Kartia: The Word of Fate

"Plot done well with the Quality Kartia at the very least"

Kartia isn't the best game ever, but it has a pretty good story to it, but over all it lacks replay value and reasons to play it more than twice. Well here goes the break down.

Graphics 7: These are actually quite nice overall. Characters are kind of small through. The artwork of the characters during their talking scenes is pretty nice and is more faithful to Amano's art then FF1-6 seemed to be in their games. Maybe it's because of a stronger system.

Music 8: The soundtrack is quite nice. The final battle tune fits really well. Also the quality is very high. Only problem is the game is so linear the chance a tune will repeat is probably not too high.

Game play 6: This is a mixed bag. The good is spells affect your terrain. You can freeze rivers for example. You can also use Phantoms to defeat your enemies. They come in 3 types. 1 type weak against one and strong against the other.
Another nice feature is everyone has 100 HP getting rid of the ''I have 40,000 and I can do 300 points of damage.'' ''I have 999 and I can do 9,999 points of damage!'' syndrome.
Many games fall under this. For once a game doesn't.
The bad is simple. Your strategy amounts to luck with your attacks or over leveling up in story battles because you can't level up anywhere else. Over all gameplay will get you by, but this game won't win any awards for gameplay in my book.

Story 10: I have to commend this game. The 2 stories work together to make each other even better then they seem at first. The plot is also very good to the game. I won't spoil it, but I liked how no one was ignored in the game. Well almost no one anyway. Even better you can re watch the whole story anytime you want with the story archive feature.


Replay Value 4: Sorry to say, but with limited strategy there is not much to replay this too often. However it is worth watching the story again every few weeks I guess.

Over All 6: The game has a good story and is fun to play the first time. However after that it just becomes a book.

To Buy: If you can find it for under $20 it is probably worth buying at least.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 05/13/01, Updated 05/13/01