When it comes to real-world meatspace collaborations with Final Fantasy 14, the UK (and to an extent, Europe) usually gets left out while Japan and the States get to party with the likes of KFC, Mountain Dew, and GrubHub. I've led a sad, Mountain Zu and /eatchicken-less existence, but now Square Enix has finally tossed us English folk a bone with its latest collaboration.
Who is the chosen one of the food and drink variety this time? It's Gong Cha, a chain of bubble tea stores located throughout Europe, Asia and the United States. Don't worry if you've never heard of it. Despite its global presence, it has shockingly few locations throughout, a complaint that has already been making the rounds across social media. Despite the collaboration being open to Europe, there are zero stores in countries like Germany and Italy.
In fact, only four European countries can actually participate—six if you count Australia and New Zealand, which for some reason Square Enix does. Even when it comes to the UK, all 15 of its stores listed on its website are located wholly within England; four of which are in Manchester, and a further three in London. The issue transcends Europe too, as I've seen a handful of Reddit posts from American players complaining that their nearest Gong Cha store is hundreds of miles away.
Fortunately for me, I happen to have a Gong Cha store located within a travelable distance. I'm not exactly left wanting for boba shops around here, and as a result I'd never actually set foot into my closest Gong Cha. Until now, that is. I'm well back into my Final Fantasy 14 brainrot thanks to Dawntrail's release, and as a fan of boba and an unabashed shill for these sorts of things, I decided to make the pilgrimage.
The premise of the collaboration is simple: Buy enough drinks, and either get the in-game Porxie King mount or a fun real-world Final Fantasy 14-themed boba tea keychain for your patronage. Rather annoyingly, Gong Cha requires you to buy three entire drinks in order to select one of its rewards. As much as I am a lover of boba, I am just one woman. A woman who is lactose intolerant, making the prospect of drinking three milk teas within 24 hours a slightly fearful feat.
It's also pretty dang expensive, with most of its drinks coming in between £4 and £6 here in England, so somewhere between roughly $5 and $7.75. Gong Cha is offering three collaboration drinks with special cup designs to try and sweeten the deal, all of which were priced at £5.50: the cactuar matcha milk tea, the fat chocobo mango frozen tea and the fat cat brown sugar milk tea. I decided I was going to pick up two fat cat brown sugars—brown sugar boba is by far my favourite—and a cactuar matcha milk. I would have had the frozen mango, but again, one woman! Three drinks! It would have melted before I even had a chance.
As I marched down to the store to spend far too much money, I was admittedly a wee bit anxious. I'd seen a couple of Reddit posts lamenting the collaboration, including one which claimed their local Gong Cha in Sacramento had only received a paltry 27 codes for the mount. Oh yeah, something I forgot to mention. Despite being a digital item, the mounts are being handed out on a physical scratchcard. I'm not one to question Square Enix's tactics, but a code on a receipt seems like a more modern method of distribution these days.
Would I arrive to find swathes of Warriors of Light scrapping over plastic boba knick knacks and virtual flying pigs? Would my local Gong Cha even be aware there was a collaboration taking place? I was visiting a mere 24 hours after the collaboration launched, but I was still nervous.
Thankfully, the process for myself was surprisingly smooth. I was told to place my order on one of the digital boards as the singular staff member shook and poured her way through 18 other drinks before she was able to start making mine—some for fellow Final Fantasy 14 nerds, others for regular (and potentially confused) patrons. It's something I hadn't even considered until I'd arrived—as annoying as it was having to place an order for three drinks as a singular person, it must be equally as big a pain for the workers who may have had their workload tripled overnight.
I double-checked that they had both the codes and keyrings in stock, and the staff member confirmed that they had a decent supply of everything to hand. I thought they had run out of one keyring type while I waited for my order, but a pal of mine who visited a few hours later confirmed that everything was still available.
After around 10 minutes of waiting, I finally had my drinks adorned with adorable Final Fantasy motifs and my mount code to boot. I was also fortunate enough to have another customer ordering enough drinks for a reward who didn't play Final Fantasy 14, allowing me to snag a keychain without having to order an extra three drinks and give myself a sugar high. Thank you, kind stranger.
Now listen. This mount. I knew what I was getting myself into before I made the pilgrimage. There are two things to note here: The first one is that the mount was not created specifically for this collaboration. It was originally part of a Japan-only collaboration with convenience store chain Lawson around two years ago. But that's not the only case of recycling here. The mount is also a reskin of one you can obtain in the game for free. To be fair to the game here, that's pretty common with these collaborations. The recent Mountain Dew mount was a reskin of the Zu mount introduced in Heavensward.
There's something inherently funny about how little differences there are between the Portly Porxie—the mount you can obtain for free by doing Shadowbringers' Pixie tribe quests—and Gong Cha's Porxie King mount. Are you ready? Come in real close.
They stuck a hat on it.
Admittedly, they did also make the saddle green instead of Portly Porxie's red. But getting home, popping the code in and eagerly awaiting my mail to see so little difference left me cackling as I sipped my fat cat boba and stared at my Malibu Stacy With NEW Hat mount. But it was here, it was mine, and it was mercifully painless for me to go and obtain.
It's definitely worth reiterating that it's not been the case for everyone. Some American folk are finding their nearest Gong Cha is hundreds of miles away, while others have complained about a quick selling out of keyrings along with the aforementioned 27 code fiasco. It also seems as though scalpers are scooping up scratchcards to try and make a quick buck. My German FC mate informed me that he'd seen mount codes going for upwards of 100 euros, and it's not even the first time this game has seen inflated prices coming out of a real-world collaboration. Looking at you, Eat Pizza emote.
It does feel inherently Square Enix to be conducting these collaborations in such a stale, old-school fashion. It's 2024, we shouldn't have to be travelling for hours in the mere hope of getting a physical card containing a key for a digital item. While I'm happy to finally see one of these events grace the UK, I do hope a future collaboration event is more inclusive location-wise. Ultimately, I am rather jazzed about my fat cat taro boba keyring, which I can confirm looks significantly bigger and better quality in person than it does on the image from the Lodestone's post about the collaboration. Silver linings and all that.
Oh, and the boba? Eh, it was alright. As a gal who is very picky about her tapioca pearls, I'll be sticking with my go-to boba shop. Sorry, Gong Cha.
