Final Fantasy Trading Card Game (Opus)

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

The game was originally released exclusively in Japan from 2011 to 2015, a period known as the Chapter series. This period produced 1898 unique cards for players to collect. Square Enix introduced the game to North American and European audiences in 2016 with the release of the Opus Series. The first set in this series features 216 unique cards to collect. Although the two systems are similar, the cards are not interchangeable between series.

The Opus sets of The Final Fantasy Trading Card Game were designed for North American and European players. Starting with Opus 1, the new set changed the abilities and power of various cards to make the new set distinct from the original Chapter series.

Players have the option of building their collection via booster packs or pre-built starter decks. Each booster pack contains 12 cards with one foil card. There are over 15 starter decks for collectors to hunt for, each offering unique themes for players to try out.

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.