Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth: How to play Queen's Blood

When I got to try out Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth a ways back I encountered all sorts of things I couldn't wait to have people ask me about. Story beats, crazy enemies, those swimsuits, all sorts of things. What I wasn't ready for, however, was how every single person I knew who was playing the game was going to hit me up for an explanation on how to play Queen's Blood.

You know what? It's alright. Daddy's got you.

I'm gonna try to write it out but if you want, I also filmed a video of me explaining it with visual aids that might help as well if you don't mind the fact that I currently look like a homeless wizard. It's your call.

So, when you get into a match there's a 3 by 5 grid. You'll notice that you got a column of blue pawns (yours) on the left and a column of red pawns (foe) on the other.

You're also going to have to look at your cards. We'll explain those first. Here's an example of my current deck. I'm not saying it's perfect but also I don't know what the screen looks like when you lose so...you know.

So we're going to need to understand the cards before we understand the board. There's three components to the card that we need to focus on, and we'll use our friend Dio here as an example because he just wants to help.

On the top left you'll see the amount of pawns it costs to use. In Dio's case, he has three pawns which means that you have to have three blue pawns on a space before you can put him there.

On the top right you'll see the number 4. That's how many points he's worth. Which seems small for a three pawn until you read the next part.

On the bottom left you'll see a sparkle. That means the card in question has a special ability. Reading it will tell you that, in Dio's case, for every card you have enhanced, Dio gets +1 value so if you have a lot of cards that boost each other, Dio's value is gonna skyrocket.

Now, if you'll check the grid on the card you'll see a white square surrounded by yellow squares. The white square is the card itself. The other squares are what happens in relationship to your card. Yellow squares are spots you capture and any red squares (see the Hell Rider II in my deck above) are cards that you effect as well. If it's a hollow red square, then it just effects it without capturing it.

In Dio's case, because of the yellow squares on his card, you'll see he captures the spaces above, below, and on both sides of him.

One of the best strategies for winning is to capture as many spots as possible. I like to scoot across the bottom and then up the enemy's side to wall them in. If they don't have a move, you still play until you run out of moves so if you block them you can just chill and build up points.

You can also capture other pieces as well. If you have a card that captures the space to the right of the card but there's already a red pawn in that spot, you'll switch the pawn from red to blue. While you don't get an extra pawn, it still works for you because if you happen to capture a spot with three red pawns, congrats, you have a three blue pawn spot now.

There are a lot of other strats that you can use to win like destroying cards and depowering other cards, but I'll be real, I just scoot across and capture the right side. Doing this has worked wonders for me. Case in point, check out this 64 to 0.

Speaking of scores, the other thing you need to remember is how the scoring works. At the end of the game, the scores are gathered from both sides, with a catch. Whoever is losing that row gets a zero no matter what. If you lost a row 3 to 23 you get a zero. If you lost 22 to 23...you still get a zero. Keep that in mind because the first time I played I thought I was close until I remembered how the final score was added up and it was...embarrassing.

If you keep this stuff in mind and just practice a bit, not being afraid to restart the early matches a couple times so you can experiment, you'll be a pro at this in no time.