April 17, 2024 • 49 mins
Ever wondered how the virtual worlds we immerse ourselves in can shape our minds and behaviors? Join us this as week while we navigate the labyrinthine connections between psychology and gaming. We're returning from a hiatus with renewed vigor, and despite a few production snags, we're here to unpack the psychological intricacies that make MMOs like Final Fantasy XIV a phenomenon for all types of players. From crafting die-hards to PvP enthusiasts, we dissect what makes these gaming experiences tick and how they can, for better or worse, impact your mental wellness.
This time around, we're digging into the origins and allure of the Final Fantasy series, especially for those who might be taking their first steps into its rich lore. Jenny shares her latest Witcher tales, showcasing a gameplay shift that mirrors our own transitions in life and creative work. Yes, even a seasoned side-quester can change their stripes. We also toss around insights on game design, contrasting the early, linear narratives of yesteryear with today's more guided storytelling exemplified by Final Fantasy X. And for those intrigued by the gaming zeitgeist, we touch on current controversies and the fine line between inspiration and plagiarism in game development.
As we wrap up, we extend a heartfelt invitation to listeners to join the AIE community for some collective Final Fantasy fun. It's a heartfelt 'thank you' to those who've been with us on this podcasting odyssey, and we're excited to reveal our new membership tiers on the Doctor Gameology YouTube channel, promising even more rich content and resources for our fellow gaming aficionados. So, whether you're a JRPG veteran or a newcomer eager to explore, we've got a treasure trove of discussions that will resonate with every player looking for that deeper connection between the games we love and the lives we lead.
If you would like to support the show and help us unlock additional possibilities for future episodes and projects, this can now be done through Patreon!
You can watch us play games LIVE and join our communities to get more connection from every episode:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello, this is Dr Daniel Kaufman, also known as Dr
Gameology, and I just wanted toadd a little bit of an update
before you listen to the nextepisode, where we do our part
three on entering the series ofFinal Fantasy.
We hit a bit of a productionroad bump earlier this year.
A lot of it is due to changesand personal life things that
(00:26):
just made it very difficult torecord.
So the things we're talkingabout in this episode have
already happened, and happenedsome time ago.
I still believe there are somegood bits in there for all of
you to listen to and add to yourawareness of what it's like to
play online games, mmo games,final Fantasy games and add that
(00:50):
to your idea of what thepsychology of gaming actually is
.
So I'm releasing the episodenow because late is better than
never and I hope you enjoy it.
I hope it's still relevant forthose of you who have been with
us for this long.
Thank you so much and, asalways, continue the journey.
Enjoy the episode.
(01:26):
Welcome to the Gaming Personapodcast.
This is the show that exploreswho we become when we play games
.
I'm your host, dr Gamology,from YouTube and online
classrooms across the country,and I'm joined by two of my best
friends from my gaming journey,jenny LeBron and Gene Wong.
We're back, all three of usFriends.
How are we doing this week?
Speaker 2 (01:45):
I'm doing fantastic and I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
I'm doing good, all right.
So now that we have reconvened,confirmed, all three of us are
here.
Where can our listeners find us?
Speaker 2 (01:59):
You can find my photography page on Instagram at
jlebron photography or jlebronphotographycom if you're curious
about what a nerdy person'sphotos look like and I'm dr
gamology on youtube and othersocial apps.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Of course you can find me on this show every week.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
The gaming persona can be found on apple podcast,
spotify, google and mostanywhere else podcasts can be
found.
If you are enjoying our content, be sure to leave a review on
your favorite listening app.
All right, Awesome.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
So now that we're here for the episode, what are
we talking about from the worldof video games today?
Speaker 2 (02:34):
We are going to continue our psychology of Final
Fantasy, and this is part three.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Three out of infinity .
And this is part three threeout of infinity.
So let's go ahead and do theordinary world where we share
everyday life through our games.
I would like to go first, forno super particular reason, I
just want to.
I have been playing the last ofus, part one, on my Steam Deck
(03:03):
because of traveling and becauseI'm writing my chapter for the
psychology of the Last of Us andI felt like my outline is
pretty good for the things I'mplaying to talk about.
But I haven't played the gamein at least six years, so I
(03:24):
wanted to make sure I played themost current version and also
the HBO show last year we talkedabout on the gaming persona and
I really loved it and it's socool to be playing the game.
But the gaming memories are soold that I'm realizing what is
(03:45):
coming next because of the TVshow, and so today I survived
the level where you play asEllie because Joel is not doing
so good and you have to navigateand pick off all the creepy
guys.
The cannibal cult was a lot offun and that really I think
(04:10):
might be the only video gamethat I've played since the last
time we did an episode.
Yeah, I did a lot of traininglast week really big career
milestone stuff where I got todo the trainings as the
presenter that I started out mycareer as a gambling counselor,
(04:34):
editing the video footage ofsomeone else who's no longer
with us doing the training soanother full circle moment, some
of that.
When I left you I was but thelearner, but now I am the master
or doctor, as it were.
That was big, but also it's notstrictly speaking a video game
(04:55):
and I also have been battlingillnesses and tough feelings and
high stress with work andthings.
So some of my regular streamschedule hasn't happened the way
I would like it to and I'vejust given myself permission to
be a real human being.
Sucks.
I really wish I could havepulled through and done all of
(05:16):
the content for everybody, butI'm just grappling with the idea
a lot these days of is itpossible that I'm good enough
even if I can't show up and doeverything?
I think the answer is yes.
So the answer is yes.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Yeah, if you're listening to this.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
I hope you enjoy my content.
I hope you enjoy the kinds ofthings we talk about on the show
.
I miss all of you and some ofthe times that I just couldn't
fit it into the day, and butalso I think it is important
sometimes wrestling analogy ohmy gosh, oh my gosh, everybody.
I went to the royal rumble lastweekend with my son oh nice, uh
(05:51):
yeah go, cody.
Okay, but wrestling analogies,it's really great to think that
you would never tap out of adangerous hold.
But if you don't tap out whenyou should have, that's when
your muscles and bones tear andbreak.
So I think that scheduling wise, I was up against what is the
(06:12):
scheduling version of my psychebending and breaking.
So hopefully we have Megaconcoming up this weekend, so Jenny
and I will be there for that.
We're going to talk about thegamer's journey, final and other
games.
It's going to be great and thenhopefully I'll have some normal
(06:33):
feeling weeks by the time weget to march.
So just february is going to bechaotic.
How are both of you doing?
What have you been to?
Speaker 2 (06:44):
I have two games to report on this time.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Watch any outplayed Dr Memology.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yeah, so we've continued playing the Witcher
and it's still really fun.
I still love it.
We decided to start movingforward with story content like
main quest line, instead ofdoing all of the side stuff,
which people who know me know Idon't do side quests.
It's been challenging to haveto sit through all of that did
(07:14):
you do the final?
Wish.
What's that for the?
Speaker 1 (07:18):
last, we're not yeah, I don't know if we're that far
okay well, yeah, I don't know, Idon't know One of the books in
the Witcher series is titledthat, and there's a mission that
is about Geralt and Yennefer'srelationship.
Oh, no we haven't done that.
Let me ask you this which wayare we going?
(07:41):
Triss or Yennefer?
Speaker 2 (07:45):
We haven't even gotten to Triss yet.
What?
Speaker 3 (07:50):
What are we doing?
Yeah, we're about to meet her.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Our next quest is going to meet her.
We were with the othersorceress.
Who's the other girl?
The witch?
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Kira, yes, kira.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
We were with Kira for a while and I chose not to mess
around with her, so I was likeno, we like kinnifer.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
But it didn't matter, the outcome's the same anyway
around with kira, and there aremeaningful parts of the
conversations instead messingaround before messing around cut
seat, so I look forward tofinding out more about you and
kira in months to come, jennyokay, well, we played that, and
(08:35):
then we sourced gears this pastweekend and started playing
legends of runeterra again.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Yeah, that's also really fun is that the one
that's being canceled or no?
Speaker 2 (08:46):
is it being canceled?
Speaker 3 (08:47):
oh my god, oh riot games laid off a bunch of people
, so something is being canceled.
I forget what I hope not.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
I really like this game.
Jinx is our main challengerperson.
I don't know what they'recalled in the game, but our main
person that we do, that we doruns with, is jinx and she's so
good like it's crazy how fast wejust blow through everything
with her and we're trying tolevel up some of our other
(09:14):
characters just because we can'tprogress unless you beat them
with more than one character.
So that's been annoying.
So we're doing I think her nameis lux right now leveling her
up.
It's still fun, but jinx is thebest and yeah, that's all I've
been up to video game wise,life-wise.
It's been a mess, but I have myhogwarts nugget on and we're
(09:38):
good, nice and warm okay,they're laying off their riot
forge division.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
So what games do they make?
Oh, a bunch of the singleplayer games isn't legend of
rutera single player I don'tknow exactly what rise for us
make, so I know they make.
Let's see.
Recently I think, they had agame called the song of nunu um,
it was like a platformer game.
I don't remember what else theymake.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Don't know.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
I hope it stays around.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
It's really hard to be an employee in the gaming
industry right now because thepocket of all the jobs and all
the people staying at home andconsuming the content and the
industry growing because of thepandemic that bubble is popping
and companies are realizing wedon't need that many people
(10:32):
anymore.
The world is different.
Not everyone's playing videogames this way anymore.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
So we're already on the number of layoffs
industry-wide.
From other podcasts I listen to, they're sharing every week
these sad updates.
That we're already losingthousands and thousands more
jobs in that industry than atthis same exact time in previous
years is usually going to show.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Yeah, I'm actually finding that in a lot of
industries.
In my industry it slowed downquite a bit there is the I don't
know.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
I think there is the natural correction of the issues
where there are a lot ofcompanies that are hiring just
to hire um, because they hadgrand future plans and then they
just canceled those plans.
In that sense, it's what theywere hired, but it's not like
they had a true purpose forthose hires.
(11:38):
It was having extra resourcesready to do something, and so
when that discussion happenslike it's murky is, did we?
What did we lose?
I'm not sure other.
Well, people lost their jobs,obviously just your future what
about you, dean?
oh, uh.
On the topic of wrestling, I'veactually started playing an rpg
(11:59):
called wrestle quest.
I know about wrestle questest.
How is it?
It's interesting.
I'm not very far into it, butinteresting in that it's very
meta.
It's because you play as actionfigure people.
I'm not sure if there's a realworld or if it's like a Toy
(12:20):
Story situation, but you play asat wrestling action figures.
Your guy, your main guy, likeidolizes randy, muscle man,
savage, macho man, savage okay,um and, but as an action figure
he can swap out his parts.
So it's like when you upgradeyour weapon you're literally
(12:41):
swapping out your arm for adifferent arm that has kung fu
grip or stuff like that, butthat's so funny also also he's.
He's got that buzz lightyearthing going where he doesn't
understand how the world issupposed to function.
He believes wrestling is ahundred percent real, so he
(13:04):
doesn't understand that, likewhen people become a heel, it's
an act.
He thinks they're legitimatelya bad guy.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
You got to live the gimmick gene.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
So yeah, he's going around wrestling people,
destroying people's gyms.
This is a gym full of villainsNot that this is a gym that's.
It's not like an 80 AEWsituation where everything's
just extreme.
He thinks they are legitimatelybad guys.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Oh, that sounds fun.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Is that on Steam?
Yes, it is on Steam.
I think it's also on Switch.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
There we go, but it's also very interesting in the.
It has a lot of the in theturn-based RPG sense.
You still have to do a lot ofthe professional wrestling
concepts and if you do moves toraise the crowd hype then that
unlocks more moves like supermoves for you to do and the more
(14:03):
hype you have have if someonetries to pin you you have an
easier time getting out of it.
Or if you try to pin someonewhen you have lots of hype
they're more likely to stay downbecause you don't just beat
people up and then you win.
You have to knock, you have tolock, knock their hp down and
then go for a pin.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Yeah, that's actually one of the coolest things about
health meters in wrestlinggames is it's not depleting to
zero.
That signals the end.
It's the pinfall.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Yeah, and there's various In the matches or the
battles.
They switch it up every once ina while where you have things
like two-on-two tags and all theregular formats that you would
think of, but also it's all verylike I said, because they're
action figures, it's all veryfantastic, like the road
warriors.
They're literally like Mad Max,people driving around on giant
(14:56):
machines terrorizing thecountryside.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
There was a WWE game where it came out during the
pandemic, where they were littlefigures like this too, and it
also featured some crazyfantastical things.
But the problem is in that gamethey didn't make the characters
unique, they just had differentspecial moves Wasn't as good a
(15:25):
game as it could have been.
It really is important tocapture the move sets.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
I think when you're dealing with wrestlers, people
know yeah, I am looking forwardto getting through more of this
game and seeing what thesegamings are like.
There's many other classicsfrom the 70s 80s are in here,
like Jake the Snake, andre theGiant Macho man, so I'm waiting
(15:51):
to see.
As you go through a game, youmeet more and more of them, so I
want to see what fantastic waysthey spiced up their moves.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Okay, that probably sums up our ordinary world.
Yes, let's go ahead andcontinue the calder adventure
with what is final fantasy.
This week I want to focus in onnew players.
Okay, because we're we talkedabout nostalgia for final
(16:22):
fantasy 7 last week because ithas a sequel coming out and
that's going to be at the end ofFebruary, so we're about one
month away from that.
But if you're a new player andyou haven't played several of
these games, I thought it wouldbe fun to talk about.
(16:43):
What do you likely think FinalFantasy is and what game would
be a good idea for you to startwith?
Based on some of those ideas,jenny, I want to call you out
and figure out from you wherewould you start if you wanted to
play final fantasy right nowit's.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
I can tell you where I started okay, well, yeah I
don't have I don't really have adeep history with the franchise
, right, it's just.
It just happens to be one ofthe games that I've spent most
of my time playing as a gamer,because I loved it but it was
(17:26):
just one, one of the 16different opportunities.
Okay, but I do think that theone that I started with is a
really good.
Wait, is it a good, I don'tknow?
No, second guessing myself soit's.
Yeah, I know.
So it's a good intro to thefranchise in that there's
(17:48):
something for everyone.
So I started playing FinalFantasy XIV.
It's the MMO and you can.
It's like MMOs are fun in thatway, because whatever it is that
you like about video games, youcan do it in Final Fantasy XIV.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
That's massively multiplayer online role-playing
game MMORPG.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Yes, if you like to play games like Animal Crossing
and decorate things and craftthings and farm things and cook
and you like that slower pacedgame, there's that built into
the MMO.
If you are more of a socialgamer and you like to group up
(18:34):
with your friends and do questsand challenges together and beat
the bad guys, you can do thatin this game.
If you're competitive and nowI've never tried pvp in final
fantasy 14, but it's an optionfor you, it's just something
you're into I want to camp outon that idea because I was
(18:54):
talking with someone who's we'rein the similar kind of age
range.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
I'm aging up, jenny.
Oh, I'm not young.
My my ideas, the edginess in myideas, are just sounding
curmudgeon-y now.
And I always talk about whatdoes it look like when PvE
playing becomes unhealthy versuswhat does it look like when PvP
becomes unhealthy.
(19:21):
So that's player versusenvironment, environment where
the challenges are the playertrying to defeat the game, and
then player versus player iswhere the player is trying to
defeat other players toaccomplish their goals.
So both of those can becomeunhealthy.
But when we think dysfunctionalvideo game play, if we think
(19:45):
psychology and mental health andvideo games are bad for this
person, what's the differencebetween unhealthy pve and
unhealthy pvp?
And as far as final fantasy 14goes, I think the thing about
this game that can get anyone isthat if you have too many goals
(20:07):
in that game, you couldtheoretically never stop playing
it yeah, oh yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
That was where I was going.
So the reason why I secondguessed myself was because it
because the game is socomprehensive, it could
potentially be overwhelming forsomebody starting out in the
Final Fantasy world.
I have experience playingMMORPGs, so I know what I like
(20:36):
in these types of games.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
But if you're just starting out and you're a Sprout
and you don't know where do Ieven start, Be an old dog or a
danya Limso-lo-minsa, and thenyou wait for tiny, cute
characters to show you where themission markers are.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Yeah, tutorials are great in the game.
It's free to play for a while.
Yeah, I don't know.
I think it's a great game.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Jenny, have you heard about the two new classes that
are coming out in Dawn Trail?
No one of them.
Is it called Jean?
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
The Pictomancer?
Speaker 2 (21:20):
yes, yes, so they are going to play.
It's a magic.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
It's a magic class, so I'm already in, but it plays
like the dancer, in the sensethat you buff other party
members with your magic and yourmagic is, I believe, a
paintbrush and a whatever thething with all the paint globs
are, and you have magical paintand art my goodness you, you
(21:49):
pictify the battle this couldget me back into the game yes,
it will be amazing fun.
The other one is the viper,which is a dual blade sword
class oh, that's cool so maybethey have something that's
marauder-esque, maybe frommarauder there.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
I know that marauder is like warrior in fact, but
exactly star wars um and foreveryone wondering, that wasn't
a sound effect, that was thatcame from his mouth yeah, that,
that was really good.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
That was really good.
Yeah, it was really good Okay.
Yes, that was my mouth noisesOkay.
Final Fantasy XIV is on thetable.
Maybe that's a good one to play.
There is something for everyone.
You create your character.
So, as far as Avatar,psychology is in that one to
draw you in and make you feelownership of the experience,
(22:48):
whereas Jean and I talking aboutFinal Fantasy VII last week.
You inherit those charactersfrom Square Enix and you can
love them, but you did notcreate them.
So that is a difference betweengetting into an MMO versus
playing a story that was createdfor you.
So, gene, with final fantasy 14being on the table, what might
(23:14):
be another good one for peopleto jump into final fantasy for
the first time?
But also why that one?
What do you think?
Speaker 3 (23:23):
so if you, I feel like, if you are the type of
person that maybe this is yourfirst Japanese RPG in general,
even then possibly Final Fantasy10, because 10 is the most for
one it has true turn-based.
It's not active turn-basedwhere you have a meter that
(23:44):
fills up before you can act.
It has true turn-based so youcan act.
It has true turn base so youcan plan your moves.
It even has a chart that showswho's going when, and so you can
literally look at and be likeif I attack now, the monster's
gonna attack then and I have mynext character being able to
(24:04):
heal after that attack.
I'm not worried about possiblygetting surprised and dying.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
So yeah it's very playable that way.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
I can definitely attest to that.
That's one of the only otherones I've played and it was new
friendly, new friendly there wego Additionally.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
The first full, I would say I don't know.
Third of the game is a linearexperience.
Up until you get your airship,you just go town, dungeon, town,
dungeon, town, dungeon.
There's no branching andgetting lost or anything.
(24:44):
You're just there to see thestory develop and then, yeah,
basically, after that extendedtutorial, then you have the
freedom to use what you'velearned.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
I want to share why that's such a big deal.
When I played Final Fantasy Iand II on my first iPhone, I did
complete one.
I never completed two.
But I almost never completedone because there was a random
person somewhere in a buildingthat I totally walked through
(25:21):
halfway through the game and Ihad to talk to them to get the
story to advance so that I couldactually get past a place in
the map that that the thing Ineeded to get to is on the other
side.
But the mechanics of that mapwere locked behind.
You have to talk to thatcharacter and it's such an old
(25:42):
game there's not a flashinglight or an exclamation point
above their head before youleave that town.
And I just miss them and I hadto look up.
What did I do wrong?
Why can't I figure out where togo in this game on this world
map?
It's because I didn't have aconversation.
So Final Fantasy X, giving youthat story where you do most of
(26:05):
the first half of the storybefore it's even possible to get
lost, like that, is actually anamazing, an amazing sign of how
games have advanced instructure.
Comparing the 1980s to roughlythe year 2000 I believe that's
when final fantasy 10 came out.
Was it 2000?
(26:27):
It doesn't matter if that's theexact year or not.
Yeah, I don't actually remember.
Yeah, you mentioned that theseare Japanese role-playing games,
gene, and I want to ask you,because I don't have an actual
answer yet in my head what wouldyou say are some of the
hallmarks of jrpgs, or even thedifferences between a game that
(26:50):
is a jrpg versus a western rpgor american rpg?
Speaker 3 (26:59):
one is the is a lot of the.
A lot of it is the in sort ofthe accompanying elements of the
(27:20):
main game, like the chugwellbreeding and racing, the card
games, like triple triad,collection of fragments in a
treasure hunt thing.
In final fantasy 9, if there's,jrpgs tend to have a whole lot
of weird side supporting contentthat some people you know think
(27:43):
that's completely irrelevant.
In final fantasy 7 we go backto that.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
There's a whole snowboarding segment and it's
completely forgot about all ofthat gene until you told me yes,
there is yeah, but weird quirkslike that.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
it brings a lot of spice to the formula and Western
RPGs don't tend to have thatLike the surfing minigame in
Pokemon Yellow with Pikachu.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Right, okay, got it.
Jrpgs add spicy minigames.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
Yeah, they also.
I don't know how the phrase is.
Probably they like to makeamusement out of the mundane.
Okay, like, like the entiretyof the persona series.
It's like how do we make eatinga hamburger a funny experience?
(28:43):
And then here's a hamburgerthat's seven patties basically,
and if you don't have that, youcan't eat it, you'll barf.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
By the way, I know that we're half an hour into the
episode, but we totally forgotto talk about our world.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Yes, as soon as you said Pikachu surfing, I was like
oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
And then Jean started talking about hamburgers that
clearly are not mill tankssomething like that.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
It's yeah, in a jrbg you'll randomly have a quest
about making sandwiches and it'sjust.
This is a random thing tosupposedly to help you learn
about the character'spersonalities more.
But it's very odd if you it's ajapanese cultural thing to just
randomly have that Becausethere are TV shows.
It's like in the middle of amurder mystery.
(29:31):
Now we have an episode aboutgoing to the beach.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Yeah, so we have in the chat where we now have
available super chats if anyonewants to get involved in that.
But we have in our chat thatshara has pointed out that pow
world is kirkland brand pokemonI and what I say to that is
kirkland brand is awesome yeah,it's like guns
Speaker 3 (29:57):
yeah, what you oh man does kirkland brand sell guns?
Speaker 1 (30:04):
since you equated it to pow world.
That's when, jenny.
So I got sucked into thisrandom discussion in discord
about, uh.
One of my past padawans came inand was talking about how
hilarious it is that people areupset about Pow World, and I
(30:27):
just commented that it's a gameand I hope it does okay, and I
hope people enjoy it, but let'snot pretend it's not plagiarism.
So then the conversationcontinued and we got into this
whole thing about whetherplagiarism constitutes that you
can be sued that it's copyrightinfringement, and I would say as
(30:48):
an academic by the way,plagiarism is not the same as
copyright infringement.
One is an academic concept, theother is illegal.
I would just say that they knewhow to make money and they're
making money.
So there we go.
Okay, back to games that willmatter 20 years from now and I
hope that comment ages FinalFantasy, okay.
(31:12):
So we have that's a really goodpoint, gene, about JRPGs is
that they get quirky, they makefun of mundane experiences and
they those mundane, funnymoments create memorable moments
(31:35):
, though, and they're frequentlylike in persona.
For example, sometimes youunlock achievements in the game
by doing that mundane thing tothe max.
Uh, so things like playingdarts or eat, eating, your
getting your courage up to whereyou can eat the giant seven
(31:57):
patty cheeseburger.
Final fantasy 13.
One of the mundane things thatit added in was a casino and
slot machine thing.
And I remember, even back beforeI did what I do as a certified
gambling counselor, I was neverreally into gambling games in
(32:19):
video games, I just thinkthey're boring.
I want to actually play thevideo game but I needed to win a
certain number of money of gilthat's Final Fantasy's word for
money Of gil from this casinoand there was chocobo racing and
there were slot machines.
It didn't matter how I get tothis number of gil, I just
(32:43):
needed to play enough casinothings to get there.
And I remember back then mywife was working a job that we
have one vehicle.
It would require me to driveabout 45 minutes one way to go
get her at the end of her shift.
So I took a rubber band andtape and I put the button down
(33:05):
that you press to make the slotmachine go again.
And then I just came home andthe slot machine had done it.
So I had the trophy unlockedand I was like, yeah, I didn't
have to play that.
So that was cool.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
Yeah, but yeah, I would say the main difference
between a JRPG and a Western RPGis it's there's the concept of
it's more even in modern times,but in the old days it was very
much a overarching story versusindividual character disparity
(33:47):
JRPGs tend to emphasize thecharacter, while Western RPGs
tend to emphasize theoverarching story, because you
would have concepts of gamesbased on D&D where your
characters are just whatever youmake of them.
They don't really have a storyarc other than your personal
(34:08):
decisions, like in Ballerscapeand that's a good example yeah,
in Ballerscape 3 is thatblending of the two where the
story is very much revolvingaround the characters, much more
than old western RPGs did.
But yeah, it was very much in avery don't take this as a solid
argument, but it's that sensethat in a Lord of Rings type
(34:35):
story the important stuff, liketons of important stuff, is
happening in the overarchingsense.
There's armies moving back andforth, gandalf disappears and
does things on the other side ofthe continent.
It's that focus on all of that.
And then there's the individualscenes of the fellowship.
(34:55):
But the JRPG experience takesless notice of the overarching
and then raises more emphasis onthe individual characters.
And so one of the critiques ofall jrpgs is like, yeah, these
are great characters, but theoverall story doesn't make any
(35:16):
sense file, fantasy 16, whichcame out last year.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
It's not even a year old very enjoyable game, by the
way.
I love the gameplay because itblends action, rpg and fast
paced combat, but with all thethings that you tend to love
from Final Fantasy casting fireand blizzard and having summons
and things like that verymagical and sword based fighting
(35:42):
.
But it's in real time, it'svery fast, like a devil may cry.
But because it borrows a lot ofaesthetics from Game of Thrones
, it does have a map, it doeshave different regions, it does
have politics and it hasmovement of things besides your
central characters, clive andhis crew.
(36:07):
Am I understanding that rightthat maybe Final Fantasy XVI,
because it's taking some AQsfrom more westernized kinds of
IP, that maybe it's moving.
It's an advancement of thattraditional jrpg sense in a way
(36:28):
yeah, I think that's a decentyeah stance on that.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
It's yeah, it's definitely yeah more of a focus
on both world and character, asopposed to just all character.
Because, for instance, again wewent back to persona, all
character.
Because, for instance, again wewent back to persona, the world
of persona.
You don't really know that muchabout it, other than it's a
fictionalized version of japan,right like it's.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
You don't know what's happening in america during the
time of persona 3, not really,um, like it's, and it's 100
about what the characters aregoing through okay, and also
their version of japan has themidnight hour, which, as far as
we know, isn't a real thing, andthe threat of what's going to
(37:20):
tear apart their world andsociety is fictional, it's
completely fantastical, whereasfinal fantasy worlds are not
even based in real worlds.
They are fantasy worlds tothemselves yeah, but yeah those.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
So even if you look back at final fantasy 7, even
though it's a great game, thereare the world of final phase 7.
If you really look at itdoesn't make that much sense.
No country has a governmentother than wu-tai wait.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
So shinra is not a government they're not a.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
They don't profess to be a country, they profess to
be a corporation oh, I just Ifeel like corporations run
government anyway right is thattoo?
Much for our little medill ispossibly its own country.
It's an island nation, butthere's no one in charge of it.
Wait, is that in?
(38:20):
Final fantasy 7 yeah oh, Iforgot, that's where my deal is
where you end up taking cloudafter he's in a wheelchair oh my
gosh, I don't remember vanillafinal fantasy seven at all gene.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
I'm relying completely on rebirth to help me
fill it, oh okay, oh wait,since the last episode, I did
finish Final Fantasy VII Remake.
Okay, so there is a second gamethat I played, so I'm tied with
Jenny.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
I'm too competitive, couldn't let me have it.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
I couldn't just lose.
I forgot, though, so you stillwin this week, jenny.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
It's completely fine, I'll take it.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
But the ending of that game is so beautiful and I
feel completely ready to startplaying rebirth, because I
forgot that.
All the things that the trailershowed us in our recap episode
last year, it we already knewthat's where the game was going
to start, because that's theending of this game of Remake 1.
(39:29):
All right, we need to answerour question for tonight's
episode, though we're runningshort on time.
So, jenny, you've beenlistening to Gene bring in the
JRPG explanation.
As far as Final Fantasy X,final Fantasy VII, you brought
up Final Fantasy XIV.
I said a few things about XVI.
(39:50):
Do you know much about XVI,jenny?
Speaker 2 (39:56):
No, I watched my boyfriend play it.
Maybe one or two sessions.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Did you like what you were seeing it?
Speaker 2 (40:03):
was hotter.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Yeah, it looked awesome okay, so maybe you would
start with that one if you hadto today, or do you think you'd
still go for 14 because of thesocial stuff?
Speaker 2 (40:17):
no, I'd still go for 14 I yeah.
I'm not a yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
I'm not a.
Speaker 1 (40:24):
I like watching people play more okay yeah, the
thing with final fantasy 14 isif, if you're watching it and I
know that I have my streams aredoing that game.
I think I saw an interview thisweek that somebody it might
(40:44):
have been yoshi p or someone inthat area of development just
saying randomly that it's a 265hour game or something.
At this point, just if you'refocusing on the story and all
the gameplay of getting throughthe story, that is so much.
But it's a 10 year old game nowtoo, so that's what we get
(41:11):
still go through all of it orthey do new.
Speaker 3 (41:13):
Do people just skip through it now?
Speaker 1 (41:16):
but I think there are a lot of people that do skip
the cut scenes, but the reason Idecided to start over gene is
because I really wanted tounderstand the story in a deep
and personal way and I couldn'tremember most of it.
I've been at end game and Idon't have a social group around
me that will bring me in anequal way through the end game.
(41:39):
I felt like I was gettingdragged through it and that they
were enjoying things andpicking up on things and that I
was just always clueless and Idecided that, for better or
worse, I just need to start over, but I am enjoying that too.
It's just.
It is what it is.
(42:01):
I wasn't really an endgameplayer even when I was, and
that's how I felt.
I wasn't really an end gameplayer even when I was, and
that's how I felt that could bea whole podcast episode.
Honestly is, how do we fit inat end game in these online
games?
Sure, yeah, when it comes downto it, if we all three listened
(42:23):
to one old episode every weekand said, oh, this leads into
another episode, we'd haveepisodes going forever.
We'd never be able to talkabout all the little hints that
we drop, about things we'd loveto talk about.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
Yeah, so I've played.
I'm just thinking about this.
I've played Final Fantasy 1, 7,8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16.
Not saying I've beaten all ofthose.
I've never beaten eight.
All the other ones I've beatenin that list, but I never beat
(42:58):
eight.
I think my story, the first oneI played is seven and now VII
has a remake.
I think playing VII Remake iscool, but I think ultimately,
vii Remake is a sequel to VIIand I think the further that
story goes with Part II and III,the more obvious that's going
(43:20):
to be.
The question is then this islike the Star Wars question to
you, gene, last episode, whenyou pointed out Final Fantasy
VII is the Star Wars of FinalFantasy.
That blew my mind and it madeeverything in my life make sense
, everything in your life,everything, all of it.
(43:40):
But if you've never seen StarWars, you have to start at a new
hope and then empire strikesback.
Right?
You can't start at episode oneand you can't start at seven
either, right, because thoseexperiences both hinge on
episode four or five and sixbeing where you started and
(44:02):
having the emotional memory ofespecially episode five, and I
think that's what final fantasy7 is building for itself that
you can enjoy remake and rebirthand re, whatever the last one's
going to be.
Maybe reunion will be the titleof that one.
But you, your enjoyment ofthose games hinges on the memory
(44:29):
of the 1997 game, right yeah,that's definitely possible and
I'm pretty sure it would be true.
Speaker 3 (44:42):
And, of course, you know Square Enix has not made
any statement to invalidate theoriginal game, that they're
practically giving the originalgame away now for a couple of
dollars.
Speaker 1 (44:54):
They really want you to play yeah, also, advent
children is coming to theatersthis month for limited release.
I was aware of that.
They have a reason to want thatto happen for people too, to be
in their memory.
Speaker 3 (45:13):
Is it the original cut or the Blu-ray director's
cut?
Speaker 1 (45:17):
or whatever they called it.
I don't know if it's going tobe Advent Children complete or
not, or if it's the Right.
I would assume they just gowith the complete one.
I would hope so.
It's better.
It's only an extra 30 minutesor so, but just for whatever
it's worth, it seems like weshould go on the return.
Let's just say, based on whatwe know about final fantasy, if
(45:42):
we could redo our entiretimeline, which one would we
want to start with?
Jenny?
Which one would you want tostart with?
Speaker 2 (45:55):
I am a creature of habit, so 14 gene.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
Which one would you want to start with four?
Why?
Speaker 3 (46:05):
four.
Four is the, four is the story.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
That, no, I just want to know.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
We haven't mentioned it a single time in any of our
episodes oh, four basicallyestablished the formula that we
know and love now, because finalfantasy one through you were
these faceless dudes, warriorNinja, whatever you weren't
characters, okay, before theconcept of you are these
(46:35):
characters?
You are Cecil, you are Rosa,and that continues on to present
day.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
Is that the one with Keen?
Speaker 3 (46:39):
in it yes.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
Okay, yeah, yeah, all right, cool, we're going.
Okay.
Yeah, yeah, all right, cool.
Yeah, we're gonna have to talkabout that more, because I don't
know very much about four and Iwould love to learn and maybe
add it to my list of things todo soon.
I would keep it at seven.
If you know me from theepisodes of this show, I love
the butterfly effect, whichmeans I truly believe that if we
(47:04):
go back in time and kill abutterfly, I could end up doing
a completely different job andnot being me, not being Dr
Gamology.
So I feel like playing FinalFantasy VII is such a critical
memory in terms of thedevelopment of me as a person we
(47:25):
do not want to mess with that.
I have to always have playedFinal Fantasy VII first.
These conversations are helpingpeople, whether you're a person
who's a longtime veteran ofFinal Fantasy and you just like
hearing people talk about theirperspectives on the game
franchise, or if you're new togaming or haven't played final
(47:46):
fantasy.
I think right now, finalfantasy 14 is a great one to
jump into because it has likejenny said, it's an mmo.
It has something for everyone.
It has a great story.
I believe that's the story I'mthinking about the most when I
say things about video games aremodern mythology, because you
have deities, you have warringnations and you have the warrior
(48:09):
of light and that's everythingyou need in order to have the
monomyth.
But I love a lot of the othergames in the franchise too.
So if this is sounding like acool fun time and you need some
exciting and knowledgeable FinalFantasy veterans to play games
with, you can check out AIE ataie-guildorg.
(48:32):
Thank you, as always, forsupporting our show.
If you'd like to check out ourmembership tiers on YouTube,
those are new but those will goa long way to helping us advance
the kinds of resources and thekinds of things we bring through
the doctor game ology channelon youtube, we're very excited
to offer those things.
And but the final, yeah, finalquest, uh, embrace your destiny
(48:57):
and continue the journey bye,see you next week.
Hello, this is Dr Daniel Kaufman, also known as Dr
Gameology, and I just wanted toadd a little bit of an update
before you listen to the nextepisode, where we do our part
three on entering the series ofFinal Fantasy.
We hit a bit of a productionroad bump earlier this year.
A lot of it is due to changesand personal life things that
(00:26):
just made it very difficult torecord.
So the things we're talkingabout in this episode have
already happened, and happenedsome time ago.
I still believe there are somegood bits in there for all of
you to listen to and add to yourawareness of what it's like to
play online games, mmo games,final Fantasy games and add that
(00:50):
to your idea of what thepsychology of gaming actually is
.
So I'm releasing the episodenow because late is better than
never and I hope you enjoy it.
I hope it's still relevant forthose of you who have been with
us for this long.
Thank you so much and, asalways, continue the journey.
Enjoy the episode.
(01:26):
Welcome to the Gaming Personapodcast.
This is the show that exploreswho we become when we play games
.
I'm your host, dr Gamology,from YouTube and online
classrooms across the country,and I'm joined by two of my best
friends from my gaming journey,jenny LeBron and Gene Wong.
We're back, all three of usFriends.
How are we doing this week?
Speaker 2 (01:45):
I'm doing fantastic and I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
I'm doing good, all right.
So now that we have reconvened,confirmed, all three of us are
here.
Where can our listeners find us?
Speaker 2 (01:59):
You can find my photography page on Instagram at
jlebron photography or jlebronphotographycom if you're curious
about what a nerdy person'sphotos look like and I'm dr
gamology on youtube and othersocial apps.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Of course you can find me on this show every week.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
The gaming persona can be found on apple podcast,
spotify, google and mostanywhere else podcasts can be
found.
If you are enjoying our content, be sure to leave a review on
your favorite listening app.
All right, Awesome.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
So now that we're here for the episode, what are
we talking about from the worldof video games today?
Speaker 2 (02:34):
We are going to continue our psychology of Final
Fantasy, and this is part three.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Three out of infinity .
And this is part three threeout of infinity.
So let's go ahead and do theordinary world where we share
everyday life through our games.
I would like to go first, forno super particular reason, I
just want to.
I have been playing the last ofus, part one, on my Steam Deck
(03:03):
because of traveling and becauseI'm writing my chapter for the
psychology of the Last of Us andI felt like my outline is
pretty good for the things I'mplaying to talk about.
But I haven't played the gamein at least six years, so I
(03:24):
wanted to make sure I played themost current version and also
the HBO show last year we talkedabout on the gaming persona and
I really loved it and it's socool to be playing the game.
But the gaming memories are soold that I'm realizing what is
(03:45):
coming next because of the TVshow, and so today I survived
the level where you play asEllie because Joel is not doing
so good and you have to navigateand pick off all the creepy
guys.
The cannibal cult was a lot offun and that really I think
(04:10):
might be the only video gamethat I've played since the last
time we did an episode.
Yeah, I did a lot of traininglast week really big career
milestone stuff where I got todo the trainings as the
presenter that I started out mycareer as a gambling counselor,
(04:34):
editing the video footage ofsomeone else who's no longer
with us doing the training soanother full circle moment, some
of that.
When I left you I was but thelearner, but now I am the master
or doctor, as it were.
That was big, but also it's notstrictly speaking a video game
(04:55):
and I also have been battlingillnesses and tough feelings and
high stress with work andthings.
So some of my regular streamschedule hasn't happened the way
I would like it to and I'vejust given myself permission to
be a real human being.
Sucks.
I really wish I could havepulled through and done all of
(05:16):
the content for everybody, butI'm just grappling with the idea
a lot these days of is itpossible that I'm good enough
even if I can't show up and doeverything?
I think the answer is yes.
So the answer is yes.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Yeah, if you're listening to this.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
I hope you enjoy my content.
I hope you enjoy the kinds ofthings we talk about on the show
.
I miss all of you and some ofthe times that I just couldn't
fit it into the day, and butalso I think it is important
sometimes wrestling analogy ohmy gosh, oh my gosh, everybody.
I went to the royal rumble lastweekend with my son oh nice, uh
(05:51):
yeah go, cody.
Okay, but wrestling analogies,it's really great to think that
you would never tap out of adangerous hold.
But if you don't tap out whenyou should have, that's when
your muscles and bones tear andbreak.
So I think that scheduling wise, I was up against what is the
(06:12):
scheduling version of my psychebending and breaking.
So hopefully we have Megaconcoming up this weekend, so Jenny
and I will be there for that.
We're going to talk about thegamer's journey, final and other
games.
It's going to be great and thenhopefully I'll have some normal
(06:33):
feeling weeks by the time weget to march.
So just february is going to bechaotic.
How are both of you doing?
What have you been to?
Speaker 2 (06:44):
I have two games to report on this time.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Watch any outplayed Dr Memology.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yeah, so we've continued playing the Witcher
and it's still really fun.
I still love it.
We decided to start movingforward with story content like
main quest line, instead ofdoing all of the side stuff,
which people who know me know Idon't do side quests.
It's been challenging to haveto sit through all of that did
(07:14):
you do the final?
Wish.
What's that for the?
Speaker 1 (07:18):
last, we're not yeah, I don't know if we're that far
okay well, yeah, I don't know, Idon't know One of the books in
the Witcher series is titledthat, and there's a mission that
is about Geralt and Yennefer'srelationship.
Oh, no we haven't done that.
Let me ask you this which wayare we going?
(07:41):
Triss or Yennefer?
Speaker 2 (07:45):
We haven't even gotten to Triss yet.
What?
Speaker 3 (07:50):
What are we doing?
Yeah, we're about to meet her.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Our next quest is going to meet her.
We were with the othersorceress.
Who's the other girl?
The witch?
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Kira, yes, kira.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
We were with Kira for a while and I chose not to mess
around with her, so I was likeno, we like kinnifer.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
But it didn't matter, the outcome's the same anyway
around with kira, and there aremeaningful parts of the
conversations instead messingaround before messing around cut
seat, so I look forward tofinding out more about you and
kira in months to come, jennyokay, well, we played that, and
(08:35):
then we sourced gears this pastweekend and started playing
legends of runeterra again.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Yeah, that's also really fun is that the one
that's being canceled or no?
Speaker 2 (08:46):
is it being canceled?
Speaker 3 (08:47):
oh my god, oh riot games laid off a bunch of people
, so something is being canceled.
I forget what I hope not.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
I really like this game.
Jinx is our main challengerperson.
I don't know what they'recalled in the game, but our main
person that we do, that we doruns with, is jinx and she's so
good like it's crazy how fast wejust blow through everything
with her and we're trying tolevel up some of our other
(09:14):
characters just because we can'tprogress unless you beat them
with more than one character.
So that's been annoying.
So we're doing I think her nameis lux right now leveling her
up.
It's still fun, but jinx is thebest and yeah, that's all I've
been up to video game wise,life-wise.
It's been a mess, but I have myhogwarts nugget on and we're
(09:38):
good, nice and warm okay,they're laying off their riot
forge division.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
So what games do they make?
Oh, a bunch of the singleplayer games isn't legend of
rutera single player I don'tknow exactly what rise for us
make, so I know they make.
Let's see.
Recently I think, they had agame called the song of nunu um,
it was like a platformer game.
I don't remember what else theymake.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Don't know.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
I hope it stays around.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
It's really hard to be an employee in the gaming
industry right now because thepocket of all the jobs and all
the people staying at home andconsuming the content and the
industry growing because of thepandemic that bubble is popping
and companies are realizing wedon't need that many people
(10:32):
anymore.
The world is different.
Not everyone's playing videogames this way anymore.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
So we're already on the number of layoffs
industry-wide.
From other podcasts I listen to, they're sharing every week
these sad updates.
That we're already losingthousands and thousands more
jobs in that industry than atthis same exact time in previous
years is usually going to show.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Yeah, I'm actually finding that in a lot of
industries.
In my industry it slowed downquite a bit there is the I don't
know.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
I think there is the natural correction of the issues
where there are a lot ofcompanies that are hiring just
to hire um, because they hadgrand future plans and then they
just canceled those plans.
In that sense, it's what theywere hired, but it's not like
they had a true purpose forthose hires.
(11:38):
It was having extra resourcesready to do something, and so
when that discussion happenslike it's murky is, did we?
What did we lose?
I'm not sure other.
Well, people lost their jobs,obviously just your future what
about you, dean?
oh, uh.
On the topic of wrestling, I'veactually started playing an rpg
(11:59):
called wrestle quest.
I know about wrestle questest.
How is it?
It's interesting.
I'm not very far into it, butinteresting in that it's very
meta.
It's because you play as actionfigure people.
I'm not sure if there's a realworld or if it's like a Toy
(12:20):
Story situation, but you play asat wrestling action figures.
Your guy, your main guy, likeidolizes randy, muscle man,
savage, macho man, savage okay,um and, but as an action figure
he can swap out his parts.
So it's like when you upgradeyour weapon you're literally
(12:41):
swapping out your arm for adifferent arm that has kung fu
grip or stuff like that, butthat's so funny also also he's.
He's got that buzz lightyearthing going where he doesn't
understand how the world issupposed to function.
He believes wrestling is ahundred percent real, so he
(13:04):
doesn't understand that, likewhen people become a heel, it's
an act.
He thinks they're legitimatelya bad guy.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
You got to live the gimmick gene.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
So yeah, he's going around wrestling people,
destroying people's gyms.
This is a gym full of villainsNot that this is a gym that's.
It's not like an 80 AEWsituation where everything's
just extreme.
He thinks they are legitimatelybad guys.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Oh, that sounds fun.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Is that on Steam?
Yes, it is on Steam.
I think it's also on Switch.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
There we go, but it's also very interesting in the.
It has a lot of the in theturn-based RPG sense.
You still have to do a lot ofthe professional wrestling
concepts and if you do moves toraise the crowd hype then that
unlocks more moves like supermoves for you to do and the more
(14:03):
hype you have have if someonetries to pin you you have an
easier time getting out of it.
Or if you try to pin someonewhen you have lots of hype
they're more likely to stay downbecause you don't just beat
people up and then you win.
You have to knock, you have tolock, knock their hp down and
then go for a pin.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Yeah, that's actually one of the coolest things about
health meters in wrestlinggames is it's not depleting to
zero.
That signals the end.
It's the pinfall.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Yeah, and there's various In the matches or the
battles.
They switch it up every once ina while where you have things
like two-on-two tags and all theregular formats that you would
think of, but also it's all verylike I said, because they're
action figures, it's all veryfantastic, like the road
warriors.
They're literally like Mad Max,people driving around on giant
(14:56):
machines terrorizing thecountryside.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
There was a WWE game where it came out during the
pandemic, where they were littlefigures like this too, and it
also featured some crazyfantastical things.
But the problem is in that gamethey didn't make the characters
unique, they just had differentspecial moves Wasn't as good a
(15:25):
game as it could have been.
It really is important tocapture the move sets.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
I think when you're dealing with wrestlers, people
know yeah, I am looking forwardto getting through more of this
game and seeing what thesegamings are like.
There's many other classicsfrom the 70s 80s are in here,
like Jake the Snake, andre theGiant Macho man, so I'm waiting
(15:51):
to see.
As you go through a game, youmeet more and more of them, so I
want to see what fantastic waysthey spiced up their moves.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Okay, that probably sums up our ordinary world.
Yes, let's go ahead andcontinue the calder adventure
with what is final fantasy.
This week I want to focus in onnew players.
Okay, because we're we talkedabout nostalgia for final
(16:22):
fantasy 7 last week because ithas a sequel coming out and
that's going to be at the end ofFebruary, so we're about one
month away from that.
But if you're a new player andyou haven't played several of
these games, I thought it wouldbe fun to talk about.
(16:43):
What do you likely think FinalFantasy is and what game would
be a good idea for you to startwith?
Based on some of those ideas,jenny, I want to call you out
and figure out from you wherewould you start if you wanted to
play final fantasy right nowit's.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
I can tell you where I started okay, well, yeah I
don't have I don't really have adeep history with the franchise
, right, it's just.
It just happens to be one ofthe games that I've spent most
of my time playing as a gamer,because I loved it but it was
(17:26):
just one, one of the 16different opportunities.
Okay, but I do think that theone that I started with is a
really good.
Wait, is it a good, I don'tknow?
No, second guessing myself soit's.
Yeah, I know.
So it's a good intro to thefranchise in that there's
(17:48):
something for everyone.
So I started playing FinalFantasy XIV.
It's the MMO and you can.
It's like MMOs are fun in thatway, because whatever it is that
you like about video games, youcan do it in Final Fantasy XIV.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
That's massively multiplayer online role-playing
game MMORPG.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Yes, if you like to play games like Animal Crossing
and decorate things and craftthings and farm things and cook
and you like that slower pacedgame, there's that built into
the MMO.
If you are more of a socialgamer and you like to group up
(18:34):
with your friends and do questsand challenges together and beat
the bad guys, you can do thatin this game.
If you're competitive and nowI've never tried pvp in final
fantasy 14, but it's an optionfor you, it's just something
you're into I want to camp outon that idea because I was
(18:54):
talking with someone who's we'rein the similar kind of age
range.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
I'm aging up, jenny.
Oh, I'm not young.
My my ideas, the edginess in myideas, are just sounding
curmudgeon-y now.
And I always talk about whatdoes it look like when PvE
playing becomes unhealthy versuswhat does it look like when PvP
becomes unhealthy.
(19:21):
So that's player versusenvironment, environment where
the challenges are the playertrying to defeat the game, and
then player versus player iswhere the player is trying to
defeat other players toaccomplish their goals.
So both of those can becomeunhealthy.
But when we think dysfunctionalvideo game play, if we think
(19:45):
psychology and mental health andvideo games are bad for this
person, what's the differencebetween unhealthy pve and
unhealthy pvp?
And as far as final fantasy 14goes, I think the thing about
this game that can get anyone isthat if you have too many goals
(20:07):
in that game, you couldtheoretically never stop playing
it yeah, oh yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
That was where I was going.
So the reason why I secondguessed myself was because it
because the game is socomprehensive, it could
potentially be overwhelming forsomebody starting out in the
Final Fantasy world.
I have experience playingMMORPGs, so I know what I like
(20:36):
in these types of games.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
But if you're just starting out and you're a Sprout
and you don't know where do Ieven start, Be an old dog or a
danya Limso-lo-minsa, and thenyou wait for tiny, cute
characters to show you where themission markers are.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Yeah, tutorials are great in the game.
It's free to play for a while.
Yeah, I don't know.
I think it's a great game.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Jenny, have you heard about the two new classes that
are coming out in Dawn Trail?
No one of them.
Is it called Jean?
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
The Pictomancer?
Speaker 2 (21:20):
yes, yes, so they are going to play.
It's a magic.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
It's a magic class, so I'm already in, but it plays
like the dancer, in the sensethat you buff other party
members with your magic and yourmagic is, I believe, a
paintbrush and a whatever thething with all the paint globs
are, and you have magical paintand art my goodness you, you
(21:49):
pictify the battle this couldget me back into the game yes,
it will be amazing fun.
The other one is the viper,which is a dual blade sword
class oh, that's cool so maybethey have something that's
marauder-esque, maybe frommarauder there.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
I know that marauder is like warrior in fact, but
exactly star wars um and foreveryone wondering, that wasn't
a sound effect, that was thatcame from his mouth yeah, that,
that was really good.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
That was really good.
Yeah, it was really good Okay.
Yes, that was my mouth noisesOkay.
Final Fantasy XIV is on thetable.
Maybe that's a good one to play.
There is something for everyone.
You create your character.
So, as far as Avatar,psychology is in that one to
draw you in and make you feelownership of the experience,
(22:48):
whereas Jean and I talking aboutFinal Fantasy VII last week.
You inherit those charactersfrom Square Enix and you can
love them, but you did notcreate them.
So that is a difference betweengetting into an MMO versus
playing a story that was createdfor you.
So, gene, with final fantasy 14being on the table, what might
(23:14):
be another good one for peopleto jump into final fantasy for
the first time?
But also why that one?
What do you think?
Speaker 3 (23:23):
so if you, I feel like, if you are the type of
person that maybe this is yourfirst Japanese RPG in general,
even then possibly Final Fantasy10, because 10 is the most for
one it has true turn-based.
It's not active turn-basedwhere you have a meter that
(23:44):
fills up before you can act.
It has true turn-based so youcan act.
It has true turn base so youcan plan your moves.
It even has a chart that showswho's going when, and so you can
literally look at and be likeif I attack now, the monster's
gonna attack then and I have mynext character being able to
(24:04):
heal after that attack.
I'm not worried about possiblygetting surprised and dying.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
So yeah it's very playable that way.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
I can definitely attest to that.
That's one of the only otherones I've played and it was new
friendly, new friendly there wego Additionally.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
The first full, I would say I don't know.
Third of the game is a linearexperience.
Up until you get your airship,you just go town, dungeon, town,
dungeon, town, dungeon.
There's no branching andgetting lost or anything.
(24:44):
You're just there to see thestory develop and then, yeah,
basically, after that extendedtutorial, then you have the
freedom to use what you'velearned.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
I want to share why that's such a big deal.
When I played Final Fantasy Iand II on my first iPhone, I did
complete one.
I never completed two.
But I almost never completedone because there was a random
person somewhere in a buildingthat I totally walked through
(25:21):
halfway through the game and Ihad to talk to them to get the
story to advance so that I couldactually get past a place in
the map that that the thing Ineeded to get to is on the other
side.
But the mechanics of that mapwere locked behind.
You have to talk to thatcharacter and it's such an old
(25:42):
game there's not a flashinglight or an exclamation point
above their head before youleave that town.
And I just miss them and I hadto look up.
What did I do wrong?
Why can't I figure out where togo in this game on this world
map?
It's because I didn't have aconversation.
So Final Fantasy X, giving youthat story where you do most of
(26:05):
the first half of the storybefore it's even possible to get
lost, like that, is actually anamazing, an amazing sign of how
games have advanced instructure.
Comparing the 1980s to roughlythe year 2000 I believe that's
when final fantasy 10 came out.
Was it 2000?
(26:27):
It doesn't matter if that's theexact year or not.
Yeah, I don't actually remember.
Yeah, you mentioned that theseare Japanese role-playing games,
gene, and I want to ask you,because I don't have an actual
answer yet in my head what wouldyou say are some of the
hallmarks of jrpgs, or even thedifferences between a game that
(26:50):
is a jrpg versus a western rpgor american rpg?
Speaker 3 (26:59):
one is the is a lot of the.
A lot of it is the in sort ofthe accompanying elements of the
(27:20):
main game, like the chugwellbreeding and racing, the card
games, like triple triad,collection of fragments in a
treasure hunt thing.
In final fantasy 9, if there's,jrpgs tend to have a whole lot
of weird side supporting contentthat some people you know think
(27:43):
that's completely irrelevant.
In final fantasy 7 we go backto that.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
There's a whole snowboarding segment and it's
completely forgot about all ofthat gene until you told me yes,
there is yeah, but weird quirkslike that.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
it brings a lot of spice to the formula and Western
RPGs don't tend to have thatLike the surfing minigame in
Pokemon Yellow with Pikachu.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Right, okay, got it.
Jrpgs add spicy minigames.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
Yeah, they also.
I don't know how the phrase is.
Probably they like to makeamusement out of the mundane.
Okay, like, like the entiretyof the persona series.
It's like how do we make eatinga hamburger a funny experience?
(28:43):
And then here's a hamburgerthat's seven patties basically,
and if you don't have that, youcan't eat it, you'll barf.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
By the way, I know that we're half an hour into the
episode, but we totally forgotto talk about our world.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
Yes, as soon as you said Pikachu surfing, I was like
oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
And then Jean started talking about hamburgers that
clearly are not mill tankssomething like that.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
It's yeah, in a jrbg you'll randomly have a quest
about making sandwiches and it'sjust.
This is a random thing tosupposedly to help you learn
about the character'spersonalities more.
But it's very odd if you it's ajapanese cultural thing to just
randomly have that Becausethere are TV shows.
It's like in the middle of amurder mystery.
(29:31):
Now we have an episode aboutgoing to the beach.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Yeah, so we have in the chat where we now have
available super chats if anyonewants to get involved in that.
But we have in our chat thatshara has pointed out that pow
world is kirkland brand pokemonI and what I say to that is
kirkland brand is awesome yeah,it's like guns
Speaker 3 (29:57):
yeah, what you oh man does kirkland brand sell guns?
Speaker 1 (30:04):
since you equated it to pow world.
That's when, jenny.
So I got sucked into thisrandom discussion in discord
about, uh.
One of my past padawans came inand was talking about how
hilarious it is that people areupset about Pow World, and I
(30:27):
just commented that it's a gameand I hope it does okay, and I
hope people enjoy it, but let'snot pretend it's not plagiarism.
So then the conversationcontinued and we got into this
whole thing about whetherplagiarism constitutes that you
can be sued that it's copyrightinfringement, and I would say as
(30:48):
an academic by the way,plagiarism is not the same as
copyright infringement.
One is an academic concept, theother is illegal.
I would just say that they knewhow to make money and they're
making money.
So there we go.
Okay, back to games that willmatter 20 years from now and I
hope that comment ages FinalFantasy, okay.
(31:12):
So we have that's a really goodpoint, gene, about JRPGs is
that they get quirky, they makefun of mundane experiences and
they those mundane, funnymoments create memorable moments
(31:35):
, though, and they're frequentlylike in persona.
For example, sometimes youunlock achievements in the game
by doing that mundane thing tothe max.
Uh, so things like playingdarts or eat, eating, your
getting your courage up to whereyou can eat the giant seven
(31:57):
patty cheeseburger.
Final fantasy 13.
One of the mundane things thatit added in was a casino and
slot machine thing.
And I remember, even back beforeI did what I do as a certified
gambling counselor, I was neverreally into gambling games in
(32:19):
video games, I just thinkthey're boring.
I want to actually play thevideo game but I needed to win a
certain number of money of gilthat's Final Fantasy's word for
money Of gil from this casinoand there was chocobo racing and
there were slot machines.
It didn't matter how I get tothis number of gil, I just
(32:43):
needed to play enough casinothings to get there.
And I remember back then mywife was working a job that we
have one vehicle.
It would require me to driveabout 45 minutes one way to go
get her at the end of her shift.
So I took a rubber band andtape and I put the button down
(33:05):
that you press to make the slotmachine go again.
And then I just came home andthe slot machine had done it.
So I had the trophy unlockedand I was like, yeah, I didn't
have to play that.
So that was cool.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
Yeah, but yeah, I would say the main difference
between a JRPG and a Western RPGis it's there's the concept of
it's more even in modern times,but in the old days it was very
much a overarching story versusindividual character disparity
(33:47):
JRPGs tend to emphasize thecharacter, while Western RPGs
tend to emphasize theoverarching story, because you
would have concepts of gamesbased on D&D where your
characters are just whatever youmake of them.
They don't really have a storyarc other than your personal
(34:08):
decisions, like in Ballerscapeand that's a good example yeah,
in Ballerscape 3 is thatblending of the two where the
story is very much revolvingaround the characters, much more
than old western RPGs did.
But yeah, it was very much in avery don't take this as a solid
argument, but it's that sensethat in a Lord of Rings type
(34:35):
story the important stuff, liketons of important stuff, is
happening in the overarchingsense.
There's armies moving back andforth, gandalf disappears and
does things on the other side ofthe continent.
It's that focus on all of that.
And then there's the individualscenes of the fellowship.
(34:55):
But the JRPG experience takesless notice of the overarching
and then raises more emphasis onthe individual characters.
And so one of the critiques ofall jrpgs is like, yeah, these
are great characters, but theoverall story doesn't make any
(35:16):
sense file, fantasy 16, whichcame out last year.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
It's not even a year old very enjoyable game, by the
way.
I love the gameplay because itblends action, rpg and fast
paced combat, but with all thethings that you tend to love
from Final Fantasy casting fireand blizzard and having summons
and things like that verymagical and sword based fighting
(35:42):
.
But it's in real time, it'svery fast, like a devil may cry.
But because it borrows a lot ofaesthetics from Game of Thrones
, it does have a map, it doeshave different regions, it does
have politics and it hasmovement of things besides your
central characters, clive andhis crew.
(36:07):
Am I understanding that rightthat maybe Final Fantasy XVI,
because it's taking some AQsfrom more westernized kinds of
IP, that maybe it's moving.
It's an advancement of thattraditional jrpg sense in a way
(36:28):
yeah, I think that's a decentyeah stance on that.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
It's yeah, it's definitely yeah more of a focus
on both world and character, asopposed to just all character.
Because, for instance, again wewent back to persona, all
character.
Because, for instance, again wewent back to persona, the world
of persona.
You don't really know that muchabout it, other than it's a
fictionalized version of japan,right like it's.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
You don't know what's happening in america during the
time of persona 3, not really,um, like it's, and it's 100
about what the characters aregoing through okay, and also
their version of japan has themidnight hour, which, as far as
we know, isn't a real thing, andthe threat of what's going to
(37:20):
tear apart their world andsociety is fictional, it's
completely fantastical, whereasfinal fantasy worlds are not
even based in real worlds.
They are fantasy worlds tothemselves yeah, but yeah those.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
So even if you look back at final fantasy 7, even
though it's a great game, thereare the world of final phase 7.
If you really look at itdoesn't make that much sense.
No country has a governmentother than wu-tai wait.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
So shinra is not a government they're not a.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
They don't profess to be a country, they profess to
be a corporation oh, I just Ifeel like corporations run
government anyway right is thattoo?
Much for our little medill ispossibly its own country.
It's an island nation, butthere's no one in charge of it.
Wait, is that in?
(38:20):
Final fantasy 7 yeah oh, Iforgot, that's where my deal is
where you end up taking cloudafter he's in a wheelchair oh my
gosh, I don't remember vanillafinal fantasy seven at all gene.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
I'm relying completely on rebirth to help me
fill it, oh okay, oh wait,since the last episode, I did
finish Final Fantasy VII Remake.
Okay, so there is a second gamethat I played, so I'm tied with
Jenny.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
I'm too competitive, couldn't let me have it.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
I couldn't just lose.
I forgot, though, so you stillwin this week, jenny.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
It's completely fine, I'll take it.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
But the ending of that game is so beautiful and I
feel completely ready to startplaying rebirth, because I
forgot that.
All the things that the trailershowed us in our recap episode
last year, it we already knewthat's where the game was going
to start, because that's theending of this game of Remake 1.
(39:29):
All right, we need to answerour question for tonight's
episode, though we're runningshort on time.
So, jenny, you've beenlistening to Gene bring in the
JRPG explanation.
As far as Final Fantasy X,final Fantasy VII, you brought
up Final Fantasy XIV.
I said a few things about XVI.
(39:50):
Do you know much about XVI,jenny?
Speaker 2 (39:56):
No, I watched my boyfriend play it.
Maybe one or two sessions.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Did you like what you were seeing it?
Speaker 2 (40:03):
was hotter.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
Yeah, it looked awesome okay, so maybe you would
start with that one if you hadto today, or do you think you'd
still go for 14 because of thesocial stuff?
Speaker 2 (40:17):
no, I'd still go for 14 I yeah.
I'm not a yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
I'm not a.
Speaker 1 (40:24):
I like watching people play more okay yeah, the
thing with final fantasy 14 isif, if you're watching it and I
know that I have my streams aredoing that game.
I think I saw an interview thisweek that somebody it might
(40:44):
have been yoshi p or someone inthat area of development just
saying randomly that it's a 265hour game or something.
At this point, just if you'refocusing on the story and all
the gameplay of getting throughthe story, that is so much.
But it's a 10 year old game nowtoo, so that's what we get
(41:11):
still go through all of it orthey do new.
Speaker 3 (41:13):
Do people just skip through it now?
Speaker 1 (41:16):
but I think there are a lot of people that do skip
the cut scenes, but the reason Idecided to start over gene is
because I really wanted tounderstand the story in a deep
and personal way and I couldn'tremember most of it.
I've been at end game and Idon't have a social group around
me that will bring me in anequal way through the end game.
(41:39):
I felt like I was gettingdragged through it and that they
were enjoying things andpicking up on things and that I
was just always clueless and Idecided that, for better or
worse, I just need to start over, but I am enjoying that too.
It's just.
It is what it is.
(42:01):
I wasn't really an endgameplayer even when I was, and
that's how I felt.
I wasn't really an end gameplayer even when I was, and
that's how I felt that could bea whole podcast episode.
Honestly is, how do we fit inat end game in these online
games?
Sure, yeah, when it comes downto it, if we all three listened
(42:23):
to one old episode every weekand said, oh, this leads into
another episode, we'd haveepisodes going forever.
We'd never be able to talkabout all the little hints that
we drop, about things we'd loveto talk about.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
Yeah, so I've played.
I'm just thinking about this.
I've played Final Fantasy 1, 7,8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16.
Not saying I've beaten all ofthose.
I've never beaten eight.
All the other ones I've beatenin that list, but I never beat
(42:58):
eight.
I think my story, the first oneI played is seven and now VII
has a remake.
I think playing VII Remake iscool, but I think ultimately,
vii Remake is a sequel to VIIand I think the further that
story goes with Part II and III,the more obvious that's going
(43:20):
to be.
The question is then this islike the Star Wars question to
you, gene, last episode, whenyou pointed out Final Fantasy
VII is the Star Wars of FinalFantasy.
That blew my mind and it madeeverything in my life make sense
, everything in your life,everything, all of it.
(43:40):
But if you've never seen StarWars, you have to start at a new
hope and then empire strikesback.
Right?
You can't start at episode oneand you can't start at seven
either, right, because thoseexperiences both hinge on
episode four or five and sixbeing where you started and
(44:02):
having the emotional memory ofespecially episode five, and I
think that's what final fantasy7 is building for itself that
you can enjoy remake and rebirthand re, whatever the last one's
going to be.
Maybe reunion will be the titleof that one.
But you, your enjoyment ofthose games hinges on the memory
(44:29):
of the 1997 game, right yeah,that's definitely possible and
I'm pretty sure it would be true.
Speaker 3 (44:42):
And, of course, you know Square Enix has not made
any statement to invalidate theoriginal game, that they're
practically giving the originalgame away now for a couple of
dollars.
Speaker 1 (44:54):
They really want you to play yeah, also, advent
children is coming to theatersthis month for limited release.
I was aware of that.
They have a reason to want thatto happen for people too, to be
in their memory.
Speaker 3 (45:13):
Is it the original cut or the Blu-ray director's
cut?
Speaker 1 (45:17):
or whatever they called it.
I don't know if it's going tobe Advent Children complete or
not, or if it's the Right.
I would assume they just gowith the complete one.
I would hope so.
It's better.
It's only an extra 30 minutesor so, but just for whatever
it's worth, it seems like weshould go on the return.
Let's just say, based on whatwe know about final fantasy, if
(45:42):
we could redo our entiretimeline, which one would we
want to start with?
Jenny?
Which one would you want tostart with?
Speaker 2 (45:55):
I am a creature of habit, so 14 gene.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
Which one would you want to start with four?
Why?
Speaker 3 (46:05):
four.
Four is the, four is the story.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
That, no, I just want to know.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
We haven't mentioned it a single time in any of our
episodes oh, four basicallyestablished the formula that we
know and love now, because finalfantasy one through you were
these faceless dudes, warriorNinja, whatever you weren't
characters, okay, before theconcept of you are these
(46:35):
characters?
You are Cecil, you are Rosa,and that continues on to present
day.
Speaker 1 (46:38):
Is that the one with Keen?
Speaker 3 (46:39):
in it yes.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
Okay, yeah, yeah, all right, cool, we're going.
Okay.
Yeah, yeah, all right, cool.
Yeah, we're gonna have to talkabout that more, because I don't
know very much about four and Iwould love to learn and maybe
add it to my list of things todo soon.
I would keep it at seven.
If you know me from theepisodes of this show, I love
the butterfly effect, whichmeans I truly believe that if we
(47:04):
go back in time and kill abutterfly, I could end up doing
a completely different job andnot being me, not being Dr
Gamology.
So I feel like playing FinalFantasy VII is such a critical
memory in terms of thedevelopment of me as a person we
(47:25):
do not want to mess with that.
I have to always have playedFinal Fantasy VII first.
These conversations are helpingpeople, whether you're a person
who's a longtime veteran ofFinal Fantasy and you just like
hearing people talk about theirperspectives on the game
franchise, or if you're new togaming or haven't played final
(47:46):
fantasy.
I think right now, finalfantasy 14 is a great one to
jump into because it has likejenny said, it's an mmo.
It has something for everyone.
It has a great story.
I believe that's the story I'mthinking about the most when I
say things about video games aremodern mythology, because you
have deities, you have warringnations and you have the warrior
(48:09):
of light and that's everythingyou need in order to have the
monomyth.
But I love a lot of the othergames in the franchise too.
So if this is sounding like acool fun time and you need some
exciting and knowledgeable FinalFantasy veterans to play games
with, you can check out AIE ataie-guildorg.
(48:32):
Thank you, as always, forsupporting our show.
If you'd like to check out ourmembership tiers on YouTube,
those are new but those will goa long way to helping us advance
the kinds of resources and thekinds of things we bring through
the doctor game ology channelon youtube, we're very excited
to offer those things.
And but the final, yeah, finalquest, uh, embrace your destiny
(48:57):
and continue the journey bye,see you next week.
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