The player finds about the card club.
The (Card Club, CC団?, lit. CC-dan), also known as CC Group, is a school-based club of skilled Triple Triad players in Final Fantasy VIII. Made up of Balamb Garden's students and staff members, the identities of the club are not publicly known, and the player must scour the Garden to find them. The club members will only acknowledge their membership once the previous member down on the rank has been defeated. Though there is no reward in particular for beating the Card Club, their members hold many rare cards.
Members and Membership
While it is unclear how actual membership into the club is handled, a challenger must challenge each member by order of card value (i.e. Jack, Club, Diamond, Spade, Heart, King). Joker, as is fitting to his card value, can be challenged any time, and is considered separate from the Card Club's hierarchy.
The members of the Card Club are as follows:
| Title | Description |
|---|---|
| Jack | Jack is the first to mention the CC Group to Squall. He is also the first member to challenge Squall once he has considerable skill in Triple Triad. He is found in the Balamb Garden main lobby. |
| Knight Club | A SeeD only interested in playing Triple Triad who says nothing except "Draw..." to challenge the player. He is randomly found outside of the dormitories along the circular walkway. |
| Princess Diamond | A pair of female students found with Jack in the main lobby, walking up to and standing in front of the directory. |
| Prince Spade | This is the guy who gave Squall his first deck of Triple Triad cards. He is found on the second floor in the hall leading to the elevator. He possesses several high level cards. |
| Queen Heart | This member is Xu. She holds many high level cards, which includes the Carbuncle card. She can be challenged on the bridge. |
| Master King | Revealed to be Quistis Trepe. She holds many high level cards, including the Gilgamesh card. She only challenges Squall randomly in his dorm room when he rests after he defeats Queen Heart. Once Squall wins the game Quistis can be challenged on the bridge. |
| Magician Joker | Holds the Leviathan card. He updates the battle meter and acts as a shopkeeper in Balamb Garden's training center and the Ragnarok spaceship. He appears randomly on a platform overlooking the water in the training center. |
Dr. Kadowaki also mentions she once served as Master King, but was defeated by an unspecified student (presumably Quistis) four years prior. She does not hold any rare cards.
Story
While not publicly known as Card Club members, the group members interact with Squall at various times. The most notorious involvement of a Card Club member in the game would be Quistis (Master King) who is involved with Squall from the beginning, but never lets on that she is a member of the club.
The first time the Card Club is mentioned is by Jack in casual conversation, but only after Squall has gained some skill with 15-20 games. After going through the members, when in search of the Master King, Dr. Kadowaki reveals she was once a club member.
During disc 4's Time Compression the Card Club members survive by boarding Ragnarok, where the group members, including Quistis, will wander the airship's halls waiting to challenge Squall with rules from around the world. Joker will also sell items and provide weapon remodeling. During this time, the Card Club members will play with all the LV9-10 rare cards the player doesn't currently have in their inventory, regardless of whether they were missed or modified into items. At this stage, it is possible to modify the rare cards into items and then win them back from the group. If, however, the player started the Queen of Cards side quest, the cards available in said side quest cannot be won from the Card Club group, but the player must find Queen of Cards on the escape pod crash-site south of Tears' Point.
Trivia
- In Japan each school has a variety of clubs ranging from the practical (sports, class-room oriented) to the mundane (anime fangroups) and traditional (tea ceremonies, origami) all created and run by the student body. As Final Fantasy VIII was designed with a school theme, this is reflected in Balamb Garden with the Trepies, the Garden Festival Committee, the Library Committee, the Balamb Garden Disciplinary Committee and the Card Club.
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