Final Fantasy Trading Card Game (Chapters)

The Final Fantasy Trading Card Game was developed by Square Enix in 2011. This project aimed to allow audiences to experience a trading card game (TCG) featuring iconic Final Fantasy characters. Fans can collect and build decks featuring their favorite characters and battle their friends for supremacy.

The game was initially released exclusively in Japan from 2011 to 2015, a period known as the Chapter series. Starting February 25th, 2011, players could purchase two entry decks for the series. Each set contained 50 cards that were themed as white or black decks. Players could supplement these decks by purchasing eight-card booster packs.

The Chapter series features standard and premium cards for players to collect. The series consisted of 1,898 cards. Players would need to hunt through the five rarities of cards to find what they were looking for. These consisted of Common, Uncommon, Rare, Special Rare, and Premium.

Chapter II was released on May 27, 2011. This set featured new boosters and added the Earth and Lightening entry decks. Chapter III was released on August 31, 2011. This set added the Fire and Ice entry set.

Before its cancelation in 2015, the Chapter Series amassed 1098 unique cards across 15 total sets.

Gameplay

The goal of each game is to defeat your opponent by placing seven cards in the opponent's damage zone. Each turn, players can choose to spend their Crystal Points (CP) to play cards from their hand. Crystal Points can be obtained by Dulling a card. This is done by turning a card sideways, which provides one Crystal Point corresponding with that card element.

The other option is to discard a card from your hand. This action provides two CP points of the corresponding element. Playing a card requires that a player pays at least one corresponding element for each card. The remaining cost can be paid with any available elements. However, Light and Dark cards do not have an element requirement. As such, they cannot be discarded for CP.

Combat in the game happens via attacking and blocking. A player attacks using their Forwards. This gives their opponent the option to defend with their own Forward or allow the attack to go through. If two Forwards enter combat, the weakest one is destroyed and sent to the Break Zone. If the attack is unblocked, it deals one damage to the opposing player. If a player takes damage, they must discard the equivalent number of cards into the damage zone.

Each turn plays out in Stacks, which means that cards are registered in the order they are played. Whenever a player plays a card or ability, they must first announce the card and the target. This gives their opponent an opportunity to respond to the card before it enters the battlefield. Character cards can only be played if there are no other cards in the stack.