PS3

Kartia: The Word of Fate

Role-playing (RPG)StrategyTactical

Plays offline: Yes

Overview

Kartia: The Word of Fate (or simply Kartia), known as Legend of Kartia in Europe and Rebus in Japan, is a tactical role-playing game developed and published by Atlus for the PlayStation. It is best known for the work of its art designer, Yoshitaka Amano, who had previously worked on the Final Fantasy series. Shigenori Soejima, another artist who would later be known for his work on the Persona series, also contributed to the game as an item graphics artist. The game was re-released on the Japanese PlayStation Network in 2011.

The game is divided into two "volumes", each centering on a different main character and their friends. The first volume tells the story of Toxa Classico and the second volume is about Lacryma Christi. While each volume tells a complete story, the storylines intertwine in one major plot.

The story takes place in the world of Rebus, primarily within the areas of Cross Land, Idorus, Nordia, and Pentagram. The game is broken into 36 chapters: 18 in Toxa's scenario and 18 in Lacryma's scenario.

Kartia was developed by the internal R&D1 studio of Atlus, the studio behind the Megami Tensei franchise. The staff included several Megami Tensei veterans including producer Kouji Okada, scenarist Kazunori Sakai, and designer Shirō Takashima. Atlus USA originally released Kartia as a Blockbuster Video rental exclusive on August 7, 1998, though it was released for retail sale ten days later. There is a slight variant in the packaging: the BBV rental version does not have foil lettering for the title "Kartia" on the front cover, it is a blue that nearly blends in with the background. The BBV rental version has a different disc number as well, it is PSRM-010600.

The game was nominated for the "Best Strategy" award at the 1998 OPM Editors' Awards, which went to Final Fantasy Tactics.