A Final Fantasy 9 Remake Might Have Its Own Answer to FF7 Rebirth’s Queen’s Blood

Mini-games have grown increasingly popular in modern gaming, with Final Fantas7: Rebirth‘s Queen’s Blood card game now topping the charts as one of the best. It’s far from the first game to include a noteworthy mini-game, as The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt introduced players to Gwent, another satisfying card game in which players can challenge various NPCs countless times throughout the main story. However, Queen’s Blood has nonetheless set new expectations for mini-games, simultaneously calling modern video games to a clear standard when it comes to their optional activities. Now, with rumors of a Final Fantasy 9 remake beginning to surface, it may already have a worthy contender for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth‘s Queen’s Blood.

The original Final Fantasy 9 introduced the Tetra Master mini-game, which — apart from its tutorial tournament quest — wasn’t required for any main story progress and instead allowed players a brief reprieve from the game’s more demanding activities. Unlike more modern mini-games, Tetra Master has a fairly steep learning curve, so if it were reintroduced and reworked in a Final Fantasy 9 remake, it could be even better. In this way, it could potentially be the next Queen’s Blood and carry on the hype that Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth‘s best mini-game started.

A Final Fantasy 9 Remake’s Answer to Queen’s Blood Could Be a Modern Tetra Master

How Tetra Master Works in Final Fantasy 9

Tetra Master is a highly complex card game, much more so than The Witcher 3‘s Gwent or Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth‘s Queen’s Blood. There are plenty of rules and mechanics to stay aware of, so mastering it is quite the feat. Even so, it can be very fun once players get the hang of it, and very rewarding, both from a personal experience standpoint and an in-game reward standpoint. The goal of Tetra Master is for one player to control more cards than their opponent by the time all cards have been played, but that is easier said than done.

Tetra Master is played on a 4×4 grid where each player can take turns placing a card in a square. Once a card is placed in a square, that player controls it. However, a player’s card can be captured by their opponent if the opponent’s card has an arrow directed at the other player’s card. If both cards have arrows pointing at one another, then a card battle ensues in which the outcome is determined by the numbers and letters on each card. When a card attacks, its attack power is randomly chosen within a specific number range, and the same thing happens when a card defends. To top it all off, certain squares are randomly blocked off throughout the match, so players have to choose their next move wisely.

A New and Improved Tetra Master in a Final Fantasy 9 Remake Could Scratch That Queen’s Blood Itch

It may not be enough to modernize Tetra Master by simply improving its visuals and animations in a Final Fantasy 9 remake. Instead, it might be better off updating its mechanics as well. For example, in the end, it doesn’t really matter how strong a card is because there is still a chance that it will roll low and lose to a much weaker card. It’s safe to say that RNG to this degree would frustrate plenty of modern gamers, so it might be worth tweaking the rules a bit to lean more toward strategy than chance.

If the rumors of a Final Fantasy 9 remake end up being true, it would make sense to include Tetra Master as a mini-game. After the massive popularity of Queen’s Blood in Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, featuring another great pastime in the next Final Fantasy remake seems like a given. However, it should update Tetra Master’s mechanics to better suit modern audiences.

Final Fantasy 9

Final Fantasy 9 is the ninth installment in the mainline series and follows Zidane and Garnet as they travel through a fantasy world and attempt to stop a sinister force from destroying all life.

Released

July 7, 2000

Genre(s)

JRPG

ESRB

T for Teen: Violence, Mild Language

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