Competition makes the mini games a bit more interesting.
Some of you maybe glad to know it’s not all mini games. Now and then you’ll have to battle it out in “Popup Duels” with the enemy by summoning creatures using cards. Just like Yu-gi-oh, you have to manage your own decks but before that, you have to get yourself some deck cases first. Once that’s done, you can choose which deck to use before battles and they’ll appear on the touch screen. You can then hold your stylus down on the card you want to use and slide it upwards as if you were going to throw the card into the top screen. Much more fun than just tapping to select! Battles are turn based but instead of basing the order of turns on stats, it all depends on who throws their card into the arena first. The one who does so gains the opportunity to attack first before the enemy does.

For each turn, three cards are randomly selected from your deck. Every card is differently coloured to indicate what element of crystal they’ll generate for you for that turn. For example, blue coloured cards add water Crystal Points to your meter. These crystals are required to execute special attacks that some of the summon cards require.


Rock, Paper and Scissors… Well, maybe a little more than that.
Cards also have four circles on them, one on each edge around the sides that are either empty or have a sword or shield icon in them. When you summon a creature, the position and content of these circles determine if you successfully attack the enemy or fend off their attack. For example, if your sword icon is in the top circle and the enemy’s card just happened to have a shield in the top circle of his card, he manages to block off your attack and vice-versa. On the other hand, if it was empty, you inflict full damage to him. It’s a bit like playing rock, paper and scissors really. Once you have a deck with a minimum of 15 cards, you can duel with other friends via Wi-Fi.

Since it’s a Square-Enix game, I doubt I have to tell you the graphics are simply beautifully done. The 3D character models don’t have facial expressions but they do look a lot more detailed than the chibi super deformed FFIII remake characters. The magic picture books and battles themselves are presented with pop-up backgrounds and flat paper models rendered in a crayon-like appearance much like that of the backgrounds in Yoshi’s Island. Considering how the summons are done within the picture books, I think it was a good move. All the familiar Final Fantasy enemies and summons are there including Iron Giant, Sabotenders, Tonberries and Shiva.


Ah yes, popup picture books Everyone loved those at one time!
It looks great when you first enter a battle and watch everything fold out from the book! I’m sure the picture books will remind you of the days when you were in nursery and lit up with joy when you first saw pop-up books. However, it only looks good the first few times. Once you replay mini games you will probably want to skip the animation but since you can’t, there’s a few seconds of unnecessary delay in addition to the three second countdown.