Final Fantasy VIII

Queen of Cards Quest

OK. I’ve finally decided to update this to include the instructions for defeating the in the Quest. This quest is actually easy to figure out, but hard to accomplish. You’d better be REALLY good at the game. Here are the directions as well as a few bits and pieces to help you out. Lose a or better (lvl 8+) card to her in various towns until she gets to dollet. Then you’ll have to start losing specific cards. Just lose a specific card to her, then head to dollet and win the card back from the little boy at the artists shop. Throughout the time you are playing her, she’ll get bored and head to another area. Consult my “Where is she going…?” table to figure out where to find her after each battle. If the queen asks for a card you do not have, consult my “Where can I get a…?” table.

Pro-Tip: Change her Destination

Always save before you play against her. That way if she gets bored and goes someplace you don’t want to (or can’t) follow her, you can reload and play her again. For example, I like to save before playing her in Dollet, and just keep reloading and playing again until she heads to Balamb. In Balamb, I do the same, and try to drive her back to Dollet. It’s a lot less annoying than trying to run around in, say, the Galbadian Deling City for hours on end while you get lost or whatever. YMMV. Also, if you WIN a nice card from her (i.e., one you’ve lost before) you can also make her get bored and move around.

Dollet Pub Owner:

Once you get to Dollet, you can play against the owner of the pub to get access to his back room. When you do, you can play against him, learn a bit about his family, and rifle through his magazines. Most importantly, you can get the magazine here. There are three stacks of magazines here. The one closest to where you first appear on screen is the best one. It has three items hidden inside that you can find. Just keep searching. Once you find them, you can leave the screen and come back, and they will be magically restocked. Eventually, if you keep doing this, you’ll find the magazine. This one hints at the fact that there is a connection between the and Malboros.

You can start as early as the first time you set foot outside of Balamb garden - she’s in the town. I opted to lose my mini-mog card immediately. That’s not a very useful card, anyway.

If you follow my guide and decide to get good at the game early on (i.e., before leaving Balamb for Timber), you can start this side quest pretty early in the game. Since that’s my preferred strategy, I just card-talk to her until she uses Trading Rule All or Diff, and then play with 4 Fastitocalon-F cards and . That causes her to travel to either Dollet or Deling City in Galbadia. Dollet is best, because you can get there sooner in the game, and you’ll have to talk to her father about good cards anyway (see below). NOTE: If you have already left Balamb for Timber, you can find the in Balamb after Galbadia has occupied the town (not during the occupation, though).
Once you’ve lost mini-mog, you can hit up Dollet after the TV-Station assault. Head to the pub, and go upstairs. You should find the there. Talk to her about her Artist Father, and she’ll tell you that he paints some of the cards. Because you lost , he’s created a Kiros Card, which is in Deling City. She’ll also tell you she gave the MiniMog card to her daughter. (Before playing any card games in Dollet, see the note below.) Save at the save point in the room here, then challenge the owner (on the left) to a game of cards. He’s good, but you can beat him. Once you do, he’ll let you into the back room, where you can search his magazines and play card games against him. He’ll play with the Siren card from time to time. When you’ve got that, head downstairs, out the door, and down one screen from the entrance to the bar. Follow the kid into the house at the lower-right of the screen. This is the kid you can win your MiniMog card back from.
NOTE: If you played cards while you were in Timber and/or Galbadia Garden… Any time you return to Dollet after playing in another region, there’s a way to abolish the in Dollet based on knowing a bit about the random number generator used by this game and the Playstation (or emulator). Try this: Go to the Hotel on the fountain screen and save your game. Then hard reset the console (not the reset you can do by mashing a bunch of buttons on the controller - actually reset the console. When it comes back on-line, continue from this save point. Now leave the hotel and immediately go back inside and card-talk to the bell girl (in green). Decline to play. Card talk again, and again decline to play. Finally card talk a third time, this time say OK, but choose quit from the next screen. You should see the phrase “Random was abolished from this region” appear. It shouldn’t matter if the “you know rules we don’t use here” dialog shows up. Note that there is also a possibility that you may instead spread the to this location, if it’s not already here. If that happens, head back to Timber, Card Talk the guard at the entrance to town until he offers to play a game without mixing in Other Rules (be careful NOT to play one using Dollet’s rules and Timber’s rules, or you’ll spread Random to Dollet as well). Accept his offer, then just quit on the next screen. You probably won’t see any messages, but you can repeat the save/reset/reload steps above back in Dollet to abolish the .
After you have acquired the Sacred card from defeating the , return to Dollet before going back to Deling City. Head upstairs in the pub and use the save point (you may need to enable to see it at the top of the stairs.) After saving, card talk to her and play a game with your Sacred card and a bunch of useless cards. Lose the Sacred card and talk to her again. If she tells you she’s going to Balamb, reset and load that save game. You want her to say she’s heading to Galbadia. Go back to the artist studio and win the Sacred card back from her son.
When you are able to get to Fisherman’s Horizon (FH), you’ll have the opportunity to win the Irvine card from Mayor Dobe’s wife. When you have control of the Garden, point it to Galbadia and head to the Galbadia Hotel. Card Talk to the queen and lose the Irvine card. I couldn’t get her to commit to going anywhere other than Balamb at this point, FWIW. Since you basically have to go to Balamb after FH, it’s not that big a deal, but be aware she won’t appear while the town is under Galbadian control. If you can get her to go to Dollet, you’re home free. If not, just find her in Balamb (or wherever else she ends up), save, lose a card like , and reload unless she says she’s going to Dollet.
When she’s in Dollet, talk to her about her artist father and she’ll tell you she’s looking for a Chicobo card. If she tells you she gave the Irvine card you lost to her to her son, head out of the bar and down one screen to the art studio where win it back. Otherwise, just keep playing her until she uses it. Remember, if you lose or win a rare card, she’ll get bored and head somewhere else. Make a note of where she says she’s heading. Especially if you lost another rare card to her in order to get her to head to Dollet (cough cough). FWIW, I wouldn’t normally try to win my card back at this point, but I actually use the Irvine card while I’m playing because it’s better than the Sacred card. I know some guides tell you to card battle her son at this point, but I couldn’t get him to play with any cards unless she explicitly said she gave said card to him.
After completing the Chicobo Card side quest (see the Side Quests section of this guide), follow her and lose that card. After several reload/rematch attempts, I got her to head to Dollet after I lost the Chicobo Card. Talking to her about her Artist father she said she gave the Chicobo Card to her son, and that her father was able to make a Fat Chocobo card which is somewhere in Balamb Garden. I got back my , and also got the Chicobo from her son. (I sent her off to Balamb when I won the back from her, but that seems OK to me.)
Now that we know where it is, head to the screen with the Directory in Balamb Garden. Just right from there is a bench next to a trash can - just left and down from the library walkway. There’s a guy that randomly sits on this bench. Leave and return until he’s there and win the Fat Chocobo card from him.
On Disc 3 when you are visiting the Lunar Base, you can win the Alexander card from Piet (the first guy in the white coat you see. I was able to abolish the by exploiting the PRNG (Pseudo-Random Number Generator). If you missed it on the Disc 3 section of the walkthrough, here is the process: Hard Reset the game console (don’t use L1,R1,Start,Select). Continue that game and do the following card challenges against the guy on the right: Challenge and say no [1] time. Challenge and say Yes, then Quit without playing [1] time. Challenge and say no [11] times. Challenge and say Yes, then Quit without playing [4] times.
When you have the Alexander card, lose it to the Queen, then go talk to her in Dollet (lose another card to her if you must in order to drive her back to Dollet. She’ll tell you she gave the Alexander card to her son here in town and that her father made a Doomtrain card that’s somewhere in Timber. Head out of the pub and down one screen and into the art studio to win your Alexander card from her son.
At this point I have enough great cards that I usually go challenge Martine in FH (you can park the Ragnarok there) and win back the Ifrit card that Rinoa’s father gave him. After that, head to Timber and challenge the pub owner to win the Doomtrain card (he’s the guy in the back right that is really into cards.) Just FYI you may have to challenge him MANY times. If you’re on an emulator, consider a quick-save when you’re on the Rules screen. That way you can quick reload to that screen if he’s not playing with , then press down twice and quick save again (to reset the PRNG.) FYI: On one play through it took me about 25-30 times before he played with .
Now that you have , go lose it to the . She was in Dollet for me, so I lost it and immediately went and won it back from her son. Her father makes a Phoenix card, which ends up in the hand of the Presidential Aide in Esthar’s Presidential Palace - in the room where you were first taken and left Rinoa in the (creepy?) hands of Odine.

Congratulations; you have completed the Queen of Cards side quest and obtained the rare GF cards!

Where is she going...?
Destination	Reality
Galbadia	Galbadia Hotel (It's in Deling City, actually)
Centra	Winhill (The hotel, I think)
Dollet	Dollet (Yeah, she actually goes there. Hit the pub).
FH (Fisherman's Horizon)	Fisherman's Horizon - near the save point where you can see the Mayor's house; one screen left from the inn.
Trabia	Shumi Village (Northernmost island - go up from Balamb Island. Visit the Hotel.)
Far Away	Lunar Gate
Esthar	The presidential palace in Esthar.

Where can I get a...?
Card	Location
MiniMog	Kid running laps around the 1st floor of Garden
Kiros	(Only after losing MiniMog to the Queen of Cards) - Guy in black across from weapon store in Deling City (Galbadia)
Sacred	Fight the Brothers in the Tomb of the Unknown King
Irvine	(Only after losing Sacred to the Queen of Cards) - Mayor Dobe's wife in FH
Chicobo	Finish the Chicobo Side Quest (See Side Quests section)
Chubby Chocobo	(Only after losing Chicobo to QoC) - Guy on Bench opposite library walkway in Balamb Garden
Alexander	Win from Piet on Lunar Base (see above for how to remove the Random rule from that region.)
Doomtrain	(Only after losing Alexander to QoC) - Talk to QoC in Dollet to learn location. Timber Pub Owner
Phoenix	(Only after losing Doomtrain to QoC) - Talk to QoC in Dollet to learn location. Esthar Presidential Palace - Presidential Aide