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Game Play Tips

Many of these may come off as general because it's been a while since I played Kartia through. As far as I could tell (and I didn't look too hard) there isn't a book out for the game. You don't really need one. There is a nice FAQ that takes you through battle by battle posted at RPGamer if you get stuck. (Though I don't agree with his strategy for the game-related battle arena chapters, so I'll post my own here).

When starting the game, I would encourage you to take some time out to practice at the arena. The familiarity you'll gain with the menus and the game mechanics will help tremendously when you get into the game itself.

Try to keep ahold of as many Phantoms as you can early on in the game. They give you the edge you need since your humans don't have the weapons and levels needed to take names by themselves yet. You also won't have a lot of Kartia to keep summoning more Phantoms with, so the early ones have to last. By the third battle or so, you will have likely lost your original Phantoms and replaced them with more powerful ones. That's on pace, in my opinion.

Every Phantom has different traits. Early on you'll see Kyuu (they look like Pikachu with two tails and are extremely cute). They're also an extreme nuisance because they dart right for any treasure chests on the field and destroy them. When in battle, they should be one of your first targets if you can get to them safely. It is possible to not get all the texts in the game, and they're a big part of the reason why. (I should also mention now that you can't get all the texts in Toxa's quest, just so you don't think you're doing something wrong).

Phantoms can be assigned a 'position' by the computer and then stay there. I don't remember what battle it is, but one takes place on a bridge in which you're saving a human character and you have to work your way to them. The Phantoms are lined up as a wall blocking the way, but you can take out 2 or 3 on the end and the others won't move! In that battle, you didn't have to defeat all the opponents, just save the character, so why make it harder by engaging more than you have to? The computer has many quirks like this, so be aware of how the monsters are and aren't moving. Many times you can select the pace of the battle but avoiding engaging monsters that are just 'hanging out' until the more mobile and threatening ones are eliminated.

Now, for the quest-related battle arena scenarios. These can be tough, but they're not impossible. What happens is that your party has 10 rounds to take out all the monsters with another dozen or so monsters showing up every other round. The newer monsters also get stronger, so it's important to take them out fast. Kartia allows you to do a lot of pre-battle set up, so use that to your advantage! Check to see what each group of monsters is, then set up an advantageous opposing force near them make up mostly Phantoms and one human.

There are four 'groups' of monsters that are far enough apart on the field that over lapping forces doesn't work very well. What I do is to have the weakest phantom in each of my groups set closest to a treasure chest and furthest from harm. When the battle starts, have them dart for the goodies. Have the human and the remaining Phantoms battle. I have the Phantoms all take their turns first and then have the human attack whereever it would do the most good. (Since humans aren't aligned like monsters are, they can either take out a monster that could wreck havoc on your group or deliver a finishing blow if one of your Phantoms couldn't do it). You'll repeat this on each corner of the field.

After round one, the monsters should be hurting and will probably rematch up to hurt you fairly well. It's unlikely that you would have gotten all the chests yet, so keep going for those. Continue to rematch your Phantoms and monsters to your advantage, but make sure that every Phantom is attacking every round. You have to be very aggressive during this scenario to beat it!

The computer will likely be reduced to 2 or 3 monsters by now and re-enforcements will join the fray. The second group of monsters is more powerful than the first. With the chests retrieved, bring those Phantoms into play. (They will likely already be in position, if I remember correctly. The new monsters come onto the field near the chests). You will likely lose more Phantoms, but keep hacking away. Use strong magic if you have it to take out groups of monsters. You need to finish the monsters off within the next two rounds because the group that follows this one is even more powerful.

If you manage to complete this battle by defeating all the monsters, you'll get some great stuff. (I can't remember what all it was, except to say that I was impressed). Even if you do 'lose', you don't. You'll be rewarded appropriately for the number of monsters that you managed to eliminate. Any Phantoms that you took into the arena and lost are still lost. It's a mid-quest change-of-pace scenario, have fun with it!

The final battles in each scenario are easily the most difficult. The monsters are ones you've never seen before and are immune to (just about) everything. Never fear, the bean is here!

Lacryma's final battle

The field is laid out with a raised platform in the middle with dragons on it and pathways along the sides. Of course, your target is on the exact opposite end of the field from you, so getting to him is most of the battle.

During the pre-battle set up, put your humans near the upper left corner to make a dash down the aisle towards the right. Then fill the rest of your available slots with as many Kyuu as your allowed. The computer hates Kyuu as much as you should by now, and will do incredibly stupid things to get at them. (Making them the perfect decoy while you make a dash for the other end of the room). Kyuu are also the cheapest of Phantom to create materials wise, so don't be afraid to use them liberally!

Once the battle starts, send your Kyuu out and position them next to monsters. With an enemy right there, they usually won't go out of their way to attack the humans that are passing by. Don't bother trying to decoy the dragons, most of the time you're out of their range and they won't move. And if your humans are in their range, they don't do a lot of damage (or they shouldn't, if they do, it's time to re-equip!) Don't bother sending Kyuu down since those monsters, again, won't move unless something is in their range. And once they start moving, they're not always inclined to stop again.

When I did this battle, Posha was a wimp and there was nothing I could do about it. I don't know if you'll have this problem as well, so here's what I did to keep her from getting killed and ending the battle. Mid-way down the aisle there is an alcove that you can tuck her into and have her protected on three sides by wall. Stash her there and have the party keep moving. Just remember to keep her hit points up since the monsters will take up the unprotected side and whack on her.

Your party will probably only make it as far as the corner before the monsters are swarming you. Forget the Kyuu tactic now and go for solid hitting. Physical attacks (minus Kun's) are nearly worthless, so focus on magic. I don't remember the names of the spells I used, but I didn't custom mix at all. Try to go for spells that have coverage. The main enemy will summon more monsters if given enough time, so you need to be knocking them down as quickly as you can. If I remember a flood-like spell and a fire-like spell worked wonders against 2/3rds of the monsters.

Once you've penetrated the wall of monsters around the main enemy, try to get a human on each side of them. Magic has little effect on him, so you're going to have to do this the old fashioned way. He also heals himself, so you need to be able to defeat him in one round.

This battle was frustrating. It took me three attempts and an hour to an hour and a half to finish it. Once the baddie's out of the way, sit back and enjoy the well-earned ending of Lacryma's quest. It rates as one of the better game endings ever, in my opinion.

Toxa's final battle

Take the tactics in Lacryma's battle and reverse them to be lower right instead of upper left. What? You think I'm kidding? Okay, okay, keep Lacryma's tactics in mind and here we go.

The battlefield has a raised pond in the middle of it with the near-invincible monsters surrounding it. Dragons surround the pond; the main enemy is on the opposite end of the field from you.

Set up the humans to the lower right. Since it's dragons you'll be working through instead of those nasty monsters, you can use stronger Phantoms to take some of the load off of your humans. I'd throw a few Kyuu into the mix any ways just to keep the monsters guessing.

Work your way down the screen, taking out dragons as you go. You will finally be stopped near the corner by the nasty monsters. Again, use area-covering spells to knock at as many of those as you can. This enemy is more into magic and will cast spells against your weakest character. If the character really is weak, then try to keep them out of harm's way or re-equip them. If they aren't that weak, then it will just scratch them and do nothing to the rest of your party.

Again, surround him with humans and prepare to whack him down in one round before he can heal himself (he's not as obsessive about healing as the one in Lacryma's quest was).

Toxa's final battle was easier than Lacryma's for me, though they're essentially the same battle reversed. I'd done Lacryma's quest first, so I don't know if the experience made Toxa's quest easier or if it was just plain easier. The ending isn't as good as Lacryma's though it does complete the story as a whole, so go for both of them!