Tri-Face is a powerful enemy in Final Fantasy VIII. It is found in places that will become unrevisitable, such as Balamb Garden's MD Level and Galbadia Garden. It is otherwise available at the late part of the game. It is an important enemy to fight for Curse Spike farming.
Stats
Battle
Tri-Face uses two Bite attacks; the real head bites stronger than the two fakes. Poison Gas may inflict Poison and Confuse to all party members (it is also a Poison-elemental attack). It uses Acid when 75% of its HP is depleted, and is not used when only one party member is alive. Acid always succeeds, but its damage may be reduced by boosting Vitality.
Tri-Face is one of two monsters that can be transformed into the strongest Triple Triad Level 7 boss card, Ultima Weapon. The other is the Elastoid.
Strategy
Tri-Face is vulnerable to Stop, so if it is level 30 or higher, the player can make the battle easier by draw-casting Stop on it.
Item farming
Tri-Face is the most efficient way to gain Curse Spikes, 100 of which are needed to create a Dark Matter to teach Quistis Shockwave Pulsar, or refine into a Luck-J Scroll or Luck Up. Dark Matters can also be refined into 100 Ultima using Bahamut's Forbidden Magic Refine. It is also a good monster to draw from to stock up on Flare and Pain.
Tri-Face can be encountered as fixed encounter in Deep Sea Research Center and will always re-spawn unless the player defeated the Ultima Weapon. The player can choose to draw Eden from Tiamat over defeating Ultima Weapon to use its refine ability while still able to continue farming Curse Spikes.
If the player is farming for Curse Spikes, one strategy to speed it up is to junction 100 Zombies to the mugger's ST-Atk-J with no Strength junctions as not to kill it before the mugging succeeds, and then kill it with a curative command.
Triple Triad
Tri-Face is a Level 3 Monster Card in Triple Triad used for playing the minigame and for turning into Curse Spike with Quezacotl's Card Mod. As Curse Spikes are such valuable items both for making Pain and Dark Matter, it is good to collect the Tri-Face cards when playing the minigame even into the late game.
Other appearances
Final Fantasy Record Keeper
Gallery
Etymology
Tri- is a numerical prefix meaning three.