Be still my beating Kingdom Hearts. Square Enix, the company behind game series such as Dragon Quest and this little series called Final Fantasy, are planning on bringing their Square Enix Cafe to the Parkson mall on Shaanxi Nan Lu sometime this winter. The original merch-store-slash-cafe concept was a smash hit when it launched in Tokyo's Akihabara district last year, but will they come up with a new recipe for their Shanghai spin-off?

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You get one paragraph with mediocre video game in-jokes. One.

According to a press release, the game company will be opening the first overseas Square Enix Cafe in Shanghai this winter. The cafe's interior design changes to reflect new Square Enix games, and they'll be selling a bunch of merch. Moogle and Chocobo plushies, Lionheart keychains, Warriors of Light placemats, Lightning and Rikku dolls with fifty-six available costumes, 8-bit Ninja beer coasters, Aerith stickers, Shin-Ra employee pass lanyards, and posters of Noctis and crew perched on an Audi. You know. Video game stuff.

Square Enix Cafe in Japan

The first official Square Enix Cafe opened in Tokyo's Akihabara district in October 2016, with another one opening in Osaka this month. The food menu also changes according to the relevant theme, most likely sticking to desserts and a few mains. At other Square Enix cafes like ARTNIA, they go all in with stuff like Materia cocktails, chocolate Buster Swords and "Seventh Heaven" branded table settings. That's the bar Tifa ran in FFVII! Judging by the cafe's website, bubble tea will feature heavily. They charge a door fee and serve people in 90-minute blocks, though it's not clear if they'll be doing that in Shanghai. Patrons packed out the Japanese one for weeks after opening. It's reportedly still popular, especially among tourists.

The Shanghai cafe's first theme is going to be MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV, which is a no-brainer. The game is sitll popular three years after it launched here, despite mixed feelings about the company that hosts the China version of the game, and two-hour waits to get onto the more popular servers. Two hours! The goal, the press release says, is to raise awareness of the brand's products in China (duh), ie. get more Chinese gamers playing their games. Oh, would you look at that, the release of highly anticipated Kingdom Hearts III is just around the corner! Wouldn't it be great if they could get some FFXIV players playing that too.

So... think it'll be any good?

The Square Enix Cafe seems like a chicken-wire, interchangeable merch-shop framework for whatever they need to market next. Here's what the Tokyo one looks like without the posters and stuff in it;

This is from their own website

Which is a shame, because other official Final Fantasy/Square Enix themed cafe/restaurants in Japan, such as the expressly FFXIV-themed Eorzea Cafe, look like this;

NOT Square Enix Cafe

I'm crossing my fingers they really bite down on this themed thing and go with the Eorzea Cafe model.

Yes it's spelled "Aerith".

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Square Enix Cafe will be located inside the Parkson Mall. There's no opening date yet beyond "Winter 2017".