During our most recent trip to Tokyo, we stopped in to Artnia, a Square Enix store/cafe location. You may remember we previously visited the Square Enix Goods Shop located in the first floor of their headquarters, featuring a life-size resting Sephiroth built into the floor. Sadly, that shop closed in 2012, with Artnia being built to replace it. While there are both other goods stores, and other Square Enix cafes even (one being in Akihabara), Artnia is unique in that it is in its own, dedicated building. That building is quite unique in shape (as you can see from the picture), and being a permanent structure allows it to have a very beautiful back showroom, complete with a crystal water feature with materia decorations. That back showroom is definitely the most impressive, and open, part of the shop. There you can look at various high-end goods; mostly clothing, jewelry and statues from Square Enix's many popular game series.

The front of the dome features a shopping area as well, in addition to the cafe area. The goods for sale towards the front of the store are less expensive in general, and are colorful and eye-catching: stuffed animals, keychains, tea set goods, stickers, etc. They have exclusive goods for sale which you can't buy anywhere else, and usually have a special display for whatever game they are currently promoting. When we went, it happened to be 'The World Ends With You'. There is also a wall lined with cds, right before you enter the back showroom, with two listening stations where you can sample whatever you may want to buy.

The cafe itself is nice, albeit a little cramped, with extras such as Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy themed coasters and napkins. The limited menu is all themed, even down to the drinks. We were interested in the chocolate parfait, complete with a chocolate buster sword, but they ruined it by putting coffee jelly in it (not a fan of coffee-flavored sweets, sorry). Instead, we went with slime-shaped pancakes featuring a white-chocolate menu bar decoration, with 'eat' taking the place of 'attack' amongst the options. It was quite good, and overall we enjoyed our time there. Be sure to get there early, however, as the limited cafe space makes for long wait times. We went on a Saturday, however, which I'm sure increased the wait, but if you find yourself in Shinjuku with some free time, it's worth checking out even for a passing Square Enix fan. Feel free to check out the rest of the photos we took below!