Final Fantasy Portal App Triple Triad logo

Release date (iOS / Android) :

The Final Fantasy Portal App is mainly designed to provide news to the players in a centralised way. Square-Enix also did include a Triple Triad game based on the Final Fantasy VIII version. The cards are for the most part completely new and solo opponents are the famous main characters of the Final Fantasy games. The rules are, except for small details, the ones of Final Fantasy XIV : A Realm Reborn version of the Triple Triad.

This simple mini game does pit two players against each other, each with a hand of five cards, called a deck. Every card has four digits, indicating its vis-a-vis power over an adjacent card. In turn, each player places a card on a game board of nine slots and tries to capture the opposing cards. The winner of the battle is the one that has the largest number of cards when the game board is full. Naturally, rules variations can change the meaning of the numbers, forcing opponents to put the cards in a randomly-chosen order, or swapping cards of the opposing decks before starting.

Initially integrated with Final Fantasy VIII, Triple Triad was a huge success, to the point of being fully integrated and updated in Final Fantasy XIV. The smartphone lends itself particularly well to this kind of game since the battles last only a couple of minutes. Its integration within the portal does fit perfectly. Its realization is neat and suffers from very few bugs or crashes. Note that a Square-Enix account is necessary to keep your collected cards after a game fresh install, though it is possible to play (even against humans opponents) without authentication.