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FF8 - Card Game (Triple Triad) |
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Strategy Guides Other |
[Triple Triad System] When walking around town, you can engage other NPCs (Non-Playable Characters) in card battles via the 'Square' button. Cards are obtained through victories, special events or enemies, and some are very difficult to find. Either way, here's the entire playing procedure: 1. Win a card, or turn an enemy into one via Quezacotl's 'Card' command ability. Look for a card player, and talk to him or her using 'Square'. 2. Select 5 cards from your deck (not applicable for Random rule). 3. The computer will randomly decide who gets to start first. 4. The game is played on a 3 by 3 tiled board, with the blue cards belonging to you; the pink ones, your opponent. ---------------- | | | | | | | | ---------------- PINK | | | | BLUE DECK | | | | DECK ---------------- | | | | | | | | ---------------- 5. You'll notice 4 sets of numbers on each card, the center row having 2 numbers side by side. The maximum value for each side is A (equals 10). 6. When 2 opposing cards are placed adjacent to each other, 'Card Battle' commences. 7. The computer will compare these 4 sets of values, and victory is allotted to the card with the higher value. Here's an example, assuming the pink card is the attacking card. --------- --------- | 8 | | 2 | |9 2| |3 1| | 7 | | 4 | --------- --------- (Blue) (Pink) The values represent the attack power of the card on each of the 4 sides. In the above diagram, the blue card (which has been placed on the left of the pink one) seems to have the upper hand, but the value on its right (2) is lower than the value on the left of the pink card (3). Thus, the winner here is the pink card (3}2), and the losing blue card is flipped to show a pink one. 8. Press 'Triangle' to view the Rules if you've forgotten what they were. 9. When all 9 tiles are filled, the player with the majority of the cards in their respective colour wins. [Rules Details] Rules vary from region to region, although you can abolish some of the more troublesome ones via winning a game in that territory or paying the Card Queen at Balamb City's train station 30,000 Gil. Special rules include: (Important: In all cases assume the blue card is the attacking card!) SAME: When a card is placed adjacent to 2 or more cards, and the values on the sides of that particular card facing the rest are equal, the attacking card wins. --------- --------- | 5 | | 8 | |1 3| |3 4| | 7 | | 9 | --------- --------- (Blue) (Pink) --------- | 7 | |6 A| | A | --------- (Pink) Look at the right and bottom values of the blue card, which are identical to the values of the pink cards directly facing them (3 & 3, 7 & 7). In this case both the pink cards are flipped. PLUS: When a card is placed adjacent to 2 or more cards, and the values on 2 or more of the sides in contact add up to the same figure, the attacking card wins. --------- --------- | 5 | | 2 | |1 4| |5 A| | 1 | | 4 | --------- --------- (Blue) (Pink) --------- | 8 | |9 3| | 7 | --------- (Pink) Take note of the right and bottom values of the blue one. When you add the values of the pink cards directly facing them, the numbers calculated are the same, i.e. 4+5=9 and 1+8=9. In this case both the pink cards are flipped. SAME WALL: The vertical and horizontal sides of the playing field are taken as having a value of 'A'. Same Wall is extremely rare, and occurs in conjunction with the Same and Plus rule. | --------- | | 7 | A| |1 6| | | 1 | | --------- | (Pink) | | --------- | | 1 | A| |A 3| | | 5 | | --------- | (Blue) | | --------- | | 5 | A| |7 4| | | 7 | | --------- | (Pink) Look at the left, upper and bottom values of the blue card. Under the 'Same Wall and 'Same' rule, the value of the playing field directly facing the blue card, bottom value of the pink card above the blue card and upper value of the pink card below the blue card are identical (A & A, 1 & 1, 5 & 5 respectively). Both pink cards are thus flipped. COMBO: When a card changes colour under the Same, Plus or Same Wall rules, its values now affect the cards with the opposing colour. Thus, one can actually set a card, flip the opponent's, and the flipped card will also act against those around it, flipping them as well within a single turn. You can set up multiple chains in this way. --------- --------- | 8 | | 2 | |9 3| |3 1| | 7 | | 4 | --------- --------- (Blue) (Pink) --------- --------- | 7 | | 2 | |1 4| |5 A| | A | | 4 | --------- --------- (Pink) (Pink) --------- | 8 | |9 3| | 7 | --------- (Pink) Under the Same rule, the blue card in the upper-left should flip both the pink cards to the right and bottom of it. Now look at the bottom value of the card to the right of the blue card. Having been flipped, the now blue card should act upon the pink card directly beneath it, flipping it in the process (4}2). The same also applies to the (now blue) card to the bottom of the initial attacking blue card, thus the pink card in the lower-left is flipped (A}8). Chains are set up in this way, and can often turn near-defeats into victories in Card Battles. ELEMENTAL: Some cards such as Ifrit's have an elemental to them (in this case Fire). When placed on a tile with the 'Fire' element symbol on it, the values of the card increase by 1 on all 4 sides. Other than that, if the element symbol on the tile does not correspond to the card's elemental, the values of the card on all 4 sides will decrease by 1 instead. However, the Same, Plus and Same Wall rules ignore the added or decreased (if any) values of a card; keep that in mind the next time you want to activate such rules. Open: All cards can be seen. Random: All cards are randomly picked. Sudden Death: The game goes on in the event of a Draw. Players retain only the cards in their respective colour from the end of the previous Card Battle. Trade Rules: These range from being able to pick and keep zero to all cards from the loser. Cards are useful via Quezacotl's 'Card Mod.' menu ability; many of them grant the items required to upgrade your weapons, characters or G.Fs. There's a total of 110 different cards to collect, by the way.. If you've completed your collection of cards, a star will appear next to the Card command in the menu screen. And even if you destroy one of your cards using 'Card Mod.', the star will still remain there. [Card Tips] Try to prevent some of the more cumbersome rules from spreading, i.e. 'Random' or 'Sudden Death'. Rules that you want to spread are 'Open' (Balamb region has it), or even 'Same' if you're an experienced player. To prevent rules from spreading, just keep saying 'No' when an NPC suggests combining rules. He or she will eventually play you with the particular region's rules alone. Initially, you won't have much good cards to begin with, so Card Battle on Disc One should be kept to a minimum. However, by the end of Disc One, you should have amassed 4 rare cards: Ifrit, Sacred, Minotaur and Diablos. Disc Two should be when you start trashing people in Card Battle with the above cards. As always, try to win the rare cards in regions with friendlier rules first, then go for the difficult to obtain cards such as Edea, which is played under the Random rule. You can usually tell a good card player apart from the rest when he or she takes their time deciding which card to play. Inexperienced players (i.e. most townspeople) simply rashly place their cards without much thought. You can over-power such players using a good deck of cards, but defeating a seasoned card player requires some strategy. When playing with the 'Same', 'Plus' or 'Same Wall' rules, always check to see if your opponent has the chance to use such rules on you. You can usually tell when an experienced player places a card in a seemingly strange position, when he/she could have used that card to flip over one of yours. However, playing these rules to your advantage requires a lot on planning ahead, or just plain luck. There's really no easy way about it; your best bet is experience. |