shin Megami Tensei series. I’ve never played any of those games—I did say my RPG resume borders on the ridiculous. But if I know his name even though my knowledge of the genre would embarrass a worm, it must have some real clout. Well, it’s not on par with the good old compositions by Uematsu, but a few gems aren’t so easily forgotten. The epic vibe that this kind of game requires is definitely there. I just have a hard time understanding why, in the middle of combat, each side has its own theme. So as soon as we finish our turn, the music changes and starts over from scratch when we take our turn again. That really drives home the point about the shaky immersion and its struggles to hold its own. That said, it’s really only in the sound department that you’d think you were on a 32-bit system. Thank goodness! I don’t know if the PlayStation generates the sounds on its own, or if the CD-ROM sends pre-made tracks, but you can almost hear real instruments, I tell you. There are certainly a few chairs and lights missing from the orchestra hall, just like in the game’s backgrounds, but it works—we’ll forgive that.
Legend of Karma
I know I’m repeating myself a bit, but sometimes, reminiscing about a game convinces me that I don’t need to touch it again until the end of time. On the other hand, though less often, writing a short piece about it makes me desperately want to dive back into it. In the case of Legend of Kartia, it even motivated me to play through it again from start to finish. And 100% complete, please! I remember that I hadn’t managed to unlock the last type of Phantom when I was fifteen. And as it turns out, from my research, no one has ever figured out how to do it. And yet I’ve combed through quite a few reviews. You can only fight them, not summon them. A bug the developers never fixed? A detail that slipped everyone’s mind?
For a long time, I believed that the coveted final power item was inside a crate that a Phantom burns right at the start of a battle, leaving us powerless to do anything about it. I tried to come up with strategies to open the crate before it burned, but I didn’t succeed. It seems that, in any case, the crate doesn’t contain anything important. What a shame! In any case, if you can overlook its flaws, this game can provide hours of enjoyment for many people. A line I’ll repeat in about half of my reviews; their breathtaking originality will do the rest. It just goes to show that nostalgia doesn’t solve all the world’s problems, since I feel almost none for Legend of Kartia. Well, maybe just a tiny bit, since it’s the last game I finished on the last console I consider part of my cherished childhood—one I so regret having left behind. Come to think of it, I should actually hate it.
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