Kartia: The Word of Fate

Kartia: The Word Of Fate was an RPG for the PlayStation released in 1998.

The main action of the storyline was split into two volumes. You could play as either the Free Knight, Toxa Classico; or the Shrine Warrior, Lacryma Christi. Toxa is a young man who is looking for someone to protect (hence the title "Free Knight"), whereas Lacryma is duty-bound to her role as a Shrine Warrior. Their paths will both intertwine as they go about their adventures...

Gameplay was fairly similar to most other Turn-Based Strategy games. What made it unique was that you used Kartia, a kind of blank card, to do everything: heal your characters, create new weapons and armor, and cast offensive magic, all determined by a grammar system where the effect is determined by what ideographs are placed on each card. Each character has their own weapon and armor levels ranging from E to A; this dictated what they could equip. Combat also heavily revolves around "Phantoms", various Mooks that your characters create to do your fighting for you.

It's not the best game ever, but it's worth a look.

Tropes present in this work:

 * Artificial Human:
 * Brought Down to Normal:
 * Church Militant: The Shrine Warriors.
 * Corrupt Church: Cardinal Beltschumeltz.
 * Crystal Dragon Jesus: The Shrines.
 * Disc One Nuke: The Fire Arm, the weapon you get from the first Arena battle, is one of the most powerful weapons in the game, if not the strongest.
 * Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: With Phantoms, Common-type beats Doll-type, Doll-type beats Shadow-type, and Shadow-type beats Common-type.
 * Eleventh-Hour Superpower: The Unlimited License allows you to use the most powerful Kartia combinations in the game. Subverted in that you can use the combinations without the License if you hack the texts together yourself, you just don't see them on the menu (but if you have a guide, you can work around that).
 * God's Hands Are Tied: Elves are too powerful to operate in Rebus, so it's up to the heroes.
 * Half-Human Hybrid:
 * Heel Face Turn: Misty is the first enemy you face in Toxa's scenario. She later joins your party.
 * Heroic Sacrifice: To use the Original Kartia, the user must die. In the backstory, Lacryma's mother did this to save her life; in game,
 * Hero Must Survive: ALL of your human characters. You lose any of them, it's game over.
 * Honor Before Reason: The Shrines' regulations often get in the way of getting stuff done, such as forbidding the creation of Phantoms. Lacryma is unwilling to use her full power for this reason.
 * Human Resources:
 * The Load: Troy accuses Posha of being this, and Posha agrees. Other characters tell her it's not quite as bad as that. In any case, she does take enough levels in badass that even Troy stops picking on her.
 * Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Troy complains about everything, picks fights with everyone, and generally acts obnoxious. He says he's only a member of the non-profit organization Vigilance because it's the easiest way to get an unlimited Kartia license. Yet he sticks with the group through thick and thin and, despite stating repeatedly that he's not too keen on dying, is prepared to put his life on the line for the people he cares about.
 * Magic A Is Magic A: The spells work based on a combination of Grammar Text, which determines what element or class of Phantom or weapon you're creating, and Letter Text that specifies the exact spell, Phantom or weapon. The ability of a Kartia user is determined firstly by the number of Kartia they can use in one spell, secondly by what Letter Text they know how to use, and thirdly whether they have the power to create Phantoms (though even if they have the ability, certain classes are legally forbidden to create Phantoms, which becomes a plot point in Lacryma's quest).
 * Magic Knight: Theoretically all your characters, since any human can both fight and use magic. Some are better at one than the other, though.
 * Magikarp Power: In the early chapters, Toxa's team is stronger due to Toxa's physical power and Alana's ability as a Magic Knight, while Posha, on Lacryma's team, is a complete waste of space. Later on, though, Posha joins Toxa's side, and while she eventually becomes a moderately-useful character, Lacryma is a powerhouse late-game, Kun becomes a Knight on par with Toxa (though lacking Toxa's Kartia abilities), and you can't get all of the Text in Toxa's quest (in fact, even the basic Iron text can be Lost Forever in Toxa's if you aren't careful).
 * Meaningful Name: Rebus, the name of the planet.
 * Old And Busted New Hotness: In his A Taste of Power scenario, Rimzan will slaughter anything and everything. Later on, your Knight characters will have caught up, you'll have enchanted better weapons than his BFS, and he'll still only have the skill to use two Kartia (even Kun gets better than that).
 * Only the Author Can Save Them Now:
 * Our Elves Are Better: To the point of being so powerful that they can't speak without risking The End of the World as We Know It. Half-Elves are "merely" stronger than any human Kartia user and able to use magic without Kartia...
 * Person of Mass Destruction: Any powerful Kartia user can reshape the world. Elves and half-elves are even stronger than that.
 * Reality Warper: All elves and half-elves.
 * Rebellious Princess: Ele starts out like this, much to the others' dismay.
 * The Resenter: At one point, after some drinking, Alana reveals that she feels this way towards Lacryma, because even though Alana is better at basically everything, Lacryma is the one everyone looks up to, simply because she's the daughter of a hero.
 * Reverse Mole:
 * Summon Magic: Creating Phantoms.
 * Took a Level in Badass: Everyone - halfway through the game, your weapon and armor levels increase, so each character is able to equip better stuff. Character-specific levelings include Posha (goes from wimpy Shrine Maiden to confident Shrine Warrior), Kun (becomes a Knight later on in Lacryma's tale) and.