Looking over Jones Soda’s Final Fantasy XV-themed Wiz’s Energizing Elixir

Product tie-ins aren’t uncommon in the gaming world. Especially where Jones Soda is concerned. It’s the company that provided Nuka Cola Quantums for Target to sell alongside Fallout 4. The company didn’t chicken out when it came to Final Fantasy XV, offering a similar promotion. This gave people an opportunity to bring home bottles of Wiz’s Energizing Elixir. It’s a physical version of an in-game soda people can acquire from the Wiz Chocobo Post in-game. The likeness is uncanny and far from choco-boring.

First, let’s get the flavor out of the way. The Wiz’s Energizing Elixir is a great soda. It doesn’t taste too sweet, despite the 35g of sugar, perhaps because this is a cane sugar soda. It’s quite creamy and mellow. This is a very refreshing drink and, if you’ve enjoyed Jones Soda’s cane sugar drinks before, you’ll like this one too. You’ll definitely want to Gysahl down this drink.

But, with this particular drink, it isn’t about what’s inside. It’s what’s outside that counts. The Final Fantasy XV packaging is warking it. Most of the label is dedicated to the messaging and handled impeckably. Like the logos from the Wiz Chocobo Post in-game, there’s a chocobo on the front of the bottle who is rearing up majestically. Feathers circle him, as a decorative accent, and there’s a line of chocobo outlines along the edges of the label. As an aside, it notes that this particular form of the tonic was brewed and bottled outside of Eos, the world in which Final Fantasy XV is set.

The back of the Final Fantasy XV Wiz’s Energizing Elixir has a brief story behind the drink. It reads as follows:

Wiz creates this tonic in small batches in the basement of his Chocobo Post and only sells this secretive soda to those in the know – and considering you’re holding a bottle in your very hands, you must already know that. Lucky you!”

It then says there are two servings of Gysahl Greens in each bottle. Also, it reminds everybirdie that this is a product designed to promote Final Fantasy XV, noting its November 29, 2016 launch date.

The only issue I take with the product is the drink within. Whenever I think of a Final Fantasy potion, a red, green or blue liquid comes to mind. You know, depending on whether it’s a health or mana potion. Jones Soda has drinks in flavors that would match said colors. The blue Nuka Cola Quantum was a berry lemonade. There have green apple and red strawberry lime flavors. Instead, it went with the orange cream variety, which is orange. Which, as I mentioned earlier, is delicious. But, orange isn’t the first color that comes to mind for a Final Fantasy-themed drink. Even a revival of Jones Soda’s yellow lemon drop variety, the same color as chocobos, might have been a better fit. This is the only area in which I feel like Jones Soda really fowled up.

This is aviary well done promotional product. While I would have preferred a soda flavor that had a color that better lent itself to the series’ potions and elixirs, the packaging for Final Fantasy XV’s Wiz’s Energizing Elixir is eggsellent. It absolutely looks like something that would have been sold at the Chocobo Post in-game, which fans will appreciate. This empty bottle is a fun, decorative piece!