Toby Walters

My Japanese student sent me a little thank-you gift. I think I might need to invest in a vinyl player now.

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It's been about a week since I finished Thank Goodness You're Here, and I've still got Ilkley Moor Bah T'at stuck in my head.

I freaking love the aesthetic of the Echoes of the Fallen DLC. I wish we'd had more sections like this in FF16.

My dad sent me this photo today. Helping with the job hunt in his own special way.

Last week I was lying in bed, playing FF16, thinking to myself how much I love the art direction for that game.

The next day was my birthday and a friend got me this.

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I know it's been a couple of months now, but I've finally found a bit of headspace to reread the responses to this post. Just wanted to say thank you to everybody for your help and advice.

I got Tekken 8 for Christmas. Does anybody want to geek out about Tekken 8 with me?

I think everybody owes it to themselves to try these things once, but they also owe it to themselves to never repeat them if they turn out to be a disaster.

I shaved my beard off for a new year's costume party. Big mistake. I always hoped that if I shaved my beard off I'd look like Stanley Tucci. Turns out I look like a testicle.

I like the 2009 Christmas Carol movie with Jim Carrey.

I have reached the "stollen as a pre-breakfast snack" stage of the Christmas holidays.

Merry Christmas. I dropped my phone in the toilet.

M̵̩͂E̸̫͗R̸̝͑̚͜R̸̫͍̒Y̵̽̍͜ ̶̠̳̉C̸̛̜̈́H̷̨̦͗Ŕ̶͇̇Ĩ̶͚̍S̶͇̋̔T̴͚͓́͠M̵̛̤̬̆A̷͙̳̒̂S̷͍̈́

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I started Final Fantasy XV in January, and last night I rolled the credits on it. Needless to say, the ending provided just the right combination of sadness and confusion that I've come to expect from an FF game.

SQEX Memories: Last night I left the Square Enix office for the last time. Thank you to everyone who made this journey so special.

I got the train into London this morning and was feeling a bit emotional. I ended up playing Sonic the Hedgehog 2 from start to finish on my Switch, because that game is like a warm hug for me.

SQEX Memories: I used to translate bug reports for games in development, and so I watched a tonne of footage from the final chapter of FF7 Rebirth on the bug database before the game came out. Needless to say, it left me with more questions than answers.

Every December we get together with our Canadian friends and celebrate "Moosemas". My wife makes chocolate mousses and we decorate them to look like mooses. Would you like to guess which one is mine?

SQEX Memories: My job interview included a Japanese spoken section. A member of the team asked a question that I couldn't think of an answer for, so I panicked and said "そうですね…" ("yes, interesting...") about five or six times in a row before finally giving an answer.

SQEX Memories: One time, to save some money, I tried getting the night bus to London instead of my usual train. I waited for about an hour in the cold at 1 a.m. for my bus, then walked through London in the dark before arriving at work 2 hours early and exhausted. Never again.

One of the rough things about leaving Square Enix is that it feels so entwined with my own family's history. I started the job right after my son was born. I can remember observing marketing calls with him asleep on me in a sling. His brother was born while I was there as well.

SQEX Memories: I was recently having lunch with some colleagues in the office when one of them started laughing because I had inadvertently coordinated my wardrobe with the protagonist from DQ VII.

SQEX memories: I won't name or share any photos of my team out of respect for their privacy, but let it be known: they were the fricking best.

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SQEX memories: I bought a copy of Dragon Quest XI S with my staff discount right after I started at SQEX. It was my first DQ game and I loved it! I actually only finished it a couple of months ago, so it's been a constant companion through my time at SQEX.

SQEX Memories: The view from the bridge next to the Square Enix London office.

SQEX Memories: Last year I was invited to join the @ffunion pub quiz as the leader of Team Alexander. I got to meet so many lovely people, including a certain Mr Ben Starr, and David Menkin even recorded a personalised message for my kids (because they loved him in Jungle Beat).

SQEX Memories: Working on FF7 Rebirth was an all-time high for me. The OG FF7 was a formative experience for me, and replaying it during the COVID pandemic while homeless, with a two-year-old and a pregnant wife, was one of the few things that kept me sane.

SQEX Memories: Before Foamstars came out, we hosted a media preview at the London office. I was on-hand as interpreting support, but what I actually ended up doing was scrambling for ways to keep the journalists' capture cards from overheating in a room with no air conditioning.

SQEX Memories: A few months after FFXVI came out, my wife surprised me with an early Christmas present of a PS5. FFXVI was the first game I played on it, and I broke it in with an Eikonic Ale that I'd saved for the occasion.

SQEX Memories: The first game with my name in the credits was Infinity Strash: DRAGON QUEST The Adventure of Dai, though you had to go into the game settings to find it. Seeing my name in the credits of an actual video game felt like the coolest thing in the world.