Memory Cards

Memory Cards is a My Hero Academia take on the classic matching game, with a twist that makes it more than a test of short-term memory. Sixteen cards are dealt in a four-by-four grid, and the eight pairs are not always two copies of the same portrait. Most pairs are two different characters who share a connection.

A pair might be two members of one family, two characters from the same faction, arc or species, two pro heroes, two U.A. students, or a famous relationship from the story such as rivals, mentor and student, or One For All against All For One. The game names the link each time you find a pair, so every board doubles as a small refresher on how the cast fits together.

When the board appears, all sixteen cards are shown face up for five seconds. Memorise what you can: who is on each card and which characters look like they belong together. Then the cards turn over, and the clock starts on your first click.

Click a card to flip it, then click a second. If the two cards are a pair, they stay face up, you earn ten points and a banner names their connection. If not, both cards turn back over after a second. Only the two cards the game dealt as a pair will match, so two characters who happen to share a faction will not count unless they were dealt together.

The game tracks your moves, time and score, and keeps your best score on your device. There is one board per day, dealt the same way for every player, and signed-in players have their result posted to the daily leaderboard.

Use the five-second preview on positions, not puzzles. Identical portraits and famous duos are easy to spot, so note those first and spend the remaining seconds fixing where cards sit rather than trying to work out every link.

When you flip a card, list every character it could reasonably pair with, then check what you already know about the grid. Shoto Todoroki could be linked to a sibling, his father, a Class 1-A classmate or someone from his debut arc; knowing which of those are on the board usually narrows it to one or two cards. Each kind of link tends to appear only once per board, so a found family pair makes a second family pair unlikely.

Moves count as much as time. Flipping at random to discover the board burns moves you cannot get back, so when you have no lead, turn a card you have not seen yet rather than one you already know is wrong.