I am the Queen of Cards. I travel all over the world to monitor and enforce the various card rules.
Queen of Cards
The Queen of Cards is a non-playable character in Final Fantasy VIII. A master of Triple Triad, she controls regional rules and is part of a sidequest to obtain rare cards. Her real name is unknown.
Her father works as a painter of new Triple Triad cards in Dollet. Although first found idling near the train station in Balamb, the Queen is on the move, traveling from town to town in search of challenging opponents. Her card skills are so respected that any new rule she adopts soon spreads among the populace wherever she is playing.
Profile[]
Appearance[]
The Queen of Cards has brunette hair and blue eyes, and a blue jewel adornment over her forehead. She wears a floor-length white dress with a loose red bolero shirt with gold and green trims over it.
The Queen shares her character model with the actress from Laguna's dream sequence who plays the role of a sorceress, while Laguna plays her knight, Zefer.
Personality[]
The Queen positions herself in areas high in foot traffic, but doesn't approach aspirant card fanatics—they approach her. Whenever the Queen speaks she gestures broadly, and is never seen walking. She exudes an aura of refinement, but the person behind the "queen" persona is enigmatic; not even her real name is known. Though she has a son, she doesn't spend much time in her home town where he is being cared for by the Queen's father. However, it seems she wants to engage her family in the art of Triple Triad as well, her father being a card designer and the Queen gifting the rare cards she is after to her son.
Gameplay[]
Card rule manipulation[]
The Queen offers to pass on a new rule to a region for the price of 30,000 gil. She will also offer to combine rules, like any other Triple Triad player.
Getting the Queen of Cards to the Lunar Gate can make abolishing a specific rule there easier before going to the Lunar Base, which has two rare cards but tough default rules. The party can't introduce any new rules to the region, but a rule there will be abolished after a few games; if the abolished rule was not the desired one, the party can then pay the queen 30,000 gil to get it back and play her again, and a rule will be abolished again after a few games. Often the player has excess money as salary is paid at regular intervals and weapons and items are fairly cheap. The player can also farm money.
The Queen of Cards is the only one who can influence the trading rules. Each time she is played, one of the four trading rules (One, Diff, Direct, or All) is selected and the most recent trading rule used in a game with her may spread. It is not necessary to play her, as simply challenging her and then quitting at the rule screen works. Every time the player challenges someone there's a chance of a random region's rule becoming One, so these changes are not permanent.
Playing anyone in a region where the Queen is has a chance of asserting her rule. For example, if the Queen is in Balamb, last selected Direct, and the rule degraded to Diff or One, playing again in Balamb will eventually reassert Direct there. Additionally, playing in a region has a chance to spread that region's rule to one other region, so playing in Balamb will have a chance of spreading Direct to Galbadia, or Fishermans Horizon, etc.
This allows for somewhat sophisticated rule manipulation. The player can challenge the Queen of Cards, accept a game with All, then purposely lose a rare card to send her to another region, say Galbadia. If she goes to the desired region the player will be able to spread All to anyone who plays with Galbadian rules. Opponents do not have to be physically in the region with the Queen, they just have to play with that region's rules. In this manner, one can set rules for regions before even arriving there.
The Queen's region cannot be changed in the end of the game (she is always at the crash site), and her personal trade rule cannot be changed either. Her region and trade rule for rule change purposes will be whichever ones she had at the point of no return.
Locations[]
Whenever the player wins or loses a rare card to the Queen of Cards, she will travel to a new region. Paying 30,000 gil to her prompts her to spread a new rule to the current region.
These regions are:
- Balamb Town - outside the train station.
- Dollet - Dollet Pub.
- Galbadia - Deling City Hotel.
- Fishermans Horizon - by the save point.
- Trabia - Shumi Village Inn.
- Centra - Winhill Hotel.
- Esthar - Esthar City Presidential Palace.
- "Far Away" - Lunar Gate.
If she is in Balamb she will move to Dollet (37.5% chance) or Deling City (62.5%).
- Deling City → Balamb (12.5%), Dollet (12.5%), Winhill (12.5%), FH (62.5%).
- Dollet → Balamb (37.5%), Deling City (62.5%).
- Shumi Village → Balamb (25%), Dollet (50%), Lunar Gate (25%).
- Winhill → Deling City (37.5%), Dollet (37.5%), FH (25%).
- FH → Dollet (12.5%), Winhill (25%), Esthar (62.5%).
- Esthar → Dollet (12.5%), Shumi Village (25%), FH (12.5%), Lunar Gate (50%).
- Lunar Gate → Random area, plus she gives no hint.
The card quest[]
My father is a painter here. Some of the cards are his work. Even now, he paints them.
The Queen in Dollet
Although the Queen carries no rare cards herself, her father, the card painter, does. If the player is willing to lose certain coveted cards to the Queen her father will be inspired to create a new one-of-a-kind card. To begin the sidequest the player must first get the Queen to move to Dollet. The Queen will change locations each time the number of the rare cards she holds changes; the player must either lose a rare card to her, or win one back from her. If playing with the trade rule Direct, winning a rare card from her while simultaneously losing another rare card to her, means she will not move.
Once the Queen is in Dollet's pub the player will be given a new option to ask about her artist father, and she will mention the card she needs to further the quest. If the player already lost the card(s) she needs prior, she will mention that her father has created new cards and that she gave the specific cards to her son, found in a house opposite the pub (he is the little boy who keeps placing a bone in the artist's painting). The new cards created by the card painter are distributed to the public and must be won from certain people.
Lose | Gain | Receive card at | Image |
---|---|---|---|
MiniMog |
Kiros |
Deling City, held by a man in black on the shopping arcade. | |
Sacred |
Irvine |
Fishermans Horizon, held by Flo. | |
Chicobo |
Chubby Chocobo |
Balamb Garden, held by the cadet sitting outside the library. | |
Alexander |
Doomtrain |
Timber, held by the pub owner. | |
Doomtrain |
Phoenix |
Esthar City, held by the President's Aide. |
Defeating Seifer at the Lunatic Pandora is the point of no return, ending the card quest regardless as to whether the player participated.
Strategy[]
The Queen of Cards quest is considerably easier if the player can make her move only between Balamb and Dollet. This way they won't have to chase her around the world. If she goes somewhere else the player can reset the game and try again.
The easiest and fastest way to complete the quest is:
- Lose MiniMog, Sacred, Chicobo and Alexander cards in Balamb on trade rule "All" or "Diff".
- Ensure she travels to Dollet.
- Abolish the "Random" rule in Dollet.
- Win Doomtrain's card in Timber pub.
- Lose it to the Queen in Dollet on trade rule "One".
If the player doesn't want to bother with abolishing Random in Dollet, as accomplishing it can be tedious, they can lose another random rare card to her to make her go back to Balamb, and then lose Doomtrain to her there and have her return to Dollet, and then play her one more time there to win back the random rare card.
The Queen at the crash site[]
In the end of the game, the Queen takes up permanent residence on the Estharian continent, just outside the southern border of the city barrier. She is found on the escape pod's crash site, which isn't visible on the map, but the party can enter it by stepping on the right spot.
All the special cards from her quest that are not currently in the player's inventory are "shuffled" into her deck. The player can challenge her to win them if they have missed or modified them, but she will play them only once (i.e. if the player then loses or modifies the cards, she will not play them again). The Queen uses all region rules at random.
The left girl of the CC Diamond pair on board the Ragnarok also plays the rare cards from Queen's sidequest if the player completed the Card Club sidequest before the point of no return.
Gallery[]
Etymology[]
Queen" is one of the cards in a suit of a traditional set of playing cards (called trumps in Japan).
The "She is named Ishtar in the French version. Ishtar is the East Semitic Akkadian, Assyrian and Babylonian goddess of fertility, love, war, and sex.