Final Fantasy VIII Card Game
by Nutron
The first card game reviewed here, combined with some familiar characters.
| This is based on the Final Fantasy card game. Try to get more of your cards on the board at the end of the round! | |
| The game tells you the basic rules within the program. Unfortunately, the rules do not seem to be described clearly. I luckily found a website that can help here. The game has no AI as of yet so only 2 player support is available. You each get so many cards, and you have to place the cards down on the 3x3 grid in the center. As you place the cards down, you must try to convert the opponent's cards to your color. This gets more interesting with chain reactions. I played one game (by myself) where Red had control of most of the board, but then with one Blue card placed down, all of the cards converted to Blue. This makes the game interesting enough. An AI would have helped on those lonely nights (or when you just can't find a friend that likes this game), but for when you do play with a friend, it would be nice if instead of a one-second delay to switch players, it allowed you to press a key when ready so that it is much easier to avoid seeing your opponent's cards. Also, if the rules could be followed more closely, it probably would keep purists interested. Perhaps a win-loss record would be nice. |
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| The intro screens and the help looks great! The screenshots here show you what they look like. Unfortunately, the actual game itself does not look quite as well. I was unable to get screenshots of this, but it is pretty basic. The cards simply have numbers on them and they do not look too interesting. For a basic game, they are fine, but there is really nothing that makes this Final Fantasy-like at all except that the rules are based on the game. I would have liked to have seen characters from the game on the cards themselves, or at least on the board or between each round. | |
| Since this is a turn-based card game, there really isn't much in terms of the controls to cause problems. It is very easy to make use of, and the mouse support was executed superbly. | |
| There is sound in this game....for very few people! I couldn't get it to work on any machine that I tried this game on, so I have no idea what actually makes it work. For most of you, you will have to use the No Sound (/W) switch in order to play this game at all. Otherwise, you end up with a blank screen and nothing happens. The music file does come with it, and it does sound nice when run on its own, but since this game does not allow most people to play the game with it, the low score stands. | |
| Since there is no AI, it is more a matter of luck and strategy when playing. Getting used to the rules is a little difficult, especially when you do not understand the instructions provided with the game, which can be misleading. Once you understand them, it can be tough to outmaneuver your opponent. Since the game itself is limited to a 3x3 playing area, the games cannot get overly complicated, so quick games are easy to play. | |
| Since I do not know too many people who play card games, I did not have the luxury of playing against others. Playing against myself is not as fun obviously, but I managed to play this game repeatedly so that I can find out all of its secrets. I enjoyed the strategy element that is the core of this game, but I do think that all of the options in the actual game should have been included, along with all of the variations. I also would have liked an AI. | |
| It looked good at first, and it played easily enough. An AI, perhaps some more variations, and some better sound support would help this game out a lot. At almost a 1 MB download, this game might not be worth it if you do not plan on playing with a friend. | |
| .zip file: 952KB download |