I have a favorite conspiracy theory.
The brightest minds in card game design don't work at Wizards of the Coast in Magic: The Gathering or at Ravensburger in the Disney-themed smash hit Lorcana. But somehow, through a supernatural pact made with the gods of the trading card game, Square Enix managed to trap the greatest minds in card game design and have kept them in a vault for the last 30 years working in Final Fantasy Mini card games. That's the best explanation I can think of for how good it is. Final Fantasy VII RebirthQueen's Blood Card Game is.
This minigame has almost eclipsed my enjoyment Renaissance in itself, a game that according to several critics is possibly the best game of this generation. I wasn't breathless when I first saw everything RenaissanceThe open world was laid out before me in crisp, beautiful high definition as an orchestral performance by Nobuo Uematsu main theme of Final Fantasy VII started playing. But I did when I played my first game of Queen's Blood because I knew, like Final Fantasy VIII predecessor, Triple Triad, this game was going to ruin me.
Queen's Blood is a little difficult to summarize succinctly, but I'll do my best. It's a game where you and your opponent place cards on a 6 x 3 grid of tiles. Each card has a point value and a pictogram that tells you which tiles on the board the card affects relative to its position.
For example, based on the image shown above, the Levrikon card affects tiles directly to the right of the card and directly below it, while the Security Officer affects tiles in each cardinal direction around the card. But what exactly does “affect” mean?
Each card has a cost represented as pawns, and you need at least one pawn on a tile to place a card there. Placing a Levikon next to an empty token adds a pawn there, allowing you to play a one-cost card on the new space. Or placing a Levrikon next to a tile that already has a pawn will add another pawn, allowing a two-cost card to be placed there.
Follow me so far? Here's an example of a match to better illustrate Queen's Blood in action.
Even the music is a hit.
The cards you place on the board can open up new spaces for you to play more cards, increase the ability to play higher value cards, enhance or weaken cards already on a tile, or take control of a tile controlled by your opponent.
Finally, each card is worth a certain amount of points that are added to each row of the game board. Whoever has the greatest number of consecutive points has those points added to their final score and the person with the greatest number of points wins.
Wow, that was a lot. I was also intimidated at first, but after a few tutorial games, it became a little easier to learn.
And then I didn't let him.
What I loved about Queen's Blood is how the game slowly expands the strategic options for the player by introducing more cards with interesting abilities. Beyond the basic ability to open up where you can play cards, there are cards that can weaken others, reducing their point value or destroying them outright; There are cards that will fill empty spaces, overwhelming your opponent or taking away a strategic token from you; and then there are cards that are little more than bombs that don't do anything special except “it's big and worth a lot of points.”
Playing Queen's Blood reflected my journey of learning and improving in Magic: The Gathering. As I accumulated new cards, simple brute force victory was not enough to satisfy me. I didn't just need to win anymore. I also needed my decks to deny my opponent the ability to even play: a blue mana strategy. Magic the players are deeply familiar.
Another wonderful thing about Queen's Blood is how the gameplay is intertwined with the story. In previous Final Fantasy In games, minigames are often ancillary content, and to be clear, Queen's Blood is too; It's not mandatory, if that's what you like. But as you build your Queen's Blood rank, the opponents you encounter offer an interesting level of depth to RenaissanceThe general story.
There is an optional Queen's Blood tournament you can participate in, allowing you to play against members of your party or characters you met in Redo, who will comment on Cloud's journey so far. At the end of the game, there is a very interesting opponent whose mere existence changed the way I perceived one of the driving forces of the game's plot.
Queen's Blood feels like the spiritual successor to Triple Triad, Final Fantasy VIIIcollectible card minigame that was so lovedSquare Enix put it Final Fantasy XIV while thousands of people endure terrible criticism Final Fantasy Portal app just to play. It is, without exception, the best card game. Final Fantasy has ever done, and Queen's Blood feels like the long-awaited and long-awaited next step in the evolution of Triple Triad.
Please Square, put this game on mobile so I can play against my friends.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth launches on February 29 on PlayStation 5.
