Final Fantasy Marketing - Energy Drink Potions

New blog-on-the-block GameSetWatch is officially launched, as of yesterday. A part of the CMP media group (owner of Gamasutra and Game Developer Magazine), it is headed by the original Slashdot Games editor Simon Carless. They'll also have posts from the likes of Wonderland's Alice, and GeekOnStun's Michael McWhertor. Today they reveal the news that Square-Enix is partnering with Suntory Ltd. to create a truly refreshing potion. From the post: "Suntory, famous for their whiskeys, Boss canned coffees, and oolong teas, will target a relaxing but energizing taste for the drink. Six potential bottles designs were on display, all in blue crystal, as well as character art cards to be included in the Final Fantasy XII Potion Premium Box..." Hail and well met, GSW.

Comments

Finally...

[nexxuz]

... I'll be able to get rid of that dang Curse!!

"Potion" is nice, but...

[Futaba-chan]

...when will Suntory be coming out with a Phoenix Down? Or a Megalixir?

Re:"Potion" is nice, but...

[Canthros]

Clearly the Megalixir will be a two-liter of the same stuff.

Re:"Potion" is nice, but...

[wuie]

The Phoenix Down should absolutely have habanero in it.

Re:"Potion" is nice, but...

[KDR_11k]

The Phoenix Down is worthless anyway. What do you need a potion that cures unconsciousness for in RL?

Re:"Potion" is nice, but...

[Joe the Lesser]

Clearly so you can be revived by your party. or at a party.

Re:"Potion" is nice, but...

[KDR_11k]

Revived is the wrong word, it doesn't work on dead people or at least dead people named Aerith.

Re:"Potion" is nice, but...

[Joe the Lesser]

I think it's fine.

v. tr.

      1. To bring back to life or consciousness; resuscitate.
      2. To impart new health, vigor, or spirit to.
      3. To restore to use, currency, activity, or notice.
      4. To restore the validity or effectiveness of.
      5. To renew in the mind; recall.
      6. To present (an old play, for example) again.

v. intr.

      1. To return to life or consciousness.
      2. To regain health, vigor, or good spirits.
      3. To return to use, currency, or notice.
      4. To return to validity, effectiveness, or operative condition.

Simon

[Universal Nerd]

A good editor, I remember really liking his selections of articles. I just hope he didn't pick up on the slashdot editor's habits of posting dupes.

That aside, I'll read it!

Re:Simon

[Anonymous Coward]

Simon is a New York Times editor compared to Zonk. Sorry but Zonk has always failed to measure up. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.

Re:Simon

[Repton]

...but you're not sticking your name to it, so who really cares?

Whoever said that

[cyberbob2010]

games weren't going to get as big as movies was dead wrong.

When was the last time you heard a kid ask you to buy him Han Solo or Gandalf juice?

Re:Whoever said that

[pnice]

I don't remember a kid asking me to buy him a Han Solo or Gandalf juice....They were always to busy asking me for Star Wars M&Ms or a Burger King Star Wars Watch.

Re:Whoever said that

[MilenCent]

Ladies and gentlement, the parent post contains the words Gandalf juice.

We can all go home now. There can't be anything left in the universe to say, after that.

Re:Whoever said that

[jayhawk88]

Fresh squeezed Gandalf Juice.

There, now we're done.

Re:Whoever said that

[MilenCent]

"Discriminating balrogs ask for it by name!"

Oh, goody

[Anonymous Coward]

After playing the Final Fantasy XII demo, and coming to the same conclusion Tycho did, I'm rather glad that they're completely selling out so I won't feel any bit of remorse for not buying the game.

By the way, DragonQuest VIII isn't all that good either. The combat system reminds me of Final Fantasy I - complete trash. But complete trash rendered in 3D with a cell-shading engine. Which is really too bad, because ignoring the terrible combat system, the rest of the game is really nice. Not gaming perfection by any means, but definitely not bad.

To be fair, the demo comes off as being very half-assed, so the final game may not be as horrid. (I'm fairly sure it's the exact same demo they had at E3, but not being a game journalist, I dunno.) You get no access to the inventory or equipment menus, no hint as to character advancement, and no clue about what the story is going to be. So the final version may not be complete trash like the demo is, but I'm sure not going to be first in line to waste $60 to find out.

Re:Oh, goody

[AuMatar]

Funny, I found FFI to be the best combat model in FF. IT required you to use strategy and think about who you want to attack with whom, so you didn't waste effort. You had large battles against as many as 7 enemies at once, making strategy necessary. And the spell level series made you really think before casting a spell, you might need it later. As opposed ot the more common mp system where you not only can cast any spell at any time, but usually have mp restore items.

Re:Oh, goody

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but there's no strategy in FFI's combat model. I agree that the MP system makes magic essentially "throw-away" in that you don't need to reserve it, but that actually makes battles into essentially a hack-fest where all you're doing is telling everyone to attack. Now in FFI, that still involved an amount of strategy, because your characters wouldn't retarget if their target was dead. However, in DQ8, they do, and everyone has MP, effectively removing the two bits of strategy FFI had.

The real problem is that there's no way to control the order in which things happen. Suppose your fighting a boss in FFI with the standard Fighter / Black Belt / White Mage / Black Mage party. You start:

White Mage attacks boss, misses. (None of the buffs were ever that useful.)
Boss attacks Black Mage, nearly killing him.
Black Belt attacks boss, one hit, some damage.
Fighter attacks boss, one hit, some damage.
Black Mage casts FAST/Haste on the Fighter.

First, note that Haste went off too late to be useful that round. In Round 2, you want to cure the Black Mage, FAST/Haste the Black Belt, and then just attack normally.

Fighter attacks boss, three hits, good damage.
Boss attacks Black Mage, killing him.
White Mage wastes MP casting CUR2/Cura on a dead target.
Black Belt attacks boss, two hits, good damage.

Yay. If only you had known that the Fighter would have gone first (even though he went fourth the previous round and the White Mage went first), you could have had him use a Potion to save the Black Mage. Unfortunately, you have NO CONTROL over the order of actions, so you can't make any decisions like that.

DQ8 is actually worse in that regard, in that almost any enemy you fight at even levels could completely destroy your team - if only the AI didn't consist of them picking a random action and attacking a random target. Battles are either extremely easy, since the enemies randomly pick stupid actions (including "nothing"), or they pick the actions that ensure you can't fight back, making the battles extremely hard.

There's one other thing I hate about the "round" based combat system. You rarely get to actually PLAY. You spend most of your time watching things get resolved then you do actually PLAYING the game. In the original Final Fantasy it wasn't that bad since you could bump the message speed to 9 and animations were short. In DQ8, the message speed is constant, and you have to watch combat animations. I've actually read Slashdot while playing DQ8, there's enough down time while nothing happens to make it possible.

The battles in both Final Fantasy and DragonQuest 8 quickly devolve into just simply repeatedly issuing the Fight command. It's boring, and there's very little strategy actually involved.

FFX got the system right to an extent (although swapping in characters was too cheap), in that instead of choosing commands and then waiting, you got involved in the action far more frequently. The other benefit was that up until some point in mid-game, each enemy would have a different strategy required to defeat it. (At some point, though, your characters become so strong and have enough abilities that you can essentially brute-force your way through.)

Re:Oh, goody

[Qzukk]

Speaking of battle animations, there should be user-selectable levels, say

Full animation - for those times when you're reading slashdot
First time - ok, the summon spell was cool, but having seen it 3124 times, it's not cool anymore (option to reset everything to "unseen"?)
Fast - I'm sure the summon spell is cool, but I don't have time for it.
None - stationary stick figures pick commands and numbers appear over their heads.

game potions

[drDugan]

funny - when I first read the title, I thought that maybe they had a branded potion in game -- like a "Red Bull" potion that gave you wings or the "Monster" potion that gives you strength.

now THAT would be good marketing.

Re:game potions

[syntaxglitch]

In the next game, to add Auto-Haste to your armor, instead of Chocobo Wings you'll use Dew of the Mountain.

Or would that add Sleepproof? I'm not sure.

(The worst part is that "Dew of the Mountain" actually sounds like an equipment customizing item in FFX, like the Gambler's Spirit or Door to Tomorrow or all those sort.)

the game is 75 dollersnot the potions.

[cyrax777]

from TFA " was the announcement of Final Fantasy XII's suggested retail price of 8990 yen (approximately 75 USD)"

Re:the game is 75 dollersnot the potions.

[voice_of_all_reason]

Hmm, yes. I appears I fail :( Thanks, now I'm actually sorta excited I'll be able to get some :)

Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's hoping they take payments in gil.

Just sad

[Wilson_6500]

I've been called a Square fanboy (so shoot me), but I still think this is just embarrassing.

Maybe....

[Microangelo]

If this company has a good day, they can win the Felix Felicis contract.

Not quite

[Red Flayer]

"...has partnered with Suntory Ltd. to create what is sure to be gaming's tastiest beverage, Final Fantasy XII Potion"

Well, good luck beating this:

http://www.thinkgeek.com/caffeine/drinks/2818/

Also in a blue bottle, but maybe not suitable for kids (contains stimulant(s)).

Sorry if it looks like I'm plugging a product, but if there ever was an official drink of gamers (besides the Dew), this is it.

Re:Not quite

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on, what they are selling is a Phoenix Down. What you point at is Hyper.

Why not....

[Shad_the_protector]

I would buy it if I see one. Just for the fun of drinking a Potion. I am truly in need of HP. Anyway, it is highly probable that it never comes outside japan, so I will probably never see one.

zerg

[Lord Omlette]

Congrats, Simon!

But seriously, why didn't that ad use a Mithra or Viera model?

So game blogs are news?

[bigbigbison]

Does that mean I should submit a newstory everytime i update my blog now? Or do the storys only get greenlit when the blog is corporate owned and ran by ex-slashdoters?

Re:So game blogs are news?

[nb caffeine]

Yeah, you ever notice that pressthebuttons used to get linked to often? That was another one of these friend of a friend things. At least they acknowledged it this time.

Better placement idea

[Tired_Blood]

> q
What do you want to drink? [fgh or ?*]
> ?
Potions
      f - an uncursed potion of BALCO's gain strength
      g - a blessed potion of T.Leary's hallucination
      h - a blessed potion of Suntory's gain energy
> h
Magical energies course through your body.

O_o ???

[Bellum Aeternus]

Did anybody else think the bottles looked a little to much like anal plugs?

I mean, I'm sure they're way over priced but do they have to make their intentions so obvious?

Re:O_o ???

[Anonymous Coward]

considering the first pic that greets you anal plug is probably right