This is it: the final week of the Final Fantasy VI Book Club! To take on this final boss of a podcast, we have an epic crew of Ben, Justin, Shana, Richard, John and Jordan. Join them for a discussion of airships, existentialism, the game’s (*gasp*) Christ symbolism, the Divine Comedy, the power of love, and an answer to the question: What is Game?
→ Download the Final Fantasy VI Podcast
Possible Episode Titles
- “He has an airship, so he knows what love is.”
- “The Omelette of Turin”
- “One Must Imagine The Player Grinding For Magical Points in the Dinosaur Forest Happy”
- “A Parting Confirmation That You Are the Baddest of Asses”
- “Did Anyone Ever Steal the Ultimate Weapon from Jesus?”
- “I Need to Include the Moogles and the Yetis and the Pansexual Scarf Things”
- “A Whiff of Sasquatch”
- “I’ll Keep Playing UNTIL It’s Fun”
- “Did You Try Loving Loving Your Pikachu Better?”
- “Killing the Largest Integer on the Board”
- “It Celebrates Friendship Yet Discourages You From Having Friends”
The Overthinking It Book Club
The book club has always been an experiment to see if we, the worldwide community of Overthinkers, can have as much fun looking at a work of literature as we have when we talk about movies, TV shows, and music. Now, we’re taking that idea into a whole new medium, and turning our eyes to the world of interactive fiction – fancy talk for video games. Beginning the week of October 15, we’re going to spend a month and a half playing the RPG classic Final Fantasy VI, in honor of the 20th Anniversary of the game’s North American release.
Get The Game
If you have the game already, great! Time to dust off the SNES and get cracking. Otherwise, the game can be acquired for iOS and Android.
The Syllabus
We’ve divided the game into six roughly equal chunks. You’ll get the most out of the club if you have played through these sections by these dates:
- Introduction: October 15
- Week 1: October 22 (Chapters 1-2: Narshe through the Returner’s Hideout)
- Week 2: October 29 (Chapters 3-5: Locke’s Scenario, Terra’s Scenario and Sabin’s Scenario)
- Week 3: November 5 (Chapters 6-7: From Narshe to Zozo and the Opera House all the way to Vector)
- Week 4: November 12 (Chapters 8-10: From Vector through the Sealed Gate, Thamasa, the Floating Island, and the World of Ruin)
- SIDE QUEST: The End of the World
- Week 5: December 3 (Chapter 11: Cid’s Island to Darril’s Tomb)
- Week 6 (this podcast): December 10 (Chapter 12: Kefka’s Tower and wrap-up)
The Forums
For our discussion, we’re going to use a special section in the Overthinking It Forums. Friday before each section begins, we’ll open up a forum for the coming week with some study questions to get our discussion started. As you play over the weekend, you can answer our questions in the week’s forum, start your own discussion topics there, and chime in on discussions that others have started. Everything up to and including the week’s section of the game is fair game for discussion—but if you’ve played ahead, no spoilers for what is to come! (We’ll open up a “all-game” thread for those.)
The Podcast
Sometime mid-week, we’ll release a podcast where a panel of Overthinking It writers and guests will talk about the game. We’ll talk over the week’s gameplay, address some of the study questions, and highlight our favorite discussions from the forums.
Thanks! That was quite an experience.
When I was playing to get ready for the book club I was surprised by how things reminded me of Chrono Trigger (character sprites that existed solely as storytelling tools, little “throw away the crumpled piece of paper” decisions, artwork similarities between the Opera House and Court room, the sudden disconnection from the “main character”)
So I appreciated the insight into the relationship between the two. But maybe Chrono Trigger spoiled me a bit, as much as I’m glad this gave me a reason to try out FF6 I’d have to agree that it just doesn’t feel “balanced”.
Thanks, guys, that was great!
It would be amazing if you decided to tackle either Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy VII in the future, but you’ll probably want to talk about some other kind of game – therefore my proposition would be Metal Gear Solid. There’s plenty to talk about and I’d love to hear your thoughts on that game.