Flagon Quest: Square-Enix’s Drinking Games

Japanese RPG mega-developer Square-Enix has just announced a new DS title for Japan titled ‘Beginners Wine DS’.

The game will feature step-by-step instructions on choosing a suitable bottle to go with particular foods as well as how to correctly swirl a glass before breathing in the bouquet.

With a database of 120 selected bottles, a glossary, a quiz, and a guide to bluffing knowledge about wine, the game is the latest in an enduring line of bizarre Square-Enix homeland titles that are never picked up for foreign release.

In the early nineties the company even formed an offshoot to handle this kind of atypical output (called Aques, an awkward anagram identifiable as belonging to the parent holder only because it was written in the Square font).

Anyhow, I only mention it because last week I stumbled across this bizarre Japanese point and click adventure that was made by various employees of Square-Enix who have created a flash-game project called GotMail.

The Shochu Bar, as this particular release from the team is called, is set in a sumptuous bar rather like the ones you can visit at the top of Shinjuku’s high-rise hotels and, as far as I can tell, your mission is to find clues left buy a barman as to how to make the perfect cocktail. Hmm.

There’s an English language option so it is playable but, being a point and click adventure it’s super tough. Then again I’ve never been that good at these types of game so I might not be the best judge of that.

Anyhow, I thought it might be interesting to join the dots between the two projects for you. Perhaps Square-Enix employees are driven to drink when they discover the Final Fantasy they’ve spent the last five years of their life on wasn’t the last one after all.

Is that a dad joke? I think might have been a dad joke. Sheesh. Anyhow, Beginners Wine DS hits stores on Nov. 15 to coincide with this year’s release of Beaujolais Nouveau, a globally popular seasonal French wine. You can see some of the GotMail team;’s other projects here.