Tetra Master: The Card Game in Final Fantasy IX

So, first I’m going to give you a brief summary of the game, then I’ll follow that up with a more detailed explanation.

The game Tetra master is simply a card game created in the Final Fantasy IX world. Now, although it isn’t necessarily based on another card game and is unique to the video game, it is still derivative of many other role-playing card games, so if you are familiar with this sort of hobby, you may find that it can be quite easy to pick up. If not, it only takes a bit of learning and then you can pick it up. Simply put, you have cards, your opponent has cards, and your cards have different strengths. Generally, stronger cards will win battles, but there are other factors involved that decide the outcome.

You can get cards in four different ways:

You can receive them from battles; Some monsters give off cards after you defeat them (like receiving an item in a battle.)

You can get them from talking to people. You don’t have to engage them in a card battle. Some people will just give off cards for various reasons.

You can find them in random places. Treasure Chests, etc.

And you can win them in other card games. That’s the fun one. It’s kind of like pogs in that respect.

If you want to start a card battle with someone, simply walk up to a person and press the Square button. If the person has cards and will play against you, this will start the game. Sometimes, you can talk to a person in the normal way and then based on what they say, you can decide if they’re a card player or not, but not everyone talks about the game non-stop (that would be annoying.) Although you will be responsible for letting others know you want to play, some games start up by themselves. There is a tournament in Treno where the games start like this.

When you start playing, you’ll see that the board is 4 tiles by 4 tiles (4x4) making it 16 tiles in total. Some tiles will be covered up, and this means you can’t place a card there.

Before you actually play, you will need to choose five cards from your bundle to play the game with. You want to choose cards that are strong and have a lot of arrows on them. The arrows mean you can attack in that direction. In simpler terms, if you have an arrow pointing to the left of your card, you can battle a card that is on the left side of yours. The stronger the card, the more punishment it will be able to take. Now, a battle will only take place if your arrow faces an arrow on your opponent’s card. If not, you automatically win the card. It’s like you started a battle and they instantly forfeited or something similar. To understand the stats of your cards is to understand their strength. A card will have three numbers and one letter on it. It will go in order of: number, Letter, Number, Number. This is the attack power of your card (the amount of damage it will do each turn.), the attack type (magical or physical), the physical defense (how much physical damage must be done before your card loses), and the magical defense (how much magical damage must be done before your card loses.). The letter P represents Physical Attack, while the letter M represents Magical attack. The letter X simply means it will attack whatever defense is lower on the opponent’s card. So, if your opponent has a higher physical defense than magical, your x attacker will kill it using magic. If you have a P attacker, then you don’t even need to pay attention to the Magical defense (the last digit) because it won’t even come into play in this battle. The same goes for magical attacking and physical defense.

Keep all this in mind when choosing your cards. It will all greatly affect the outcome of the battle in many ways.

After you’ve chosen, a coin will flip, determining who starts first.

Now, when you place a card, you know what is going to happen. If you point at a card of your opponent, and that card doesn’t point back at you, you win it. If your cards point at each other, a battle ensues. I’ve done what I can in explaining the battle mechanics. If you win, you flip their card over and win it. If they win, they flip yours and win it. It’s as simple as that.

The winner of the battle is the one who has the most cards in his/her color.

Now, cards can level up in certain ways. They don’t grow all around like your characters do, but they grow based upon your gaming habits. If a card defends itself from other cards that attack it physically, its physical defense will increase. If it attacks a bunch and flips cards over, its attack power will increase. If it defends from magic attacks a lot, magic defense will increase.

The rare cards are the ones that you will be finding in certain areas. The most common cards are the ones you will be getting from beating monsters.

You will develop your own strategies through trial and error. That’s the best way. After learning a few other things from other people, I tried them and each time I simply failed. I feel it is best to discover your own tricks of the trade.

Good luck! Have fun!