You don't really need to play the card game past disc 1 if you don't want to b/c by then you should have Squall's ultimate weapon :P I played it all the time b/c I wanted to collect all of the cards even though there really isn't a point b/c not like I hardly ever card modded outside of needing stuff for weapon upgrades. I don't remember ever even giving any characters the ability to use items since I found them pretty useless in this game (as they are in most rpgs).