The Final Fantasy franchise has been a pretty big interest for me since I was young. The first Final Fantasy I played was Final Fantasy 8 when I was 9 years old. It was my first real exposure to Japanese culture, game design, and philosophy and could be regarded as the seed that first got me interested in Pokemon games and then ultimately the TCG later on. The Final Fantasy TCG has some amazing original artwork printed on the cards, and I still regard them as having the best card stock out of any TCG ever printed, but my interest in those cards was ultimately fleeting and I only stuck around to collect them for the first 4 sets that were released.
In the Final Fantasy 8 game there is a card game that you play against NPCs called āTriple Triadā. The cards in the game feature monsters that you fight, creatures that you summon(guardian forces), and character cards of the main characters. The main character and GF cards only have a singular copy in the game and you have to defeat certain NPCs at the card game to obtain them. Triple Triad was immensely popular with fans of the game and itās a favourite of amongst fans.
The board and cards look like this:
I first discovered that there was a real life printing of these cards some years ago and they quickly became a non-Pokemon grail for me because of their emotional and sentimental significance. At the time I researched their rarity, distribution, and availability and whilst they had decent availability out in the wilds of eBay and Yahoo Japan. It was incredibly difficult to find a complete Mint condition set, and when I did it was at an astronomical price because of how tough it was to find like that. The dream of getting this set of cards was put on the back burner indefinitely because I simply did not have the funds or access to be able to buy a Mint set, or collect a set with singles and lots over time.
Fast forward to 2020 and I found myself looking outside of the Pokemon TCG once again to scratch the itch of discovery with new trading and collectible cards. My mind wandered to Final Fantasy again and I discovered a series of cards called āFinal Fantasy Art Museumā which are a series of collectible cards printed that have original artworks and in-game screenshots from all the Final Fantasy games. Since I discovered this set I have been slowly buying singles/lots when I have had the chance, and even snagging some booster boxes that I happened to stumble upon at a card shop in USA:
Whilst searching for these Final Fantasy Art Museum cards I remembered about the Triple Triad cards I had seen years ago, and investigated their availability now and what prices were like. Prices had gone up quite a bit but I was now in a better position financially to be able to comfortable afford them. I do not have high-res photos of all of the cards in the set (110) but I took some photos of the chase cards from the set that feature the characters and the āLVL 9ā Guardian Force cards.
Thanks for reading my sentimental drivel. Have a nice day.
Dude I am so stoked on this. Best video game franchise of all time for me is FF. Played 7, 8, 9, 12, but X is my favorite from a writing/storytelling perspective. But 8 always will have that special place in me for being the most comforting, get lost in the world, one. Love seeing another Final Fantasy fan on here man. Those cards are SWEET. Didnāt even know they existed, but Iām sure pleased to see they do.
Tonberry and Cactuar. Good times man. Mega Tonberry for added nightmares.
Iām coming to this thread way late, @milhouse. But I wanted to ask you if youāve ever seen the Final Fantasy Art Museum poster that has small pictures of all of the cards? The kid who managed my toy store had one hanging on the wall behind the counter. The distributors used to give us so many cool promo items to put on display.
I have seen it come up for auction on Yahoo Japan twice since I started collecting them. Never really looked into buying one but itās certainly a cool piece that I may go for if I ever complete the Art Museum sets I want to complete.
There seems to be a tonne of little promotional things that are associated with Art Museum and I seem to come across new things relatively frequently. There are inserts that show special promotional toys you could buy related to AM as well that came in every pack. Iād love to get my hands on them.
The Vivi Ornitier items predate the Art Museum release (and the Square-Enix merger). Inside the frame that he is holding is prepaid telephone card.
Square also produced a Chocobo āSantaā figurine in a limite-edition, numbered series. We bought a dozen of them from the wholesaler ā and one of them had the serial number 1225 (or December 25, if you will). I kept that one for myself
I was going to make a thread on Triple Triad cards, but found this one instead!
Iāve had my full set for about 14 years now - definitely one of my collection grails. I think I spent more time playing TT than I did the rest of FF8, haha. Is there much of a market for grading them? Iāve never really thought about that.
There was a set produced for FFIX too, but I donāt have as much as a connection to that game, and from what I remember the cards are nowhere near as desirable. Think my set of those is from a German edition.
Iāve also made sure to pick up a booster pack of each of the āOpusā series of cards. Think weāre up to series 14 now.
FF8 is my favourite FF game. Interesting story plot abeit bit flawed (I was once a supporter of Rinoa = Ultimecia theory, haha) but anyway I liked the characters and I had spent hundreds and hundreds of hours playing the Triple Triad mini-game. So much fun.
Thanks for reminding me to collect these cards again, Milhouse. Iāve completely forgottenā¦
Woah these are such solid cards, congrats on picking them up! I recently picked up Chelinka, road to world championship and a booster box of Opus XV so Iām definitely trying to diversify my collection with FFTCG. Will definitely check these out, thanks for sharing!!
Very nice! Final Fantasy games are definitely my favorite too. Didnāt get into the triple triad card game, but I do have a lot of cards from the japanese chapter series.
