Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales/Gameplay

Chocobo Tales is mostly made up of pointing and clicking - use or  to make Chocobo move. is also used for pop-up duels as well as many mini-games and micro-games.

Pop-Up Duels
Pop-up duels are the main source of battle in Chocobo Tales. When Chocobo encounters an enemy in story mode, a pop-up duel will begin. Go to Dueler X to get help on the basics of pop-up duels. The cards you collected throughout your adventures are used in pop-up duels. Each card is special in that they each perform a special ability and have magical powers. Usually, cards go by the name of a creature and the name of the attack. Before the duel begins, you'll have to build up a deck. During the duel, three random cards will be chosen from the deck - these are called your hand. Choose one card from your hand by sliding it with towards the upper screen. Each card has four magical zones - the top one is red, the right one is green, the left one is yellow, and the bottom one is blue. On each card, a sword or a shield will be present in one or more of the zones. In whichever zone the sword or shield is in, it will attack the opponent's zone of the same color or defend from the opponent's zone of the same color. If a sword attacks an empty zone, it deals the number of damage listed on the card. If a sword attacks a shield, it deals no damage. If a sword attacks a sword, it deals half damage. Some attacks require CP (Crystal Points). Crystal points are gained during the end phase, when the card you used turns into a crystal of the color of the card. The gained crystals are displayed above the HP gauge. The maximum number of CP in the CP gauge is 10, if your CP exceeds 10, your oldest crystal will disappear. Certain abilities of cards can change the color of CP, reduce the opponent's CP, etc. Each card has special abilities. Crystal abilities are dealt based on your CP or your opponent's CP while status attacks last only until the end of the next round (status attacks include burn, freeze, numb, etc.). An icon based on the status attack can be visible next to the HP gauge until the end of the next round.

Minigames
Mini-games can be only be accessed through picture books and are necessary to play for the storyline to progress. They are represented on the map by a book icon. Once the magnifying glass is obtained, standards for getting rewards can be seen. Rewards can be chocobo cards, pop-up cards or epilogues to the story the mini-game is from. Certain mini-games have trial mode, and battle mode. In trial mode, you play to beat your high score. In battle mode, you play against the AI chocobos and must beat them to win. There are 5 different levels of battle mode, each at increased difficulty.

Microgames
Microgames are optional to play, since they are not required for the storyline to progress. Microgames can be unlocked through chocobos, minigames, etc. and are represented on the map by red exclamation points. In each microgame, there is a score required to get silver and a score required to get gold. Both a silver score and gold score will unlock two different pop-up cards.