Latest / Mythic Mind Games / 12 - Why Final Fantasy Endures: Wonder, Themes, and Philosophy

Transcript

12 - Why Final Fantasy Endures: Wonder, Themes, and Philosophy · Mythic Mind Games

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey there, Mythic mind games listener. Before we get started
0:02
Speaker 1: on today's episode on Final Fantasy, let's give a listen
0:05
Speaker 1: or watch if you're over on YouTube to my brand
0:07
Speaker 1: new overview of next month's course, The Elder Scrolls and Philosophy.
0:11
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoy The Elder Scrolls and Philosophy, a
0:16
Speaker 1: new course beginning in October, led by doctor Andrew Snyder.
0:27
Speaker 1: I played a lot of video games in my youth,
0:29
Speaker 1: perhaps more than I should have. But as I got older,
0:32
Speaker 1: got married, had kids, and completed a PhD on the
0:35
Speaker 1: Danish philosopher Soaring Kirkey Guard, I almost entirely stopped playing games. However,
0:40
Speaker 1: there were certain titles that stayed with me during this time,
0:43
Speaker 1: at the very least in my mind. In fact, looking back,
0:47
Speaker 1: I now realized that most games of my youth were
0:49
Speaker 1: not entirely frivolous, but the instead served quasi literary roles,
0:54
Speaker 1: fueling my imagination, intellectual curiosity, and my appreciation for wonder.
1:00
Speaker 1: Chief among these titles are the mainline games of the
1:03
Speaker 1: Elder Scrolls, and in particular Morowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim. And
1:08
Speaker 1: I know that I am not alone in this, as
1:10
Speaker 1: the wild success of the recent Oblivion remaster would indicate. Now,
1:13
Speaker 1: in addition to teaching university courses in philosophy and religion,
1:17
Speaker 1: I've also started offering independent courses to anyone who has
1:20
Speaker 1: to come along with me and with a community in
1:23
Speaker 1: pursuit of wisdom through primary and secondary worlds. So far,
1:27
Speaker 1: these independent courses have been literature based, such as the
1:30
Speaker 1: fiction and philosophy of C. S. Lewis Life, Death and
1:33
Speaker 1: Meaning with Beowulf and Boethius, The Lord of the Rings,
1:36
Speaker 1: A Brief History of Ideas, and Plato's Stoicism until we
1:39
Speaker 1: have Faces. However, I've recently been leading the Mythic Mind
1:43
Speaker 1: Fellowship into popular media as well, such as movies and games,
1:46
Speaker 1: and it did not take me many steps in this
1:48
Speaker 1: direction to decide that I wanted to do something with
1:51
Speaker 1: the Elder Scrolls. During this six week study the Philosophy
1:54
Speaker 1: of the Elder Scrolls, We're going to go deep into
1:57
Speaker 1: various aspects of Morowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim to better understand
2:01
Speaker 1: the driving forces of the subcreated world and our movements
2:04
Speaker 1: within it. Among others, we'll be asking questions like what
2:08
Speaker 1: is the creation mythos of the Elder Scrolls and How
2:10
Speaker 1: does this relate to primary world ideas? What are the
2:13
Speaker 1: thirty six lessons of EVEC and where do they direct us?
2:17
Speaker 1: What is unique about the hero of Kavaca's particular kind
2:19
Speaker 1: of heroism. What does the Oblivion Crisis reveal about the
2:23
Speaker 1: nature of evil in relation to societal institutions. Why are
2:27
Speaker 1: dragons so prolific in our fantastical imaginations? What unique opportunities
2:31
Speaker 1: for existential exploration are made available in open world games.
2:36
Speaker 1: Join this community as we enter Taminal with the purpose
2:39
Speaker 1: of learning more about our place within our own world.
2:42
Speaker 1: Each week will include ongoing discord conversations at least one
2:46
Speaker 1: or two asynchronous videos to watch whenever you want to,
2:48
Speaker 1: and live discussions which will be recorded and made available.
2:51
Speaker 1: If you're not able to participate, you can purchase enrollment
2:54
Speaker 1: in the shop over at patreon dot com slash Mythic Mind,
2:57
Speaker 1: or become a Tier three annual patron to get access
2:59
Speaker 1: to all courts that begin within your yearly term. This
3:02
Speaker 1: course begins in October, so go ahead and make it happen,
3:06
Speaker 1: and I hope to see you there. Hello, and welcome
3:30
Speaker 1: to Mythic Mind Games, where we discuss video games through
3:33
Speaker 1: the lens of the Christian Humanities. I'm doctor Andrew Snyder,
3:36
Speaker 1: and I'm glad that you're here. Hey, welcome back to
3:45
Speaker 1: Mythic mind Games as we begin with our series on
3:48
Speaker 1: Final Fantasy, which will surely take us quite a while
3:51
Speaker 1: to work through. In this first one, we're just laying
3:53
Speaker 1: out the foundations here, discussing our experience with the games,
3:57
Speaker 1: kind of just broad scale look, and then we're going
3:59
Speaker 1: to start moving game by game. Well, we'll take some
4:02
Speaker 1: breaks here and there, so we're not just a Final
4:04
Speaker 1: Fantasy podcasting definitely, but that's gonna be the long kind
4:07
Speaker 1: of overarching series that we're working through here. And so
4:10
Speaker 1: we do have a newcomer joining us today, and so
4:13
Speaker 1: we have David joining us again. We also have Micah
4:16
Speaker 1: joining us for the first time. And so Micah, why
4:18
Speaker 1: don't you tell us just a little bit about yourself
4:19
Speaker 1: and what brings you here?
4:22
Speaker 2: Yeah?
4:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I'm doing relatively recent follower of your podcast s,
4:27
Speaker 3: and Andrew, I work at Michael Jones. I work as
4:30
Speaker 3: a software developer in the church it space, working with
4:34
Speaker 3: live streaming, and as far as this meeting goes, I
4:40
Speaker 3: I am a huge fan of video games, have been
4:42
Speaker 3: for most of my life. JRPG's in particular are most
4:47
Speaker 3: of what I play, and Final Fantasy is like one
4:50
Speaker 3: of the more seminal series in that space.
4:54
Speaker 1: So to put you on the spot here, what would
4:57
Speaker 1: you say, generally speaking, is the value of video game Like,
5:00
Speaker 1: you know, as somebody who plays a lot of video games, like,
5:02
Speaker 1: why do you not think it's a waste of time?
5:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was a fun conversation I had with some
5:08
Speaker 3: people growing up. So it kind of depends on the
5:13
Speaker 3: games you're talking about. So personally, I've never been a
5:15
Speaker 3: fan of like MMOs or like you're really hardcore competitive
5:20
Speaker 3: shooters like Call of Duty, so I.
5:22
Speaker 2: Can't speak too much to those.
5:24
Speaker 3: But as far as like jerrepg's go, like, they're very
5:27
Speaker 3: big on story, which I know is a lot of
5:30
Speaker 3: what you talk about here, And I've always been passionate
5:32
Speaker 3: about stories and reading and everything since I was young.
5:36
Speaker 3: I've tried to dabble in being a writer here and there,
5:39
Speaker 3: and maybe one day I'll get published.
5:40
Speaker 2: In that space.
5:40
Speaker 3: But well told stories I think can be done in
5:44
Speaker 3: any medium, and I think video games provide a perfectly
5:48
Speaker 3: acceptable medium for very good storytelling. Like you guys have
5:50
Speaker 3: talked about like Mass Effect recently, which I think has
5:52
Speaker 3: some of the best storytelling out there. And any good
5:56
Speaker 3: story will have very strong themes, and so I to
6:00
Speaker 3: think the best video game stories also have really good themes.
6:04
Speaker 3: And so that thing I think is valuable no matter
6:07
Speaker 3: what medium you're talking about.
6:09
Speaker 1: Now, I think it's a it's a good answer, and
6:11
Speaker 1: it's that idea is mostly what's brought me back around
6:13
Speaker 1: to video games. You know, I've mentioned this before. I've
6:16
Speaker 1: played a good bit in my youth. There are some
6:19
Speaker 1: things I dabbled in here and there, but I took
6:21
Speaker 1: a very long break from video games, probably because I
6:25
Speaker 1: felt like I was playing them too much of my youth.
6:27
Speaker 1: But looking back, I really have come to recognize how
6:30
Speaker 1: much of a literary kind of value that they offered
6:34
Speaker 1: me that I didn't quite realize at the time. I mean,
6:36
Speaker 1: you know, I playing my you know, sn E s
6:40
Speaker 1: j RPG is like, that's a lot of reading involved,
6:42
Speaker 1: Like you're reading a novel as you're playing the game,
6:45
Speaker 1: experiencing a story you've got, you know, the music like
6:48
Speaker 1: it's a very artistic, enchanting kind of medium when it's
6:53
Speaker 1: done well. And so for all those reasons use laid
6:56
Speaker 1: out there, I would definitely echo that that's largely what
6:58
Speaker 1: has brought me back to recognizing the value of games again,
7:02
Speaker 1: kind of after abandoning them for a while. So I
7:04
Speaker 1: appreciate that well. I think that as we get into
7:08
Speaker 1: the space of video games and storytelling, it's it's hard
7:12
Speaker 1: to overlook something like Final Fantasy, this franchise, it's been
7:15
Speaker 1: around for nearly four decades, and that says that there's
7:20
Speaker 1: something of value here. I believe that even in maybe
7:24
Speaker 1: even more superficial like popular media, if something is popular
7:27
Speaker 1: and has staying power, it's doing something real there, like
7:30
Speaker 1: it's resonating with people for a reason, as opposed to
7:33
Speaker 1: the trite things that just come and go, you know,
7:35
Speaker 1: here today, gone tomorrow. And so I think that there's
7:38
Speaker 1: some value in talking about these games. You know. I've
7:43
Speaker 1: recently picked up the Pixel remasters of one through six,
7:47
Speaker 1: and I've been working through those one at a time
7:49
Speaker 1: from the beginning, and it's very interesting, not only to
7:54
Speaker 1: get into the stories, which to be fair pretty light
7:57
Speaker 1: in the first few titles, but I think what I'm
8:00
Speaker 1: really interested in is sort of the meta story of
8:03
Speaker 1: how Final Fantasy continues to develop over time and what
8:06
Speaker 1: that reveals to us about the culture that it's speaking
8:10
Speaker 1: to the market that it's speaking to. And so I
8:12
Speaker 1: think that sort of meta narrative is something that something
8:14
Speaker 1: Final Fantasy can uniquely provide simply because of its longevity.
8:18
Speaker 1: And so that's something I've really enjoyed about playing through
8:20
Speaker 1: these pixelary masters, that you know, each game adds something
8:24
Speaker 1: depth to the story or some kind of game mechanic
8:28
Speaker 1: that's going to you know, get more play as we
8:30
Speaker 1: move forward, and I find that really interesting. But I'd
8:33
Speaker 1: love to begin just by hearing about maybe just your
8:38
Speaker 1: general experience with the franchise, Like what was your first
8:41
Speaker 1: game that brought you in, was kept you around generally speaking?
8:46
Speaker 1: However you want to go with that with your your
8:47
Speaker 1: relationship with the franchise, David, why don't you lead us
8:51
Speaker 1: off with that?
8:53
Speaker 4: Yeah, the first Final Fantasy I played was the first
8:58
Speaker 4: Final Fantasy that I think it came out in Japan
9:01
Speaker 4: in like eighty seven, and then we got it here
9:03
Speaker 4: in nineteen ninety and yeah, I Nintendo Power was really
9:08
Speaker 4: hyping it up, and then I bought it as soon
9:12
Speaker 4: as it came out. I'd already played some of this
9:15
Speaker 4: sort of RPGs on like Apple computer and stuff like
9:19
Speaker 4: some of the Ultimate Games and that sort of thing.
9:23
Speaker 4: But yeah, I was excited to play it. It's like
9:27
Speaker 4: you were saying, Micah, that any medium can tell a story.
9:30
Speaker 4: It is really interesting to see how Final Fantasy is
9:34
Speaker 4: kind of a unique example in gaming of how the
9:37
Speaker 4: ability to tell a story has grown and evolved over
9:41
Speaker 4: the years since the first one. Because yeah, it's a
9:44
Speaker 4: very archetypical sort of story. There aren't really any specific
9:51
Speaker 4: characters because you can you know, you could make all
9:54
Speaker 4: four of your characters white mages. It'd be a terrible idea,
9:57
Speaker 4: but the game lets you do it. Obviously, people do
10:01
Speaker 4: that just to see what a challenge they can make
10:04
Speaker 4: for themselves. But yeah, so the first one was the
10:08
Speaker 4: first one I played, and then I had no idea
10:10
Speaker 4: that we didn't get two or three because there was
10:12
Speaker 4: no Internet in the early nineties. And then when we
10:17
Speaker 4: got Final Fantasy four as Final Fantasy two, that one
10:21
Speaker 4: which I know you just finished Andrew, that one blew
10:24
Speaker 4: me away at the time, the music and the storytelling,
10:28
Speaker 4: and yeah, then we didn't get five for whatever reason.
10:32
Speaker 4: And then we got six as three, which was also incredible.
10:38
Speaker 4: That's a lot of people's favorites. But yeah, then seven,
10:43
Speaker 4: I think is still my all time favorite. The original
10:46
Speaker 4: release is seven. Just the music, the world, the story,
10:49
Speaker 4: the characters, everything about it was great. And I've played
10:53
Speaker 4: all of them to completion, except for the MMOs eleven
10:58
Speaker 4: and fourteen. I just I tend to steer clear of
11:01
Speaker 4: MMOs because it may not be accurate. Because apparently I'm
11:05
Speaker 4: wrong about Star Wars Old Republic that there's a lot
11:08
Speaker 4: of good single player story there, and so I might
11:11
Speaker 4: want to visit that. But in my experience with MMOs,
11:14
Speaker 4: it's just not how can we tell a good story,
11:19
Speaker 4: it's how can we keep you playing indefinitely. So but
11:23
Speaker 4: I've heard that fourteen is great. I don't know a
11:26
Speaker 4: lot of people that have played eleven, but I do
11:29
Speaker 4: know a few. But yeah, I've I even played the
11:33
Speaker 4: most recent fifteen and sixteen. They're not incredible. The last
11:38
Speaker 4: one that I really enjoyed, I think was was twelve.
11:42
Speaker 4: But I do think the later ones are worth talking about.
11:44
Speaker 4: As you were saying, Andrew, about the story they're trying
11:48
Speaker 4: to tell and the customer they're trying to tell that
11:51
Speaker 4: story too. Maybe customers a little cynical, but I mean
11:54
Speaker 4: it's true they go a little off the rails and
11:57
Speaker 4: don't really feel like RPGs much to me. But we
12:02
Speaker 4: can't talk about that much much later.
12:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, I definitely heard of about the later ones, which
12:06
Speaker 1: I don't know anything about at this point. I dropped
12:10
Speaker 1: off after ten, so I don't know anything beyond that.
12:13
Speaker 1: And that's largely because at the time, when when eleven
12:15
Speaker 1: came out, I wasn't interested in jumping into an MMO,
12:18
Speaker 1: and at that point I just never looked back.
12:21
Speaker 4: Gotcha and me, on the other hand, I just never
12:24
Speaker 4: grew up, So here I am still playing him fair enough.
12:31
Speaker 1: Who Mike, and you tell us a little bit about
12:32
Speaker 1: your experience with the franchise. Yeah, so I picked up
12:36
Speaker 1: the series relatively late, not super late.
12:40
Speaker 2: When I was a kid.
12:41
Speaker 3: I was in one of those families where we thought
12:44
Speaker 3: magic was bad in any form, so like Chronicles of
12:47
Speaker 3: Nardia was too much magic. So I was not really
12:51
Speaker 3: playing Final Fantasy back at the ny Estays when that
12:54
Speaker 3: series started.
12:55
Speaker 2: I picked it up later.
12:57
Speaker 3: I think the first one I played was six or
13:00
Speaker 3: three as it was called at the time, on the
13:02
Speaker 3: superin Ees because I had a couple of friends who
13:05
Speaker 3: were very into j RPGs, and one of them kind
13:08
Speaker 3: of gave me Found Basy six and said, here, play it,
13:10
Speaker 3: and so I played it some like I think it
13:12
Speaker 3: was when I was in high school. I played it
13:15
Speaker 3: some of it at my grandparents house, and I, yeah,
13:20
Speaker 3: it was a great game. I think that was technically
13:23
Speaker 3: my second one, after my third one. I started with
13:27
Speaker 3: Super Mario RPG that I played Current Trigger. Then I
13:29
Speaker 3: played Found fac six, which that's the important one for
13:32
Speaker 3: this conversation, uh, And then later on I went back
13:36
Speaker 3: when they released re released the games on Game Boy Advance.
13:39
Speaker 3: I played the remake of one and the GBA remake,
13:44
Speaker 3: and then four and five and then six again. Much
13:48
Speaker 3: more recently, I played seven. Amusingly, I finished playing through
13:54
Speaker 3: the original Found Planac seven the same day I started
13:57
Speaker 3: Final Fantasy seven remake, so I had like none alga
14:00
Speaker 3: going into remake, but it was really fascinating to compare
14:03
Speaker 3: the two, and I played nine and thirteen. I have
14:09
Speaker 3: not touched fourteen the MMO, but I have a couple
14:12
Speaker 3: of friends who are very into it, and they say
14:14
Speaker 3: that the story is very solid in fourteen, like forign MMO.
14:18
Speaker 4: Yeah, I've heard that as well, but it just still
14:20
Speaker 4: seems like too big of a time sink to me.
14:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's my feeling as well. I'm I spend a
14:26
Speaker 3: lot of time playing video games as it is, and
14:27
Speaker 3: I'm scared to tackle an MMO because, oh my goodness,
14:31
Speaker 3: how much would I be playing that.
14:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like we get to that point either
14:35
Speaker 1: don't have to bring in an expert or I don't know,
14:37
Speaker 1: maybe I'll mess around in at some but I feel
14:41
Speaker 1: the same way. I think we're all more or less
14:42
Speaker 1: in the same boat here that Final Fantasy is it's
14:46
Speaker 1: best as an independent game, or at least I mean
14:50
Speaker 1: as someone who hasn't played THEMOS. That's at least my
14:51
Speaker 1: prejudice looking at it. That that's where an RPG tends
14:55
Speaker 1: to really shine. I mean, for me, I was I'm
15:00
Speaker 1: still pretty young when the uh the SNS two and
15:06
Speaker 1: three came out. I mostly remember the nostalgia at the
15:11
Speaker 1: time of kind of experiencing it through my older brothers
15:15
Speaker 1: at the time, and so that really gives me the
15:17
Speaker 1: sense of nostalgia, the sense of kind of homeliness about it.
15:19
Speaker 1: There's certain scenes that are familiar to me, but really
15:22
Speaker 1: it was seven when seven first came out. That's what
15:25
Speaker 1: really gripped me personally into the series, and from that
15:29
Speaker 1: time it's been easily one of my favorite games.
15:33
Speaker 2: Of all time.
15:33
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just that, and that's obviously not an
15:36
Speaker 1: unusual statement. I think it's the case for a lot
15:38
Speaker 1: of Final Fantasy people that seven really latches onto you.
15:42
Speaker 1: And I didn't play eight for whatever reason. I know
15:46
Speaker 1: that's not as popular also, but I didn't play eight
15:49
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, So I look forward to getting back
15:50
Speaker 1: to that. Eventually, played nine, played ten, even played ten two.
15:55
Speaker 1: Unfortunately ten two was my drop off point for Evil
15:59
Speaker 1: Future understandable.
16:01
Speaker 3: Did you not like the It's like it revolves around
16:03
Speaker 3: like costumes as jobs in that one.
16:05
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I don't even remember really anything about it,
16:09
Speaker 1: which probably says something about the quality of the story.
16:13
Speaker 4: I think there's some you have to watch very long
16:16
Speaker 4: sailor Moon style costume change sequences every time you switch
16:21
Speaker 4: your job in the middle of combat. But yeah, I
16:25
Speaker 4: didn't finish that, but I did play it a little bit.
16:27
Speaker 1: Oh, I should also throw tactics in there. But also
16:31
Speaker 1: it's one of my favorites. Yeah, it's it's obviously a
16:36
Speaker 1: unique system, but I feel like the storytelling, and then
16:38
Speaker 1: I like the system. I like the job system. You know,
16:40
Speaker 1: I'm playing five right now, and I really enjoy the
16:43
Speaker 1: ability to customize your strategy. I think that's something that's
16:47
Speaker 1: very often missing from RPGs, So I like that technical side.
16:51
Speaker 1: Being somewhat of an RTS guy myself.
16:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, Five's gameplay I think is some of the best
16:57
Speaker 3: in the entire series because of the job system. I
17:00
Speaker 3: think it's a little weaker than the others, but it's
17:02
Speaker 3: super fun to play.
17:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's definitely a step down from its immediate predecessor
17:06
Speaker 1: as far as story goes. I think game mechanics wise,
17:09
Speaker 1: it's the most fun so far out of the first
17:12
Speaker 1: five that I'm going you know, going through in order here.
17:14
Speaker 1: But story definitely took a dip, but we'll, I guess,
17:17
Speaker 1: get to that in more detail when we get to five.
17:20
Speaker 1: Why do you think this franchise hasn't died for so long?
17:23
Speaker 1: I mean, I haven't studied the history of the like
17:26
Speaker 1: production of the game, the development of the series very much,
17:28
Speaker 1: but I've at least heard it said that, you know,
17:31
Speaker 1: the first Final Fantasy was basically Squaresoft's last ditch at
17:35
Speaker 1: something before going bankrupt and then it obviously turned completely
17:39
Speaker 1: turned them around. So what do you think accounts for
17:43
Speaker 1: the staying power?
17:45
Speaker 3: So I was sick about this because I'm trying to
17:48
Speaker 3: d sound some notes for the questions he left us.
17:51
Speaker 3: I think a lot of what's gotten found my Acey
17:54
Speaker 3: stick around is just its legacy, Like that was too
17:57
Speaker 3: people in the West, like Final Fantasy is is the
18:00
Speaker 3: exemplar of what RPG is. I don't think that applies
18:04
Speaker 3: as much in Japan. Over there, it's like Dragon Quest,
18:06
Speaker 3: but over here, like one on phacty seven you mentioned,
18:09
Speaker 3: like that was a lot of people's first RPG and
18:13
Speaker 3: so they just associate that with like that's the series
18:18
Speaker 3: that RPGs are, and so there's always a lot of
18:21
Speaker 3: people ready to buy every game in the series. They're
18:24
Speaker 3: also very high production values in those games. It's kind
18:29
Speaker 3: of like the Marvel movies, but for video games, like
18:33
Speaker 3: other JRPG series, we'd kill to have the budget. A
18:36
Speaker 3: lot of Final Bingacy games, do I feel like when
18:39
Speaker 3: you I don't know if you play I don't know
18:40
Speaker 3: if you said you played the F seven remake or not,
18:43
Speaker 3: but that game, like.
18:44
Speaker 2: You can just feel like the budget in every single
18:47
Speaker 2: frame of that game.
18:49
Speaker 3: There's just so much money in it and really strong
18:52
Speaker 3: art design, great soundtracks. They're just very very memorable experiences.
19:01
Speaker 1: From that perspective, Yeah, I think that memorable experience is
19:04
Speaker 1: definitely true. I mean, you know, especially if you have
19:07
Speaker 1: the nostalgia for f F seven, if you if you played
19:09
Speaker 1: it back in the day, you know, everyone remembers Tied
19:11
Speaker 1: for the spoilers, you know, suffer off dropping down with
19:14
Speaker 1: the blade, and you know there's these certain moments that
19:17
Speaker 1: everyone just remembers. And I have not played the seven
19:20
Speaker 1: remakes or the remakes and rebirth or Yeah, once I
19:27
Speaker 1: get to my replay of seven, I do want to
19:30
Speaker 1: jump into those. I'm interested. I know. I know David
19:33
Speaker 1: said he's not too excited about all the different spin
19:35
Speaker 1: offs of seven, but having never been turned into any
19:38
Speaker 1: of that, I look forward to getting into some of
19:40
Speaker 1: that as we go through it. But anyways, I mean, David,
19:43
Speaker 1: do you have anything to add to that.
19:46
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know that Hronovu's saka Gucci is the creator
19:51
Speaker 4: of Final Fantasy, and he worked at Square and he'd
19:54
Speaker 4: wanted to make like an RPG, but it wasn't until
19:59
Speaker 4: Dragon Quest that you mentioned Micah had come out and
20:02
Speaker 4: had been really successful that he was able to convince
20:05
Speaker 4: them to let him him do that, and yeah, it's
20:08
Speaker 4: iffy whether or not this was our final chance. But
20:12
Speaker 4: he did say they were facing some bankruptcy problems and
20:16
Speaker 4: it might have been their final game. But he said,
20:18
Speaker 4: more than anything, we just wanted the name to be
20:21
Speaker 4: able to be abbreviated as FF, like it was going
20:23
Speaker 4: to be Fighting Fantasy at first, and he's like, really,
20:25
Speaker 4: anything would do, but we went with Final Fantasy. But yeah,
20:29
Speaker 4: I as far as seven goes and the remakes, my
20:37
Speaker 4: feelings about remakes in general are either if it was great,
20:40
Speaker 4: leave it alone. If it was bad, leave it alone.
20:43
Speaker 4: I don't understand remaking stuff, but they did try. There's
20:47
Speaker 4: a bit of a twist on it when you play it.
20:51
Speaker 4: I just don't like the combat. Frankly, I love turn
20:56
Speaker 4: based combat, and I've pretty much been disappointed with Final
21:00
Speaker 4: Fantasy games since they moved from that, you know, because
21:06
Speaker 4: it came out of the old pencil and paper tabletop games,
21:11
Speaker 4: you know, games like Ultima and some of the SSI
21:15
Speaker 4: gold box games I used to play when I was
21:17
Speaker 4: a kid. It's just we're we're taking the dice rolls
21:21
Speaker 4: and the program is doing them behind the scenes, but
21:23
Speaker 4: it really is the rules of how people played, like
21:27
Speaker 4: Dungeons and Dragons, which parents really didn't like when we
21:31
Speaker 4: were kids, Micah. But and so when they've moved to
21:36
Speaker 4: just action combat, that's not been as compelling to me
21:38
Speaker 4: because I.
21:39
Speaker 2: Do like the stats.
21:40
Speaker 4: But I think part of the staying power is the leveling.
21:46
Speaker 4: You know, the joke is that the first thing you
21:49
Speaker 4: do and a JRPG is rescue somebody's cat, and the
21:52
Speaker 4: last thing you do is kill a god. So it's
21:54
Speaker 4: just you're gradually building up. You know, you might stumble
21:59
Speaker 4: into an area that you are not ready for, especially
22:02
Speaker 4: in these earlier games, and have to go and find
22:06
Speaker 4: the right place to go. They didn't hold your hands
22:09
Speaker 4: as much back in the day, so there was a
22:10
Speaker 4: lot more you know, word of mouth, Hey, I figured
22:15
Speaker 4: out where this place is, and you know, talking to
22:17
Speaker 4: your friends at school, so that did a lot. But yeah,
22:22
Speaker 4: Dragon Quest was a huge deal in Japan, but Final
22:24
Speaker 4: Fantasy was pretty big too. But I think like when
22:27
Speaker 4: Dragon Quest three came out, the whole country almost shut
22:30
Speaker 4: down because everyone was standing in line to buy a
22:33
Speaker 4: copy of it. It was such a huge deal. And
22:37
Speaker 4: I know this isn't about dragon Quest, but I do.
22:39
Speaker 4: I do like the dragon Quest games, but where Final
22:44
Speaker 4: Fantasy it seems to be they try to figure out
22:47
Speaker 4: how to innovate with every game. Dragon Quest is about.
22:52
Speaker 4: This is what you expect. It's they all have the
22:55
Speaker 4: same music, the same monsters, you know, everything is the same.
23:02
Speaker 4: They just tell a little bit of a different story.
23:04
Speaker 4: Even all the way up through dragon Quest eleven, it
23:08
Speaker 4: still has a lot of that familiar stuff and they
23:11
Speaker 4: just kind of iterate on it instead of Final Fantasy
23:14
Speaker 4: often was reinventing itself with new versions. You know, like
23:17
Speaker 4: you talked about the job systems and the active time
23:21
Speaker 4: battle and limit breaks, and then you get into eight.
23:25
Speaker 4: You know you've got the material system in seven, and
23:28
Speaker 4: then in eight you have to draw magic. You don't
23:31
Speaker 4: have magic points. And yeah, I and twelve, which I
23:36
Speaker 4: don't you didn't play that, Andrew. I love twelve. It
23:40
Speaker 4: has a really interesting world. It's the same world as
23:45
Speaker 4: Evilase from Tactics and also Vagrant Story, which is one
23:49
Speaker 4: of my favorite games. But you kind of program your
23:54
Speaker 4: characters in twelve so that you see, you know, like
23:56
Speaker 4: if this character's health goes below this, then use a
24:01
Speaker 4: cure potion on them or something, and there's like a
24:03
Speaker 4: hierarchy of what they do, and then you just kind
24:07
Speaker 4: of when combat starts, you just watch them fight. And
24:13
Speaker 4: I thought that was really satisfying. I think a lot
24:15
Speaker 4: of people didn't like it, But in the there's a
24:20
Speaker 4: remake of it, or a remaster at least. They came
24:24
Speaker 4: out on PlayStation four and sort of like with the
24:27
Speaker 4: Pixel remasters, you can speed up. You can speed up
24:31
Speaker 4: the combat to like four times normal speed, and since
24:33
Speaker 4: it's happening on its own, it'll just fly by, so
24:37
Speaker 4: helps the game move a little more quickly. But I
24:40
Speaker 4: know I rambled a lot there, but I do think
24:43
Speaker 4: the staying power of Final Fantasy was often oh, what
24:45
Speaker 4: are they going to do this time? Because they always
24:49
Speaker 4: were trying to push the envelope and come up with
24:51
Speaker 4: new gameplay mechanics.
24:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you've got a really good point that
24:56
Speaker 3: they he kept kind of you can kind of feel
24:58
Speaker 3: as you go through the series how they kept trying
25:00
Speaker 3: to make the combat more exciting, like that whole active
25:04
Speaker 3: time combat system that was an attempt to add real
25:06
Speaker 3: time elements into a turn based system and I know
25:10
Speaker 3: there's a lot of conversation online amongst those who are
25:13
Speaker 3: really passionate about JRPGs, where there's debate over whether it's
25:18
Speaker 3: good that Final Fantasy has strayed so far away from
25:21
Speaker 3: turn based combat. I don't have a particularly strong preference
25:26
Speaker 3: one way or the other. Like I play a lot
25:27
Speaker 3: of other RPG series that some are more turn based,
25:30
Speaker 3: some aren't. It does feel like Final Fantasy they're afraid
25:35
Speaker 3: to go back to more turn based combat for some reason.
25:39
Speaker 3: I think the typically accepted reason is that they think, like,
25:43
Speaker 3: because they're trying to go for more high fidelity looking graphics,
25:49
Speaker 3: they think that people would not accept a turn based
25:52
Speaker 3: system with that, and so this is a different game.
25:56
Speaker 3: But when Claire obscurit came out, a lot of people
25:57
Speaker 3: were saying, like, see Final Fantasy, you can do turn
26:00
Speaker 3: based with these more realistic graphics. But I don't know, Like,
26:04
Speaker 3: I actually enjoy remake and rebirth the Final Fantasy seven
26:09
Speaker 3: remakes quite a bit, and I think they have excellent
26:11
Speaker 3: combat systems, But I also don't think of those games
26:14
Speaker 3: like as remakes, even though it's in the name. They
26:18
Speaker 3: feel like very different games to me from the original
26:20
Speaker 3: Cloud Badac seven super interesting. They carry a lot of
26:23
Speaker 3: the spirit of the original game over, but fundamentally they
26:26
Speaker 3: feel very different to play.
26:28
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I was going to mention Clare Obscure because
26:33
Speaker 4: that does have turn based combat, and they they have
26:35
Speaker 4: kind of actions that you do to make you know,
26:40
Speaker 4: you have to actively perry andrew or dodge and things
26:45
Speaker 4: like that. I never dodged. I always tried to parry
26:47
Speaker 4: because it was way more satisfying if you could send
26:51
Speaker 4: the attack back on them, because you get a counter
26:53
Speaker 4: attack if you perfectly parry. But Final Fantasy eight has
26:57
Speaker 4: a little bit of that. You know, you have the
26:58
Speaker 4: gun blade and if you hit the trigger the moment
27:01
Speaker 4: the gun hits than it does more damage. Things like that,
27:04
Speaker 4: and I think it you even have to mash the
27:07
Speaker 4: button some on some of your summons, if I remember
27:10
Speaker 4: right on Final Fantasy eight. But yeah, I'm wondering if
27:16
Speaker 4: the success of Claire Obscure and metaphor Refantasio and all
27:21
Speaker 4: of the Persona games might cause I mean, it's been
27:26
Speaker 4: taking them forever. There's more and more time between all
27:30
Speaker 4: the Final Fantasy games with each iteration since about nine
27:36
Speaker 4: or ten, I feel like and thirteen took forever and
27:41
Speaker 4: wasn't the success that they hoped. They had played tons
27:43
Speaker 4: of spinoff games from that. Some of them didn't happen,
27:47
Speaker 4: and some of them did, but fifteen was just weird
27:51
Speaker 4: and sixteen. Sixteen had a great demo that just totally
27:58
Speaker 4: bamboozled me. I ended up not being happy with the game,
28:02
Speaker 4: but I wasn't even intending to buy it. And then
28:04
Speaker 4: I played the demo and it blew my mind. And
28:07
Speaker 4: then I played the game and it didn't live up
28:10
Speaker 4: to the expectation that the demo had given me. But again,
28:14
Speaker 4: I get that's for another time.
28:16
Speaker 3: Sixteen was by the same director as fourteen, wasn't it.
28:19
Speaker 4: I'm not sure.
28:21
Speaker 2: I think I remember hearing that.
28:22
Speaker 3: I haven't played either, so I can't say too much
28:24
Speaker 3: about it, right, but I think it's different director than
28:27
Speaker 3: like fifteen, for example, or thirteen.
28:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, to hit on some of what you both said there,
28:36
Speaker 1: I think the one reason why it's had such staying
28:38
Speaker 1: power is that you get much of the same but
28:41
Speaker 1: also much innovation from game to game. You know, you
28:43
Speaker 1: get even though sometimes we're dealing with vastly different worlds,
28:47
Speaker 1: different settings, and even different like time aesthetics, we're going
28:51
Speaker 1: to win. This is taking place, especially when we jump
28:54
Speaker 1: from six moving forward. You know, it's kind of all
28:56
Speaker 1: over the place. Yet there are certain elements that are
28:59
Speaker 1: predicted that provide you a sense of familiarity. You know,
29:02
Speaker 1: you get at least up to a certain point. You know,
29:04
Speaker 1: you get similar kind of combat, similar names, something we
29:08
Speaker 1: cycle through how a're like naming spells and whatnot, but
29:11
Speaker 1: that there's some commonality of how we're doing that, or
29:14
Speaker 1: like you know, the Chocobo's or the Mughals or you know,
29:17
Speaker 1: like there's certain things that you you come across and
29:20
Speaker 1: you say, Okay, yes, this is the final fantasy that
29:22
Speaker 1: I know. And so you get the new as well
29:25
Speaker 1: as with the expected, the order, with the chaos, which
29:27
Speaker 1: can bring us into i mean some pretty substantial you know,
29:30
Speaker 1: psychological territory.
29:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, David, what do you say something, David?
29:34
Speaker 4: Oh, no, I just kudos to the ordering chaos, right.
29:40
Speaker 1: And then the fact that even though obviously these are
29:43
Speaker 1: Japanese games, that they're pulling a lot from Western culture
29:46
Speaker 1: and mythology.
29:48
Speaker 4: You know, from the very beginning, we're dealing.
29:51
Speaker 1: With some ideas that are very much within like the
29:54
Speaker 1: Tolkien fantasy esthetic of you know, you you go to
29:57
Speaker 1: a place called Elfheim, where you get the elves along
30:01
Speaker 1: with you know, the the Northern nomenclature. You know, there's
30:07
Speaker 1: talk of like a long forgotten kingdom that you know
30:11
Speaker 1: isn't really around anymore. And so you're you're in this
30:13
Speaker 1: world that has all these ruins of this legendary past,
30:17
Speaker 1: and so a lot of the same general esthetic that
30:19
Speaker 1: you get from Tolkien or even you know, jump up
30:23
Speaker 1: to seven, where we get to what I consider I mean,
30:26
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe this is showing age or whatever,
30:29
Speaker 1: I don't know, but where I consider modern the modern iterations.
30:33
Speaker 1: You know, we get to seven, and you know, we're
30:34
Speaker 1: in mid Guard with the the you know, the world
30:38
Speaker 1: serpent out on the gates.
30:40
Speaker 4: Uh.
30:41
Speaker 1: And so you get all this European imagery that a
30:44
Speaker 1: lot of us are familiar with, whether directly or indirectly,
30:47
Speaker 1: just by the world which we live. And and so
30:50
Speaker 1: you know, you get just a very global kind of
30:53
Speaker 1: experience put into this game that I think can appeal
30:57
Speaker 1: to people both in the East as well as in
30:59
Speaker 1: the West, which I think is a pretty remarkable thing
31:02
Speaker 1: to achieve. The one thing that I found and I
31:05
Speaker 1: recently discussed this in I don't know where to discuss
31:09
Speaker 1: this in so many different places at once. Maybe it
31:12
Speaker 1: was a class or something, I don't know, but I
31:14
Speaker 1: was talking about how I was recently reading some confusion
31:17
Speaker 1: text for a philosophy class that I'm teaching, and I
31:21
Speaker 1: was just astounded by how much it sounded just like
31:25
Speaker 1: what Plato's talking about, that we have very disconnected peoples
31:29
Speaker 1: but dealing with similar kinds of ideas, Because I think
31:33
Speaker 1: that the root, like people are people, and that yes,
31:36
Speaker 1: cultural differences matter, and like those aesthetics definitely matter, But
31:41
Speaker 1: at the same time, when you get down to the
31:42
Speaker 1: root of it, I think that we all have the
31:44
Speaker 1: same basic nature and we're all grasping at the same
31:46
Speaker 1: basic things. And so if you are able to tell
31:49
Speaker 1: a good story like that's going to connect with a
31:52
Speaker 1: lot of people across all kinds of different barriers and borders.
31:56
Speaker 1: And so I think that that and so much more
31:59
Speaker 1: kind of goes into makes us such a strong franchise
32:03
Speaker 1: that continues over in the last several decades.
32:07
Speaker 4: Yeah, the phrase JRPG is kind of funny because they
32:13
Speaker 4: borrowed from Western computer RPGG games. Like I mentioned, Ultima
32:19
Speaker 4: and Wizardry and games like that. But when we think
32:23
Speaker 4: of a Western RPG now we think of a thing
32:26
Speaker 4: like Fallout or Skyrum and games along those lines that
32:30
Speaker 4: are more from a first person perspective. But I think they,
32:34
Speaker 4: as with many things in Japan, they took something that
32:37
Speaker 4: was ours and they elevated it into something that became
32:41
Speaker 4: their own cultural icon.
32:43
Speaker 3: Really yeah, it feels like Western RPGs, pretty like computer RPGs,
32:49
Speaker 3: really wanted to give you a lot of choice, like
32:53
Speaker 3: this is your character, who is like whoever you want
32:56
Speaker 3: it to be, and then you can kind of go
32:58
Speaker 3: and make your own story, Elder Scrolls being the quintisdential
33:01
Speaker 3: example of that. But in Western RPGs, it feels like
33:06
Speaker 3: they try to make things a lot more linear they
33:08
Speaker 3: wanted to, which is a lot better for telling a story,
33:10
Speaker 3: I think, because you can like cultivate the story experience
33:15
Speaker 3: much more easily as a as a game developer than
33:19
Speaker 3: you can when the when the player can just experience
33:24
Speaker 3: any part of the game and wherever.
33:26
Speaker 2: They choose to go.
33:28
Speaker 3: And so that's probably why I've tended to prefer JRPGs myself,
33:31
Speaker 3: because I prefer that linear storytelling. I want them to
33:34
Speaker 3: give me characters and media to explore the kind of
33:36
Speaker 3: characters they've they've written instead of just trying to create
33:40
Speaker 3: my own, which is interesting, but it's it's satisfying in
33:45
Speaker 3: a very different way.
33:47
Speaker 4: Yeah, I get. I think that's one of the reasons
33:50
Speaker 4: that I like Final Fantasy for is because you don't
33:54
Speaker 4: even ever choose who is on your party. Like as
33:58
Speaker 4: parts of the storyeople on your party will do something
34:02
Speaker 4: self sacrificial and you know, jump off your airship and
34:05
Speaker 4: then you meet someone else and they're on your team,
34:07
Speaker 4: or various things happen, so people in your party come
34:11
Speaker 4: and go. But I like, I like being part of
34:14
Speaker 4: the story as they have developed it and not just
34:18
Speaker 4: you know, generic characters that I've developed. Because like I
34:22
Speaker 4: think you said on the discord that you like Xenoblade.
34:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, one of my favorite series, so the.
34:31
Speaker 4: Zenoblae Chronicles X You know, you make your own character,
34:36
Speaker 4: and so you're kind of silent and you're like an
34:39
Speaker 4: observer of the story and not really a part of
34:41
Speaker 4: the story. And I never found that quite as compelling
34:44
Speaker 4: as I'm just controlling a team of well written characters
34:50
Speaker 4: that are all part of a story. So I agree
34:52
Speaker 4: with you on that.
34:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, not coincidentally, it's in a Blade X is the
34:56
Speaker 3: one game in the series that didn't quite click for
34:58
Speaker 3: me that I bounced off of.
35:00
Speaker 4: I never finished it.
35:03
Speaker 2: That's interesting.
35:06
Speaker 1: That, you know, I have not spent a lot of
35:09
Speaker 1: time studying Japanese philosophy or culture, but based off what
35:13
Speaker 1: I do understand, I wonder if the style of RPGs
35:19
Speaker 1: that we're dealing with the heavily, you know, here's the
35:21
Speaker 1: story versus go create the story. You know, how much
35:24
Speaker 1: is that ode to had traditionalism on one hand versus
35:28
Speaker 1: Western ex essentialism on the other hand. I think that
35:31
Speaker 1: might be something interesting to delve into. I don't have
35:33
Speaker 1: a lot to comment on, but that definitely seems to
35:35
Speaker 1: be a sort of common sense insight. Throtly know what
35:40
Speaker 1: to do with that, but yeah.
35:42
Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree. You know, they've got their own stories
35:46
Speaker 4: of heroes roaming the countryside and fighting demons in those
35:51
Speaker 4: sorts of things. In fact, there have been plenty of
35:53
Speaker 4: j RPGs that never made it here that are based
35:56
Speaker 4: on some of their folklore, and some of it sneaks
36:00
Speaker 4: into these games as well without us being able to
36:04
Speaker 4: recognize it sometimes. But yeah, it's interesting.
36:06
Speaker 3: JRPGs are also very heavily influenced by anime as well,
36:10
Speaker 3: which you can see more in some series than others.
36:14
Speaker 3: But I know, like thematically like talk about like Eastern philosophy.
36:17
Speaker 3: I know, jerrpgs are one of the places where I
36:22
Speaker 3: first realized that Japan has a what feels like a
36:25
Speaker 3: somewhat tense relationship with Christianity and Western religious thought, like
36:33
Speaker 3: because if you ever play another series, it's pretty old
36:38
Speaker 3: and hasn't had a new game in a long time.
36:40
Speaker 3: But if you ever played Grandia two, they're like, I'm
36:47
Speaker 3: gonna spoil something for that game, But the Pope is
36:50
Speaker 3: a villain, and there's kind of a deconstructionism that goes
36:54
Speaker 3: on in that story over like whether the God of
36:59
Speaker 3: the asked in that world and his battle with the
37:01
Speaker 3: Satan of that world, whether God was actually a good
37:03
Speaker 3: guy or whether he was actually all he was cracked.
37:05
Speaker 2: Up to be. And so I remember playing that and thinking, oh,
37:08
Speaker 2: this has got a very negative view of religion here
37:11
Speaker 2: and was kind of existentialist, And you will see that
37:15
Speaker 2: in a lot of jerpgs.
37:18
Speaker 4: I mean, the Pope is basically a bad guy in
37:22
Speaker 4: ten as well, and thirteen and just lots of them.
37:25
Speaker 4: Like a lot of jerrpgs, there is a Western style
37:30
Speaker 4: church and surprise, surprise, they are secretly doing something terrible
37:35
Speaker 4: or they are a complete lie within the story. Yeah.
37:39
Speaker 3: I think the most famous infamous case of this was
37:42
Speaker 3: actually the Shin Magammetense series, which is what Persona spun
37:46
Speaker 3: off of. I think the first couple of games of
37:48
Speaker 3: that series, which I've never played, the final boss is
37:50
Speaker 3: literally the Judeo Christian God.
37:53
Speaker 4: Yeah. So I'm playing all the way through five and
37:58
Speaker 4: Andrew the Shin Magamy Tinsey series. All of the monsters
38:07
Speaker 4: are creatures from folklore or religions from around the world,
38:12
Speaker 4: and you kind of capture them sort of Pokemon style,
38:15
Speaker 4: and they can fight for you. So it was really,
38:20
Speaker 4: you know, as much as people were upset about Pokemon, like,
38:23
Speaker 4: you can have Moloch on your team in Shin Magamy Tense.
38:27
Speaker 4: And I did get near the end of that game
38:29
Speaker 4: and I'm like, so help me. If Jesus is the
38:32
Speaker 4: final boss, I am just going to stop playing this game,
38:35
Speaker 4: Like that's a bridge too far.
38:39
Speaker 2: Yeah.
38:39
Speaker 3: I don't talk to people who are in do a
38:42
Speaker 3: lot of international missions work, and I know they've said
38:45
Speaker 3: that Japan is a very difficult ground for Christian missions
38:50
Speaker 3: because apparently, just culturally, a lot of them have the
38:54
Speaker 3: view that that Christianity is like I don't know if
38:59
Speaker 3: they think of is like Illuminati type thing necessarily, but
39:02
Speaker 3: they think of it as like trying to manipulate other
39:06
Speaker 3: cultures and kind of it's all about power from our perspective.
39:10
Speaker 2: And so I think you kind of see that some
39:12
Speaker 2: in some of their stories.
39:12
Speaker 4: Yeah, and also they see all religion as equally.
39:19
Speaker 2: Fake.
39:19
Speaker 4: I don't know a fake is a fair word, but like, oh,
39:23
Speaker 4: that's what you believe. That's interesting. Here's what I believe
39:26
Speaker 4: is kind of the attitude they have, Like, yeah, I've
39:29
Speaker 4: heard missionaries talk about to reach a Japanese person with
39:34
Speaker 4: the Gospel, you first have to convince them that there
39:36
Speaker 4: is any reason to care about whether or not there
39:43
Speaker 4: is any kind of truth in that direction. But yeah, well,
39:48
Speaker 4: when they closed their borders, it was largely about Christianity.
39:51
Speaker 4: You know, these Catholic missionaries were coming in and telling
39:58
Speaker 4: people in this pretty strict caste system of peasants and
40:03
Speaker 4: samurai and the nobility that hey, everybody's equal, and that
40:10
Speaker 4: was not good for their system, so they I was
40:13
Speaker 4: told this by a Japanese tour guide at one point.
40:15
Speaker 4: I was really surprised to hear that. It was interesting
40:20
Speaker 4: to hear it out of a Japanese person's mouth, but like, oh,
40:24
Speaker 4: so it was the message of peace and equality that
40:28
Speaker 4: drove feudal Japan to close their borders to stop that nonsense.
40:32
Speaker 4: So I wonder if some aspect of that sentiment has
40:36
Speaker 4: just kind of carried through, Like they're not hostile to
40:40
Speaker 4: Christians at this point. I've been to Tokyo Baptist Church.
40:43
Speaker 4: They got a pretty good I mean, it's not as
40:45
Speaker 4: big as my church and my town of eighteen thousand people,
40:48
Speaker 4: and it's in the biggest city in the world, but
40:52
Speaker 4: they're not, you know, under any sort of opposition or anything. Yeah.
40:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that tracks with what I've heard as well,
40:58
Speaker 3: Like I don't my since it's not so much that
41:01
Speaker 3: they're hostile to Christianity so much as they're just kind
41:03
Speaker 3: of like vaguely suspicious of it.
41:05
Speaker 4: Yeah that's fair. Man.
41:10
Speaker 1: Now I feel like I need to go read a
41:12
Speaker 1: bunch about Japanese philosophy and relationships with Christianity. But that's
41:19
Speaker 1: where my mind goes with these conversations. I mean, yeah,
41:24
Speaker 1: I mean I think of even you know, one of
41:25
Speaker 1: my favorite games, if I masy Tactics or it comes
41:28
Speaker 1: out that the entire church woud run by demons essentially.
41:31
Speaker 4: Wow, Tactics is a blind spot that I've got. I
41:34
Speaker 4: never played Tactics.
41:37
Speaker 3: I do find it really interesting when you see like
41:40
Speaker 3: the church in like a JRPG or a church of
41:42
Speaker 3: some sort, and they're not villainous and like you're totally
41:46
Speaker 3: on their side the whole time. They're totally fine. Like
41:48
Speaker 3: I think it's debatable, but I think like fire Upood
41:52
Speaker 3: in Three Houses feels that way, Like you've got a
41:54
Speaker 3: church there, and like there is a path where the
41:57
Speaker 3: church is the bad guy, but in most of the
41:59
Speaker 3: paths it's like they're generally on the right side of things.
42:03
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, And in metaphor, it's it's not so much
42:08
Speaker 4: that the church is evil, but there are people just
42:12
Speaker 4: pursuing their own power within the church, and there are
42:18
Speaker 4: also faithful people who who really believe the church is teachings.
42:23
Speaker 4: But at the end of the day, it's it's all
42:26
Speaker 4: you as the player know, it's all made up. It's
42:29
Speaker 4: not the way the world really works. That this one
42:31
Speaker 4: God thing that these guys believe is not the truth.
42:35
Speaker 4: So yeah, it's it's a little odd sometimes at the.
42:39
Speaker 1: Same time on the foundational level, I mean, you know,
42:42
Speaker 1: that's I've been playing through the first few games, and
42:46
Speaker 1: we get ideas that are very compatible with Christianity, even
42:50
Speaker 1: if you know they they may not be favorable to Christianity,
42:53
Speaker 1: there's certain compatibility there. You know, things like you know,
42:56
Speaker 1: you mentioned in PANOPHANASU four that constantly people are sacked
43:00
Speaker 1: fing themselves for the good of those that they care
43:02
Speaker 1: about or the good of the world, and so you
43:04
Speaker 1: get that constant self sacrifice. I mean, I was just
43:06
Speaker 1: surprised by how many people just you know, through their
43:09
Speaker 1: lives away I mean for good reasons, but it's just
43:12
Speaker 1: happening left and right in that game or even you know,
43:16
Speaker 1: going to the first few games emphasis on the crystals,
43:22
Speaker 1: which you know, all one hand, it seems like kind
43:24
Speaker 1: of a superficial thing to do. You know, you got
43:26
Speaker 1: your your elements and they're out of balance and you
43:28
Speaker 1: got to put them in order. But at the same time,
43:30
Speaker 1: like that that's actually a pretty significant idea that we
43:32
Speaker 1: need to bring order out of chaos, and that clearly
43:35
Speaker 1: order is better than chaos. Being is better than non being.
43:39
Speaker 1: You know, your enemy in a lot of these games
43:41
Speaker 1: ends up being like either essentially, in like fun of
43:46
Speaker 1: Mac two, your enemy is this evil emperor who you
43:49
Speaker 1: kill and then basically becomes the devil, and you know,
43:53
Speaker 1: he comes back and fights you. And so we get
43:56
Speaker 1: this idea that like being is better than non being,
43:59
Speaker 1: orders better than chaos, And so it's not just a
44:03
Speaker 1: morally ambiguous story that they're giving us, Like that clearly
44:07
Speaker 1: what Christianity prescribes like order being, like these things are
44:10
Speaker 1: good and the things that are worth working for and
44:12
Speaker 1: even sacrificing for, even the cost of your own life.
44:15
Speaker 1: And so while they might not be favorable toward Christianity
44:18
Speaker 1: as such, like, there's certain baseline ideas that I think
44:21
Speaker 1: we can very much recognize, like these are splinters of
44:25
Speaker 1: the true light that enlightens everybody. And so I think
44:30
Speaker 1: that that's I don't know, I just find that interesting.
44:33
Speaker 4: Yeah, well said. And even you can portray a church
44:37
Speaker 4: as evil and still make Christian points through that. You know,
44:41
Speaker 4: if the church is evil, that truly is evil, then
44:45
Speaker 4: than they are something that needs to be stopped for
44:48
Speaker 4: for the greater good and it you know you've you've
44:52
Speaker 4: played Tin. Like the whole story of ten is she's
44:56
Speaker 4: on this pilgrimage and literally to defeat sin, like the
44:59
Speaker 4: monster called Sin in Final Fantasy ten. Yeah, and she's
45:05
Speaker 4: doing what she believes is right. But then when you
45:08
Speaker 4: get to the to the moment, then you learn otherwise.
45:13
Speaker 4: But yeah, that's not the end of the story, you know.
45:18
Speaker 3: So it's not be getting had Andrew one of your
45:20
Speaker 3: later questions. But I know one of your discussion questions
45:24
Speaker 3: was what are the general themes across the entire series?
45:27
Speaker 2: And I had to stop and think about that because
45:28
Speaker 2: I was like, okay, but they're all like separate stories,
45:31
Speaker 2: so what exactly do.
45:31
Speaker 3: They have in common here? And I think what I
45:34
Speaker 3: ended up coming to was going all the way back
45:37
Speaker 3: to Final Fantasy ie, where again I don't know how
45:42
Speaker 3: much we want to spoil it here, but like the
45:44
Speaker 3: final big plot twist without saying exactly what it was,
45:48
Speaker 3: involves like a constant cycle of destruction and so and
45:53
Speaker 3: I thought of that as like, if you look at
45:54
Speaker 3: like just about all the games of the series, there's
45:57
Speaker 3: a notion of there is some like festering evil that
46:00
Speaker 3: is manifesting cyclically and iteratively more and more evil, and
46:08
Speaker 3: the goal of the story thematically is to try to
46:12
Speaker 3: break that cycle of destruction, like you can see it
46:15
Speaker 3: in well, we're talking about fom Phazy seven, right, It's
46:19
Speaker 3: like there's a lot of environmentalist themes in Fana Matsy seven,
46:23
Speaker 3: like exploiting the planet and destroying it in the process
46:27
Speaker 3: that Schinra and mid Guard is doing. But there's a
46:31
Speaker 3: kind of notion that Chinra by engaging in all their
46:34
Speaker 3: evil and like there's a lot more evil festering and
46:38
Speaker 3: then it manifests in suffer Off, who then goes and
46:42
Speaker 3: tries to just.
46:43
Speaker 5: Blowthing in found Phantasy six, Like the Empire is the
46:51
Speaker 5: villain at the beginning, and they're pretty bad to begin with.
46:53
Speaker 3: They're just conquering the world, and then Kefka comes along
46:57
Speaker 3: and is like I'm just going to destroy the MP
47:00
Speaker 3: and then everything else and drives these power and so
47:02
Speaker 3: like a worse evil happens because of this festering cycle.
47:06
Speaker 3: And so I think there is a notion like like
47:10
Speaker 3: what you were talking about, David, about how there's an
47:14
Speaker 3: exploration of like dealing with sin. That is what sin does,
47:18
Speaker 3: is it festers and just becomes worse and worse and worse.
47:21
Speaker 3: And you could say, like from one angle, like part
47:26
Speaker 3: of the Christian message is that Jesus came to break
47:28
Speaker 3: that cycle of destruction, break its power over us, so
47:32
Speaker 3: that we could be saved.
47:36
Speaker 1: Right, that we don't have to be slaves of fate,
47:40
Speaker 1: a kind of fate that keeps us locked into the
47:42
Speaker 1: cycle that we're currently living in. We're able to stand
47:44
Speaker 1: against that. And you know that even connects to our
47:46
Speaker 1: recent Mass Effects series, which is you know, deals with
47:49
Speaker 1: this cycle that seems inevitable, yet we come to find
47:52
Speaker 1: there is a way to break out of that, even
47:54
Speaker 1: if it requires great sacrifice. You have to lose yourself
47:57
Speaker 1: in order to find like two, to secure being of sorts,
48:02
Speaker 1: to secure reality as it should be. And you know
48:06
Speaker 1: even in in the Final Fantasy series that there is
48:10
Speaker 1: that continue to deal with evil, and we all very
48:13
Speaker 1: often find that who you think is the real villain
48:17
Speaker 1: isn't the real villain. That behind this kind of demonically
48:21
Speaker 1: leaning villain is the openly demonic right that this kind
48:24
Speaker 1: of comes out of nowhere sometimes, but I think it's
48:27
Speaker 1: it's important to recognize that like the people that we
48:31
Speaker 1: tend to associate with the prime evils aren't usually prime evils,
48:36
Speaker 1: they are secondaries, or that they're pawd of the true enemy.
48:39
Speaker 1: And obviously there's a Christian message that could be pulled
48:42
Speaker 1: out of that that it's it's ultimately it's it's you know,
48:47
Speaker 1: the powers and principalities that were that were actively fighting against.
48:50
Speaker 1: And so I think that's an interesting turn that, you know,
48:54
Speaker 1: from a basic storytelling angle, seems kind of I mean,
49:00
Speaker 1: lack of a better word, bad, in that the ultimate
49:03
Speaker 1: villain just start pulled out of nowhere. But I think
49:05
Speaker 1: that philosophically, me theologically, that's actually a pretty significant point. David,
49:15
Speaker 1: do anything to add about general themes.
49:19
Speaker 4: No, I think that was really good. I agree with
49:22
Speaker 4: that because they are a lot of them very very
49:27
Speaker 4: different from each other's story wise, but it is true
49:30
Speaker 4: and sometimes the final villain does come out of nowhere.
49:33
Speaker 4: Sometimes you learn about them very near the beginning. The
49:38
Speaker 4: villain in you just finished four, I don't think zero
49:42
Speaker 4: Muss is ever really mentioned, and then suddenly it's just
49:46
Speaker 4: this big monster that you're having to fight. And eight
49:51
Speaker 4: also has a the true villain kind of comes out
49:54
Speaker 4: of nowhere. Eight has a very some very strange twist
49:58
Speaker 4: and turns in the story. It is a very slow beginning,
50:02
Speaker 4: but I do think it's worth worth playing. I don't
50:07
Speaker 4: remember the plot much of nine, but I do remember
50:10
Speaker 4: that I really liked nine. I think there were some
50:13
Speaker 4: aspects of the story that we seem like Dragon ball
50:16
Speaker 4: Z ripoffs. Like you're a guy with a monkey tale
50:19
Speaker 4: who finds out he's an alien that was really supposed
50:22
Speaker 4: to destroy her, Like that's literally the plot of dragon
50:24
Speaker 4: Ball Z. But I don't remember who the villain was
50:27
Speaker 4: in nine at all.
50:29
Speaker 3: Nine's main villain was a guy named Kouja, and there
50:32
Speaker 3: was also a similar thing to.
50:35
Speaker 2: Six and seven going on there where it's like there is.
50:39
Speaker 3: Like an evil empire going on like for a while,
50:42
Speaker 3: and then the villain kind of gets suddenly more powerful
50:45
Speaker 3: than the empire and takes them out. But the final
50:48
Speaker 3: boss of nine is the one I always think of
50:50
Speaker 3: with villain that comes out of nowhere, because the vowel
50:52
Speaker 3: boss of nine is not Kuja.
50:54
Speaker 2: It's like some weird character.
50:56
Speaker 3: I think it's like Necros or whatever, but he's like
50:59
Speaker 3: a man infestation representation of death itself. But it's like
51:04
Speaker 3: you beat Ujin, then suddenly, Oh we're fighting death now cool?
51:07
Speaker 2: Why not?
51:09
Speaker 3: But itself, I know thematically is very focused on death
51:13
Speaker 3: and contemplating, like like when people die around you, like
51:18
Speaker 3: how do you cope with that? Like, if I remember right,
51:21
Speaker 3: it's been a while, I think vv is the character
51:24
Speaker 3: Voody remembers from that game who's like the Black Mage characters,
51:27
Speaker 3: like the archetypical black age, but as like a little
51:29
Speaker 3: adorable guy in a witch hat. But I remember he
51:33
Speaker 3: has to deal with death and it's sort of like
51:36
Speaker 3: he he as a character, feels very innocent, but because
51:41
Speaker 3: people are dying, how does he cope with it? And
51:45
Speaker 3: there is a sense I think of similar themes throughout
51:48
Speaker 3: the series of like when you are in this world
51:52
Speaker 3: of despair where there seems to be no hope, like
51:56
Speaker 3: can you find hope in that? BOMBYC six also deals
51:59
Speaker 3: very heavily with that theme, because like the world literally
52:01
Speaker 3: dies and then what do you do?
52:05
Speaker 2: And so that light in the darkness is a definite
52:10
Speaker 2: thing that serious plays with.
52:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean based off the games that I have played,
52:15
Speaker 1: and I feel like those are the predominant themes that
52:20
Speaker 1: typically you're on the broad scale, you're trying to save
52:24
Speaker 1: the planet from destruction, but even more fundamentally than that,
52:27
Speaker 1: like I think that you're trying to I mean, hold
52:32
Speaker 1: on to goodness right in the face of despair. That
52:34
Speaker 1: very often is a theme, and so it's like you're
52:38
Speaker 1: you're trying to save the world, but also trying to
52:40
Speaker 1: save your own soul in the process, And so you
52:43
Speaker 1: get the cosmic as well as the existential the subjective,
52:48
Speaker 1: like both of those I think are very much at
52:49
Speaker 1: play at least typically in these games, which again I
52:53
Speaker 1: think is something that speaks to its staying power, that
52:55
Speaker 1: people to hit you from the top as well as
52:57
Speaker 1: from the bottom.
52:58
Speaker 4: I am. I was thinking about what appealed about these
53:04
Speaker 4: to me as a kid, and just RPGs in general,
53:07
Speaker 4: and really one of the things is how they how
53:10
Speaker 4: the game tricked you into thinking that they're bigger than
53:13
Speaker 4: they are. You know, the world map is a lie
53:18
Speaker 4: that makes everything seem bigger, you know, like you very
53:23
Speaker 4: often you start in like a like in Dragon Quest,
53:26
Speaker 4: you start in a castle. You got to leave the castle,
53:28
Speaker 4: and when you walk out of the whole map of
53:30
Speaker 4: the castle, then you're on this map in the castle's tiny.
53:33
Speaker 4: Then you walk a little waist to the first town,
53:35
Speaker 4: like it makes you feel like you're on this epic
53:39
Speaker 4: quest in an enormous world at a time when computers
53:42
Speaker 4: couldn't really truly realize a world of any kind of scale,
53:47
Speaker 4: And even now games are tricking you into thinking they're
53:51
Speaker 4: bigger than they are, Like even Zelda Breath of the
53:55
Speaker 4: Wild as big as the map is like from you know,
54:01
Speaker 4: someplace way down south to Mount Doom is like from
54:05
Speaker 4: my house to Walmart if I laid on Google Earth
54:08
Speaker 4: or something. But it feels like it's an enormous world
54:12
Speaker 4: that you're exploring. So I think the way that it
54:15
Speaker 4: captured my imagination like that, like just thinking about the
54:19
Speaker 4: journey and how far I had gone when really you
54:22
Speaker 4: haven't gone very far at all, was a cool thing.
54:25
Speaker 4: And I was actually disappointed when Final Fantasy ten came around.
54:29
Speaker 4: That was the first one where there was no overworld
54:31
Speaker 4: map that you were exploring. It worked really well with
54:34
Speaker 4: that story because again, you are escorting a woman on
54:38
Speaker 4: a pilgrimage down a road that is that pilgrimage, so
54:43
Speaker 4: it makes sense for that game, but at the time
54:46
Speaker 4: I was a little disappointed.
54:49
Speaker 3: The overworld is another thing that I know Claar Obscure
54:52
Speaker 3: brought back that a lot of games.
54:53
Speaker 2: Had not had recently.
54:54
Speaker 4: That's true.
54:55
Speaker 3: I was very surprised when I saw that, But yeah,
54:58
Speaker 3: I like talking from my side, and very similar I
55:01
Speaker 3: think to what you said, David, Like I've always liked
55:05
Speaker 3: how like just the free wheeling imagination and grandeur of
55:09
Speaker 3: the series. I've heard it said that a lot of
55:13
Speaker 3: the appeal are one of the basic emotional appeals of
55:17
Speaker 3: science fiction and fantasy both is just a sense of wonder,
55:22
Speaker 3: which you can get when the world feels really big
55:26
Speaker 3: and when you feel like you're on this grand adventure
55:30
Speaker 3: and where anything crazy can happen. And we didn't really
55:34
Speaker 3: delve into this, but one of my favorite things about
55:37
Speaker 3: Found Fancy series is that it it hybridizes fantasy and
55:41
Speaker 3: science fiction very heavily, Like you'll get the tropes from
55:46
Speaker 3: both genres just intermixed, as if they were never meant
55:49
Speaker 3: to be separate in the first place. Like even in
55:52
Speaker 3: Fould Fantasy one, I think at one point you just
55:55
Speaker 3: randomly go up into a space station and there are robots,
55:57
Speaker 3: and the meanest going to be in the game is Warmack,
56:00
Speaker 3: which you just randomly fight on the bridge found Fantasy
56:03
Speaker 3: six is it's predominantly steampunk, but it has a very
56:08
Speaker 3: tightly interwoven mixture of like fantastical magic and technology and machines.
56:14
Speaker 3: And one other recurring theme that you see in the
56:17
Speaker 3: series is that tension between technology and nature, which I
56:23
Speaker 3: think is one of the more common themes you get
56:26
Speaker 3: when you combine fantasy and sci fi, is like, what
56:30
Speaker 3: wins between the magical side and the science side, or
56:34
Speaker 3: can they exist in harmony? Is there a balance to
56:36
Speaker 3: be achieved? So I think I have like a basic
56:41
Speaker 3: fascination with that kind of mixture.
56:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a really good point that we
56:45
Speaker 1: hadn't discussed, and I don't even think I need to
56:48
Speaker 1: add to that. I mean, we'll get into the specifics
56:50
Speaker 1: of that as we started going gain by game, but
56:52
Speaker 1: I think that is a really good point, and I'd
56:55
Speaker 1: forgotten that. I've been kind of rushing through the Pixelary
56:57
Speaker 1: Masters because I want to see what the story is.
57:00
Speaker 1: I want you to see that development game to game,
57:02
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I'm not intending to spend
57:04
Speaker 1: weeks upon weeks in Final Fantasy one at this point
57:08
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five, and so you know, I've been
57:11
Speaker 1: doing my four times Gill and Experience boost, just trying
57:15
Speaker 1: to move through those early games. But I had forgot
57:18
Speaker 1: all about the space station thing, and it is it's
57:22
Speaker 1: a seamless experience, like it's not really jarring to go
57:25
Speaker 1: from one to the other, which I think again just
57:27
Speaker 1: speaks to sort of the universal multi chromatic dimensions of
57:33
Speaker 1: this game, that they're able to hit you from so
57:35
Speaker 1: many different directions so seamlessly. And today's point about the
57:38
Speaker 1: just sense of wonder and exploration, I mean, I can
57:41
Speaker 1: easily see that, you know, if you are playing something
57:45
Speaker 1: like Final Fantasy one that doesn't hold your hand, it
57:47
Speaker 1: just starts as go figure out what to do, Like,
57:50
Speaker 1: you could easily spend a long time just exploring and
57:54
Speaker 1: figuring out what to do. And I think that there
57:56
Speaker 1: is a certain value in that, a value and enchantment
57:59
Speaker 1: and value in critical thought, a value in sort of
58:03
Speaker 1: losing yourself in this world in a way that like
58:06
Speaker 1: I think that as with a good novel, can be
58:08
Speaker 1: used in a way that makes you more grounded in
58:09
Speaker 1: this world. I think that's what a good story does,
58:12
Speaker 1: or that's what the right kind of engagement with a
58:15
Speaker 1: good story is able to accomplish, and you know to
58:20
Speaker 1: what limited degree I've I've been experiencing with these early games,
58:22
Speaker 1: you know, I've kind of noticed that, and I definitely
58:25
Speaker 1: look forward to seeing how that sense of enchantment and
58:27
Speaker 1: wonder just continues to develop. You know, I feel like
58:32
Speaker 1: I'm to some degree looking at the beam rather than
58:35
Speaker 1: along the beam, to use Lewis's language there, But yeah,
58:40
Speaker 1: there's definitely a lot to that. Well, I think this
58:45
Speaker 1: was a good general discussion. Next time we'll start going
58:50
Speaker 1: somewhat game by game. I've decided that I don't know
58:53
Speaker 1: if we can pull great episodes out of just looking
58:56
Speaker 1: at one, two or three, but I feel like those
58:58
Speaker 1: uncomfortable grouping together, and so next time we're going to
59:01
Speaker 1: to take a look at one, two, and three. And
59:04
Speaker 1: you know, I would love if both of you, as
59:06
Speaker 1: well as anybody else who's interested, would be able to
59:08
Speaker 1: join us for that. But we'll go ahead and route there.
59:12
Speaker 1: So I'll talk to you next time. Until then, maybe
59:16
Speaker 1: the Crystals guide you all right, thank you for listening
59:23
Speaker 1: or watching if you're over on YouTube. I really enjoyed
59:26
Speaker 1: this introductory conversation. I look forward to really digging into
59:29
Speaker 1: this series, just working through from the beginning. Now, as
59:33
Speaker 1: I'm mentioning these conversations, I've recently been going through the
59:36
Speaker 1: Pixel remasters. You can find that on Steam. You can
59:39
Speaker 1: get the whole collection pretty cheap, of one through six
59:42
Speaker 1: remastered on a Steam sale. That's how I got mine
59:46
Speaker 1: during the last one, so keep an eye out for that.
59:49
Speaker 1: I definitely recommend it. I had meant to ask the
59:51
Speaker 1: other guys where people should begin if they wanted to
59:54
Speaker 1: step into the franchise for the first time, but I
59:56
Speaker 1: totally forgot to do so. But for my answer, I'll
1:00:00
Speaker 1: try to remember to ask them at the beginning of
1:00:02
Speaker 1: the next conversation. But for my answer, and this admittedly
1:00:05
Speaker 1: is only going to appeal to a certain kind of
1:00:07
Speaker 1: person who shares my desire for research for a story,
1:00:14
Speaker 1: for really tracing the development of ideas across time, I
1:00:17
Speaker 1: really encourage you, like start at the beginning, get those
1:00:20
Speaker 1: Pixel Remasters, which updates some of the mechanics, gives the
1:00:24
Speaker 1: opportunity to boost your experience and your gill or you know,
1:00:28
Speaker 1: the money that you get from battles and whatnot. That
1:00:30
Speaker 1: makes the whole thing just move a lot faster, which
1:00:33
Speaker 1: again I recommend for these early games. They're not somewhere
1:00:36
Speaker 1: where in twenty twenty five you're gonna want to spend
1:00:38
Speaker 1: a lot of your time. But at the same time,
1:00:39
Speaker 1: I think there is value and appreciating them for their simplicity.
1:00:42
Speaker 1: But also, as I mentioned the conversation, there's value when
1:00:45
Speaker 1: you're dealing with a franchise that's been around for almost
1:00:48
Speaker 1: four decades. There's value in seeing how they develop over
1:00:52
Speaker 1: time and what that reveals culturally about this popular series,
1:00:57
Speaker 1: about what speaks to people, or what you square your
1:01:00
Speaker 1: thought would speak to people. I think that there's really
1:01:02
Speaker 1: some interesting potential for cultural analysis there, And so if
1:01:05
Speaker 1: you're somebody who's interested in sort of the metastory of
1:01:09
Speaker 1: the development of the franchise as well as being able
1:01:12
Speaker 1: to appreciate the simplicity of the early games, then I
1:01:17
Speaker 1: recommend do that approach. Get the pictelary masters, work through
1:01:20
Speaker 1: them from the very beginning. But if you're instead of
1:01:23
Speaker 1: looking for something that might be more of a gaming
1:01:25
Speaker 1: experience that fits contemporary sensibilities, then maybe one of the
1:01:31
Speaker 1: other guys will have a better recommendation for you. But
1:01:34
Speaker 1: take that for what it is. I look forward to
1:01:37
Speaker 1: next time getting into Final Fantasy one two and three,
1:01:41
Speaker 1: and I hope that you will follow along with us.
1:01:43
Speaker 1: If you'd like to participate in these chats, then it's
1:01:45
Speaker 1: become a patron over at patreon dot com slash Mythic Mind.
1:01:48
Speaker 1: Even a Tier one patronage will allow you access to
1:01:51
Speaker 1: all of our conversations across the Mythic Mind fellowship that
1:01:54
Speaker 1: includes the main Mythic Mind podcast that includes this one obviously,
1:01:59
Speaker 1: as well as my Mind movies and shows where we're
1:02:02
Speaker 1: currently continuing through a Star Wars series, and at the
1:02:05
Speaker 1: time that this releases, the next thing to come out
1:02:09
Speaker 1: from Mythic Mind on the public feeds will be over
1:02:13
Speaker 1: on the main Mythic Mind podcast on Monday the eighth,
1:02:16
Speaker 1: as we continue through C. S. Lewis's That Hideous Strength.
1:02:19
Speaker 1: And of course if you are patron then you get
1:02:21
Speaker 1: all episodes of all three podcasts delivered into one feed
1:02:24
Speaker 1: early and ad free, and so if you want to
1:02:27
Speaker 1: support us, you want to get full access to our
1:02:30
Speaker 1: discord server, you want to join us in some of
1:02:32
Speaker 1: these chats, then head over to Patreon dot com slash
1:02:35
Speaker 1: Mythic Mind or click that link in the show notes.
1:02:37
Speaker 1: But that's it for now until next time. God speed,