While Triple Triad was the cardgame in Final Fantasy VIII, in Final Fantasy IX its Tetra Master! You can play Tetra Master in the beginning of Final Fantasy IX by pressing the Square button if you have at least 5 cards.

¤ How it works

When you start a game of Tetra Master you have to select 5 cards. To see which cards are the best to choose you have to look at the arrows and the nummers and letters.

The card has 0 to 9 arrows. But having a card with a lot of arrows doesn't make the card a good one, since your enemy can easily attack your card from different sides.

The letters and nummers have to do something with the statistics of the card. Each nummer or letter stands for something.

• First one: The card's attack power, which can vary from 0 (lowest) to E (highest).
• Second one: The card's attack type.
  • P: Physical
  • M: Magic
  • X: Lowest defence number on the opponent's card.
  • A: Lowest number on the opponent's card.
• Third one: The card's defense, which can vary from 0 (lowest) to E (highest).
• Forth one: The card's magic defense, which can vary from 0 (lowest) to E (highest).

After you've selected your cards a 4x4 grid appears. Some spots will be blocked from the start. Then the computer selects who may begin. Your cards are displayed in blue to the right, while the opponent cards in red to the left.

When you place a card next to an opponent card with an arrow pointing to it the card will be captured, but if there's no arrow pointing to it, nothing will happen. If your card and opponent card has the arrow pointing to each other, the cards will go in battle. The card with the highest stats have the highest chance to win the battle. When a battle is over its possible to create a combo, which depends on the arrows of the captured card. If arrows point to cards that not have been captured yet, they will be captured too.

The best way to protect your cards is to place the cards where the sides have no arrows at the border.

After the game is over the player with the most cards win. If you have captured all the cards you'll get Perfect and will receive all five cards from the opponent. But if the opponent has done that you'll lose all five.

¤ Card list

There's a total of 100 different cards that you can aquire. Some are very rare. A list of cards and where you can get them is located here.