Given how inescapable Final Fantasy is, its publicity machine has always been relatively low-key. You can't see merchandise of Cloud and Zidane and The One That Looks Like Jamie Oliver on the shelves like you can with games such as Pokemon and Dragon Quest. Then, one day, you wake up and Ebay looks like this.



It's Final Fantasy in a bottle, courtesy of Square and Suntory! This is exactly the kind of stuff we would have spent WHOLE TENNERS on when we were teenagers, despite not having enough money to even heat the flat. Now we can't escape the certain knowledge that Hironobu Sakaguchi has wanked into EVERY SINGLE BOTTLE.

It really is Final Fantasy in a bottle, too! Here's how your brain reacts when you drink it.

1) Initial repulsion and horror.

2) The palate begins to settle down. Now you can taste strange, pungent things. The brain struggles for some kind of familiar standpoint from which to judge the experience. Does it taste of aniseed like the sweets you loved as a child, or is it a more mature taste like when you grew up a bit and started to prefer the hard edge of liquorice?

3) As the taste buds finally sort themselves out, you decide that what you're drinking actually tastes exactly like the time when you tried "Cookery" for yourself and mixed up every bottle in the spice rack with some fairy liquid (because the smell reminded you of dad on a Sunday lunchtime) and ended up really, really sick.

4) Reality comes back into sharp focus and all naive attempts at nostalgia collapse, as you realise that what you have is simply yet another energy drink the same as Red Bull, Red Charge, Red Line and Lucozade XS NRG, only this one has a packet of Jawbreakers dissolved in it. And spunk.



The ingredients are listed as parsley, sage, thyme, royal jelly and something in Japanese that we can't understand because we don't know the kanjis for "Company Chairman" and "Tadpoles." Horrible as it is, it's nowhere near as bad as the "Collectors Edition" set which comes in these poncey perfume bottles.



Final Fantasy Potion. Un fragrance pour un homme. Un fragrance pour un femme. Un fragrance de l'argent et le wee-wee blanc.