Triple Triad remains my favouriteFinal Fantasyminigame of all time. I don’t know whether my love for it is biased because Final Fantasy 8 was my first in the series or because it truly is the best. I’m inclined to think the latter, because none since have managed to win my love to such a degree.
Tetra Master in Final Fantasy 9 came close, but it felt like a Triple Triad knock-off that I only liked because of the similarities. Blitzball from Final Fantasy 10 was also fun, but I was too lazy to build the perfect team. There have been others too, of course, but let’s face it, Triple Triad is still the best.
It has a banging theme tune, simple yet moreish gameplay, and plenty of cards to collect and track down. Anyone who played FF8 has flashbacks of having to challenge the same NPC over and over to get that one card they desperately needed, with the first to torture us being that annoying kid running circles in Balamb Garden. Screw that kid. If you claim you didn’t save scum to avoid losing your precious cards when defeated, you’re a liar.
It helps that my love of Triple Triad continues inFinal Fantasy 14, which brought the minigame back in style.
Now, there is a new contender to Triple Triad’s digital card game throne.Final Fantasy 7 Rebirthintroduces a brand new card minigame called Queen’s Blood. As soon as I discovered this, I wanted to progress enough to try it out. Unfortunately, my eagerness to play wasn’t followed through in skill levels, and I’m sad to say I didn’t win any matches. Not even the tutorial match. I couldn’t even win against crybaby Ned, and that NPC was so annoying he wasbeggingto be beaten.
In my haste to start playing,I didn’t read through the tutorial as much as I should have and just started slapping down cards without any strategy. As a result, it took me a few losses to realise there was more going on than I thought, and overlapping your cards isn’t just a case of you scoring more, it also affects where and whether you can place additional cards in the adjacent squares based on the card’s positions (the little Tetris-style blocks on each card).
For example, putting a card down with an upside-down L-shaped block on it means that you can place a card below and to the right of where you place this one, setting you up for future moves. Neglect to pay attention to this, and there won’t be any tiles on the board you can place cards in, forcing you to skip your turn and just watch in horror as your opponent sweeps up the win.
Unlike Triple Triad, which is just a case of who owns more cards on the board, Queen’s Blood has three lanes across the board, and each lane can be won by either player, with these then being tabulated to reveal an overall winner. One of my flaws was focusing on one lane and forgetting about the other two. I need to learn to multitask.
One of the things I loved about Triple Triad that is reprised with Queen’s Blood, though, is the ability to challenge different NPCs as you explore, picking up new cards by defeating different players or purchasing them in stores across the planet. I’d bet money there are select NPCs with specific rare cards to win again, too.
Despite my losing streak, I’m still just as excited to play Queen’s Blood at launch, and I now have a score to settle with Ned. As with anything, there’s a learning curve, so I know I’ll eventually figure out some sense of strategy. Or I’ll just cheat and rely on my co-workers to tell me the best ways to win. That’s what our guide department is for, after all.
