Card game is oddly esoteric

[Oaks]

Hello adventurers,
Playing through the game for the first time in a long time, I find the card game to be oddly complex and lacking a good introduction.

The card game is kind of thrown at you within the first few minutes, but the whole stats on card thing is completely skipped over. I've read online and now understand why all my cards say "0P00".

Anyway, this is not a complaint, but more of a post of interest as to why the designers obscured so much info about the card game. Did the original instruction manual have more information, or was the intention that people puzzle it out themselves?

[Gabby]

There's a few NPCs in game that exist to teach the rules. One in the starting location is sitting in an Inn willing to tell you everything about it.

Though it was kinda thrown into the game last minute.

[Primu]

The weapon shop in Dali has a board you can interact with which explains the card game, the shop keeper is also the only character in Dali that plays the card game.

The 1st value is the attack power of the card in hex (0 to F).
The 2nd value is the type of attack (P = Physical, M = Magical)
The 3rd value is the Physical defense in hex.
The 4th value is the Magical defense in hex.

The 1st value can increase as you use the card more.
The values are only considered when a card you place has an arrow that opposes an arrow of the card(s) it's being placed near. When you successfully take a card, any cards adjacent to the arrows of that card are also taken, so low power cards with lots of arrows are very valuable.

Games like FF9 were before the time of holding your hand and telling you everything in the form of a tutorial. They instead expect you to interact with the world and find things out yourself, though granted the re-release did add some tutorials.

[Oaks]

Originally posted by Primu:

The weapon shop in Dali has a board you can interact with which explains the card game, the shop keeper is also the only character in Dali that plays the card game.

The 1st value is the attack power of the card in hex (0 to F).
The 2nd value is the type of attack (P = Physical, M = Magical)
The 3rd value is the Physical defense in hex.
The 4th value is the Magical defense in hex.

The 1st value can increase as you use the card more.
The values are only considered when a card you place has an arrow that opposes an arrow of the card(s) it's being placed near. When you successfully take a card, any cards adjacent to the arrows of that card are also taken, so low power cards with lots of arrows are very valuable.

Games like FF9 were before the time of holding your hand and telling you everything in the form of a tutorial. They instead expect you to interact with the world and find things out yourself, though granted the re-release did add some tutorials.

Thanks for the answer, I looked up the values already. I think I said that in my first post. I am not looking for help, just thoughts on the card game.

I played the game when it first came out, so you don't really need to remind me there was a "before time" of hand holding. Final Fantasy 8 had a much more accessible card game that explained everything from the get go. It's an interesting approach they took with the FF9 card game with the more "figure it out approach."


Got to the shop in Dali where the rule are explained, posted first post before I got there.

EDIT: Actually, upon further reflection, I am not on board with your mini lecture about the time before hand holding. Final Fantasy 8 spend the first hour at least teaching you through mandatory tutorials. You have to sit through various lessons about the junction system and the draw system. I recall the instruction book even had a walk through for the fire cave (first dungeon) and gave all sorts of advice for beating it. That game predates FF9, so you might want to revise your hypothesis ;)

[DicLickle]

The game, Tetris Master I mean, sucks it relies on a rng system that almost negates the actual point values assigned to the cards.

[Künstler99]

Yes this game is too random. It's one of the rare thing that is totaly bad in ff9. The good technique to win is to put a weak card in the center with a lot of arrow, and to turn it over when the opponent will no longer be able to take it back.

[DSpecht]

I think it gets way more fun when you get dedicated cards so RNG isn't that much of an issue. It occasionally still triggers and then it can be pretty interesting to play around. Overall I think Tetra Master is a nice side game.

[Oaks]

Originally posted by DSpecht:

I think it gets way more fun when you get dedicated cards so RNG isn't that much of an issue. It occasionally still triggers and then it can be pretty interesting to play around. Overall I think Tetra Master is a nice side game.

Agreed, enjoying it now more that I have some decent cards, though rng still gets me from time to time.

[modiX]

The idea of FFIX is that you had to figure it out by yourself. I remember playing it back in the days on PSX and I had no internet, I was thrown off, because I didn't even manage to read the hints in Dali ...

It was a great experience to learn and understand the side game through inspecting and learning, eventually.

Having an RNG in a card game is mean though, but I manage to get back my precious cards or simply reload after losing good ones. Not the biggest deals to begin with.