Sacred is a one-of-a-kind Triple Triad card in Final Fantasy VIII used to play the minigame and for turning into items with Quezacotl's Card Mod. Sacred is the eighty-seventh card in the inventory and the tenth Level 8 card. It depicts Sacred, one half of the Brothers Guardian Force recruited from the Tomb of the Unknown King. The card is also part of the Queen of Cards sidequest.
As a Level 8 GF card, Sacred has good values with two 9s. It is a great card to place in a corner, as NPC card players can almost never beat a 9 without special rules. Its value placements may also be useful for games that use Same and/or Plus. The Brothers' cards are likely to be the player's first double-9 corner cards and thus see a lot of play. Sacred is an earth-elemental card, which comes into effect with the Elemental rule in play. Elemental is encountered halfway through the game at Fishermans Horizon, though it is also a rule in Dollet and the Queen of Cards can be paid money to introduce new rules to a region. Placing Sacred on a tile with the matching stone symbol boosts its values by +1. The increased values do not count toward Same/Plus triggering, but do count toward Combo mechanics.
Obtain[]
The card drops from Minotaur, who is fought at the end of the Tomb of the Unknown King optional dungeon. The earliest the player can do this is after they can leave Deling City; it is mandatory to visit the tomb to find an ID card to progress the story into General Caraway's manor, but going in deeper than the entrance and fighting Sacred and Minotaur to obtain their GF is optional.
It is best to do the Tomb of the Unknown King as soon as it is available to get the new GF as well as the Brothers' cards, as Sacred is also the second card the Queen of Cards requests for her sidequest; after gaining MiniMog and traveling to Dollet to have her father make a new card, she requests Sacred next. Losing the card to her, and having her in Dollet again, has her father make the Irvine card that can be won off Flo in Fishermans Horizon. After the queen has said that the new card is out in the world somewhere, the player can win Sacred back from the queen's son, the kid in the artist's atelier across the street from the Dollet pub.
The earliest the player can do the Sacred part of the Queen of Cards sidequest is to lose the MiniMog to the queen in Balamb Town, and reset the game until she goes to Dollet. After leaving Timber for the first time, instead of going to the Galbadia Garden, the player can head for Dollet and the queen's father will have made the Kiros card to be won from a man in Deling City. After doing the Tomb of the Unknown King sidequest, the player can go back to Dollet rather than continuing the story, and lose the Sacred card to the queen (which prompts her to leave town again) and the Irvine card will now appear in Flo's hand in FH. However, Dollet has Random as a default rule, so this can be hard without abolishing Random first. The player can then get the Sacred card back from the queen's son.
If the player completed the Card Club quest before the point of no return (fighting the boss atop the Lunatic Pandora), the club members will appear aboard the Ragnarok in the endgame, from whom the player can win all Level 8–10 cards they do not currently hold in their deck, even the cards they had modified before. This allows the player to modify the Sacred card and then win it back.
Card Mod[]
The Sacred card refines into 100 Dino Bones, used for raising compatibility with Brothers and needed for some weapon modifications, and which can be made into Quake spells. Modding the card lets the player to easily max out on Quake for every party member, but there are other ways to get the bones, and Sacred is a useful card to have for playing Triple Triad with its powerful combination of two 9s. It is also best to not mod it because it is used for the Queen of Cards sidequest.
Physical version[]
In 1999, following the release of Final Fantasy VIII in Japan, Bandai produced a full set of collectible Triple Triad cards in Final Fantasy VIII Carddass Masters Perfect Visuals. The set was made up of the 110 cards as seen in the game along with 72 artwork cards and a collector's edition playing mat. The cards have a blue side and a red side. The cards have become a rare collector's item.