Triple Triad - the card game
Created | Updated Apr 8, 2005
Triple Triad is the name of the card game in Final Fantasy VIII that can be played against a large number of non-playable characters (NPCs) throughout the main game. To challenge someone, you move your character next to them and press the Square button.
There are 110 different Triple Triad cards, which are split into ten levels (corrosponding to the ten pages on which your collection is viewed in-game). Each card depicts a monster, boss, guardian force (GF) or character from the game. In the latter two cases, there is only one copy of each card throughout the entire game; some of these must be "unlocked" by losing certain other cards to appropriate NPCs (which can then be rewon). There are an infinite number of all the lower level cards.
The cards have pictures of the named people or monsters, but these are unimportant in the game. The important data on the card are four numbers shown in the top right hand corner, which represent a value on each side of the card. The cards cannot be reorientated, meaning these values are set for top, bottom, left and right. All cards of the same monster/boss have identical values.
Values range from 1 to 10 (represented by an "A"). An example card is Wendigo:
| ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- |
| | | 7 | | | ||
| | | | | |||
| | 6 | 3 | | |||
| | | | | |||
| | | 1 | | | ||
| ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- |
The player uses blue cards; the NPC uses red, and for the rest of this entry they shall be referred to as the blue and red players. Play takes place on a 3 by 3 grid. When either player puts down a card, it is of the colour that they are playing as. If the other player then puts down a card next to it, and the touching value of the new card is higher than that of the previous card, the card will change colour and come under the other's possession (for the game; it is not necessarily kept).
This is more easily explained in a diagram. Assume Blue (the player) goes first and plays the Wendigo card depicted above. Red then plays a Elastoid card to the right:
| ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- |
| | | 7 | | | | | 6 | | | ||||
| | | | | | | | | ||||||
| | 6 | 3 | | | 7 | 2 | | ||||||
| | | | | | | | | ||||||
| | | 1 | | | | | 6 | | | ||||
| ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- | ---- |
Because the left-hand number on the new card is higher than the touching, right-hand number on the previous card (7 beats 3), the old one is "flipped", turning red. In the game, the card is seen to spin, before landing with a red coloured background, but otherwise identical.
From here, the player could try to retake their original card, such as by playing a card underneath with a value greater than 1 on its top edge, or take the newly played opponent's card, such as by playing one further to the right with a value to beat the 2. However, some of these options could be removed by the grid - if, for example, the original card was in the bottom left hand corner of the 3 by 3 grid, a card could not be played under it. Alternatively, the player could place a card in any other empty space, without being next to either card, or play a card next to one, but with an equivalent or lower value (it will not be flipped).
This procedure continues, with the two players placing a card at a time, until the grid is full. At this point, the number of cards of each colour are counted1 and the player with the more cards wins. This score includes the one card left in the second player's hand, meaning a draw of 5-5 is possible.
1Actually, there is a counter for both players throughout the game, but the score is only important now.
