Which Final Fantasy Games Have Card Games?

When you’re not mowing down legions of monsters, toppling evil regimes, or fighting actual gods of the universe, Final Fantasy games have all sorts of mini-games you can mess around with that have much lower stakes than the main game.

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Among the most popular types of mini-games you can find in this franchise are the card mini-games. Five Final Fantasy games feature card games, each one a fully fleshed-out game in its own right. If you want to experience the best that the games have to offer, you’ll need to brush up on your card game skills.

Black Jack

Final Fantasy IX

First up is Final Fantasy 9’s Black Jack, which is just regular, old Black Jack, with some fancy Final Fantasy designs on the card. The game follows traditional Black Jack rules, and uses different characters from the game like Shiva as the Queen and Wraith as the Jack.

If you’re really itching to play this mini-game, it’s gonna take a fair amount of work to get to. You can only access this mini-game once you get to the end of the game. Even newer versions of the game will only let you access the card game once you’ve beaten the game, though you can get to it directly from the title screen. If you’re an achievement / trophy hunter, you’ll need to unlock this game to collect them all.

Serendipity Poker

Final Fantasy XIII-2

Final Fantasy 13-2 brought with it two types of card games that you can play in the Heads or Tails? DLC episode. Taking place on the floating casino city of Serendipity, you can play a game of version of poker that is more or less Texas Hold ‘Em with a different name.

Serendipity Poker works much like regular Texas Hold ‘Em, with you betting in-game Casino Coins and bluffing your way to outmatch your opponents. Once all the players have either raised, called, or held their hands, the table reveals, with the highest hand taking the pot.

Chronobind

Final Fantasy XIII-2

Another card game from Final Fantasy 13-2’s Heads or Tails? DLC, Chronobind, though this one is an original game and not based on a real world card game. At the start of the game, each player buys in and is dealt five cards. A card is drawn from the deck, which advances the clock that many slots. Each round, players pick cards of one number to play, but any number of those cards. So if you have two eights in your hand, you can play one or both of them. The cards of each player are compared, with the highest card value taking the round, with the King being the highest. If your card matches the value of the clock, however, that card trumps all others except an Ace.

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As the clock hands make a full rotation around the face, the amount to buy in increases, giving out greater rewards. There’s a lot of depth to this game and is definitely worth taking a look into if you’re replaying some of the older Final Fantasy games.

Tetra Master

Final Fantasy IX

Hot off the heels of Final Fantasy 8’s Triple Triad, which we’ll get to in a second, Tetra Master comes from Final Fantasy 9 and is a little more light-hearted and relaxed than the former. Tetra Master has players building a deck with cards based on various characters and monsters from the game. Each card has a number of arrows with randomly decided directions on them and a series of set letters or numbers across the bottom.

The letters and numbers all determine your card’s stats. For example, the Cactuar card has ‘3PC0’ stamped on it, which can be read as:

• Attack value - 3
• Attack type - P (Physical)
• Physical defense - C
• Magical defense - 0

You might have noticed that C doesn’t really make sense when we’re looking at a defense number, and that’s because this game uses a base 15 counting system, so it goes 0-9, and then A through E, with E being the absolute highest with an equivalent value of 15.

If you play a card that has an arrow pointing in the direction of another card, there are two things that can happen. If the opposing card has an arrow pointing back, you enter combat with them. You then roll two ten-sided dice, using those number values to help calculate damage. If your card’s attack is higher than their associated defense, you win and their card is captured. If there is no arrow on their card, you just capture that card without a fight.

Tetra Master was so popular that it had its own independent game for a while but shut down shortly afterward. It even got a physical release of the game, which had some modified rules to help facilitate some of the more digital versions of the rules, but it was only released in Europe for a limited time.

Triple Triad

Final Fantasy VIII & Final Fantasy XIV

One of the most memorable card games from the Final Fantasy series is easily Triple Triad, which comes from Final Fantasy 9 originally. In this game, two players duel each other on a 3x3 grid. The goal is to capture your opponent's cards, turning them your color when you place higher-ranked cards next to them. You can then take the cards you win and convert them into items, with some rare items becoming much easier to find if you’re good enough at the game.

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As a funny note, the in-game lore for Triple Triad is that it was created by a psychic named Orlan who took fortune-telling cards and turned it into a game. The game became popular among soldiers before spreading to the rest of the people.

Triple Triad returned in Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn, with players able to access it from the Manderville Gold Saucer. The game is very similar to its iteration in Final Fantasy 8, though with some modifications to rules and new cards.

Queen’s Blood

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

The newest addition to the Final Fantasy card game collection is the fantastic Queen’s Blood. This game has you build a fifteen-card deck with cards based on various monsters from the Final Fantasy 7 universe. Each card has a set power number and has arrows that influence the board in various ways.

You place cards on a 5x3 grid, trying to control the board with your cards while watching out for your opponent’s. Each card has a rank, ranging from one to three, but cards can only be placed on squares that have pawns on them that match your card’s rank. This mini-game is completely optional but has a very rewarding storyline with some fun characters to find.

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