The Gaming Persona
Welcome to The Gaming Persona, a unique podcast that traverses the exciting crossroads of gaming and mental health. With your host, Dr. Gameology, peel back the layers of the gaming world to discover its profound impact on our cognitive and emotional health. You'll understand how video games, far from being mere entertainment, can act as powerful tools for personal growth, stress relief, and mental resilience. Join fellow gamers and enthusiasts in thought-provoking discussions, unraveling the intricacies of game design, the psychology of gaming, and the surprising ways in which these elements influence our well-being.
Immerse yourself in The Gaming Persona, the one-of-a-kind podcast that seamlessly blends the worlds of video gaming and mental health. Guided by our resident (but not evil) expert, Dr. Gameology, we endeavor to unlock the untapped potential of gaming as a catalyst for enhancing our mental resilience, stimulating personal growth, and promoting stress relief.
For The Gaming Persona is fascinated by the intricacies of game design, exploring the careful balance of challenges, rewards, narratives, and immersion that makes video games captivating experiences. Through engaging discussions, we illuminate the psychological aspects of gaming – the motivations, the emotional connections, and the gratification that players derive from their virtual adventures.
But our exploration doesn't stop there. We also examine the transformative potential of video games on our mental landscapes. Drawing from a wide swath of research, anecdotal evidence, and personal experiences, we highlight how gaming helps shape cognitive abilities, emotional resilience, and social skills.
The Gaming Persona is more than just a podcast. It's a platform for gamers and non-gamers alike to gain a new perspective on gaming - not as a mere hobby or a form of escapism, but as a powerful medium of self-improvement and well-being.
Each episode of our show is meticulously crafted to provide a balanced blend of immersive storytelling, engaging discussions, and knowledge-packed content. We delve into the heart of game design, unraveling the intricate weave of elements that make video games a compelling form of entertainment and a profound tool for personal development.
But we're not just about games. We're about you, the gamer. The Gaming Persona aims to cast a fresh light on the psychological facets of gaming that resonate with players. We decode the motivations, the emotional bonds, and the sense of fulfillment that gamers derive from their digital exploits.
And it doesn't end there. As you tune in week after week, you'll discover the transformative power of gaming on cognitive flexibility, emotional resilience, and social connections. You'll hear from researchers, mental health professionals, game developers, and fellow gamers who share their insights, experiences, and personal anecdotes.
Imagine a podcast that can simultaneously entertain, educate, inspire, and challenge your perspectives. That's The Gaming Persona for you. By making us a part of your weekly routine, you're embarking on a journey of personal growth and self-discovery, all while indulging in your love for video games.
So, if you're ready to challenge the status quo and explore the intersection of gaming and mental health, join Dr. Gameology and a vibrant community of like-minded individuals on this enlightening journey.
So, why wait? Subscribe to The Gaming Persona today. Challenge your perspectives, enrich your mind, and game your way to mental resilience. With each episode, you won't just be playing; you'll be growing, learning, and evolving. Welcome to the community.
Subscribe to The Gaming Persona now, and game your way to a healthier mind.
#gaming #mentalhealth #wellbeing #gameology #gamingpersona #podcast #continuethejourney
The Gaming Persona
What is Final Fantasy? (Part 1): Entering Realms and Heroic Journeys
This week, we're uncovering the layers of Final Fantasy, the iconic gaming series, revealing not just its influence on the industry but also its psychological tapestry that weaves into the fabric of our daily lives.
Navigating the rich history of Japanese RPGs, we stroll down memory lane with Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy, reminiscing about their classic mechanics and the evolution of their narratives. These games didn't just entertain; they provided a framework for personal growth and understanding, meshing perfectly with the psychological concepts that fascinate us so deeply. And it doesn't stop at nostalgia; we delve into "Against the Storm," a game that masterfully combines strategy with time management, challenging players to thrive in a demanding, ever-changing world.
But our exploration is more than reminiscence and gaming tactics—it's a call to academia. We shine a spotlight on the scant research covering the newer Final Fantasy titles, especially the MMOs, and their nuanced portrayal of gender roles, encouraging a closer look at their cultural significance. As we bid you farewell until next week, we empower you to join the ranks of adventurers in the Final Fantasy universe, assuring newcomers and veterans alike that their journey will be as accessible as it is enchanting.
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!
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For more info, check out DrGameology.com!
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Thanks for Listening, and Continue The Journey!
Welcome to the Gaming Persona Podcast. This is a show that explores who 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 for my gaming journey, Jenny LeBron and Jean Wong. Friends, how are we doing this week?
Speaker 2:I'm doing fantastic and I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 3:I'm doing all right. It's winter here, finally. All right, you're buried in what? Buried in snow? We got, like a photo, snow, so it's yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 1:Oh, that sounds terrible, Jean. How long does it take to clear out snow from your house?
Speaker 3:Over an hour and it destroys my back, oh no.
Speaker 2:Snow is fun for 30 minutes, and then it's over.
Speaker 1:I don't even know what I would do with my day if I had an extra hour of dealing with the weather.
Speaker 3:The house of cards would crumble. Don't tell my work, but I subtract that time from my workday.
Speaker 1:Okay, I will not tell your work, but you just got to hope that your work did not hear about our little operation we're doing on YouTube.
Speaker 3:I was on one of that works from home three days a week. I'm pretty sure making my house not buried is a prerequisite of the job.
Speaker 1:I think there is something there it sounds logic. Yeah, if you spend time in your office clearing your desk, emptying a trash can, making a cup of coffee, it's really important to simulate that kind of stuff in your work from home day, and tidying up your workspace is something you would do at work. Yeah, do it, jean. I approve. All right, before we get started. We did get started, but before we really get started, where can our listeners find us?
Speaker 2:You can find my photography page on Instagram at jlibronphotography or jlibronphotographycom, if you're curious about what Nerny Pershing's photos look like.
Speaker 1:I am Dr Gamology. You can find me on YouTube. I do videos and I do shorts and I do the podcast. We are playing live through Final Fantasy 14. From the beginning, we've done 10 of those streams so far. That's where you can find me.
Speaker 3:The Game of Persona can be found on Apple Podcasts, spotify, google and most annuals podcasts can be found.
Speaker 1:Thank you for supporting the gaming persona, Jenny. What are we talking about this week?
Speaker 2:We are jumping into a series of episodes where we take things back to basics on some of our favorite game franchises. We're starting, of course, with the Psychology of Final Fantasy. This is a Part 1 episode.
Speaker 1:Yes, this is Part 1. Just like with my favorite MMO, final Fantasy 14, we can't promise that we know how many parts this is going to have. It could have the next 200 episodes, it could be the next three, who knows? It really depends how we feel about continuing to talk about it. Let's go ahead and do our ordinary world, where we share everyday life through our games, all right. Jenny and Jean, how is your week?
Speaker 2:I'm excited about it today.
Speaker 1:Wait what.
Speaker 2:I'm excited about it. Today, I have something to share.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness, Jenny, you go first then, because I guess my preloaded ridicule of you is not necessary this week.
Speaker 2:Maybe I don't know. I have been very into the Witcher 3 this past week, super into it, but not as a game player myself, as a tandem game player with my boy. He's the one that's actually playing, but I'm the one that's guiding him through and telling him what we should do next and where we should focus our time. It's been so much fun. I'm fully in. We spent hours over the weekend just playing the game, exploring around, doing quests, playing Gwent.
Speaker 1:Old plan.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:You're playing the Witcher 3, wild Hunt.
Speaker 2:Yes, on PS5. It's so much fun. In fact I'm itching to finish the podcast so we can go play again.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm sorry, Jenny.
Speaker 3:All right, definitely pursue the Gwent storyline. It's not the card game.
Speaker 2:Oh, there's a Gwent storyline. I did not know that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you get inducted into the deeper society of Gwent players.
Speaker 2:It's like Yu-Gi-Oh oh my God, this looks so cool. Let me love it even more.
Speaker 1:I can't stand Gwent.
Speaker 2:I love that game so much.
Speaker 1:It's a complete distraction of everything I care about. I'm glad that Jean and I are on this episode to talk with you about this, because we're like the two different the angel and the demon on your shoulder here. I feel like I'm so excited. That's such a good game for you to be playing. Also, the way you're playing it that is a really common thing that I hear people talk about is there's so many great games as far as story goes, especially when the story is choice based, which the Witcher 3 definitely is that it's really cool to have something that's mildly cinematic but you're also owning the story together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when we have the quick decide moments it's very nerve-wracking, but almost always I err on the side of dark.
Speaker 3:The side of dark, the side of dark.
Speaker 1:Oh man, I am a very doing what's right version of Geralt. Actually, jean, the last episode that we did together, or maybe two of them ago Jenny, I am near certain that you were not on this episode, but, jean, you said something about Geralt's alignment and I remember saying that Geralt is largely a projection of the player.
Speaker 3:That is the case in the game version.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when you're reading a book, you can only project so much into the character that the author created.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we just had a quest where it was like a werewolf storyline and we basically had a choice of whether or not to let the werewolf kill this girl because she was doing shady stuff, or kill the werewolf, and I would have let him kill her. We ended up killing the werewolf, so it's fine.
Speaker 1:But the werewolf was going to do the world a service.
Speaker 2:By killing the shady girl. I know, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. It was a complicated. Whoever's done that quest will understand.
Speaker 1:Jenny, would it make you excited to know that what we are talking about with the role of choice and moral development is exactly what my chapter in the psychology of the Witcher is about.
Speaker 2:Fantastic.
Speaker 3:I love it yeah.
Speaker 1:So that book should, based on the timelines for when I contributed for Pokemon and also for Elden Ring, I really would guess the Witcher will be coming out in 2024 also.
Speaker 2:Sweet.
Speaker 1:Just like the gamer's journey right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Dr Bean, right Okay.
Speaker 2:We should do a Witcher panel at Mega Con next year.
Speaker 1:Jenny, that's a perfect segue. We are not doing a Witcher panel at Mega Con this year, but you know what we are doing at Mega Con this year.
Speaker 2:I do.
Speaker 1:Yes, fine, you tell our audience then I'm out.
Speaker 2:No, it's the opposite of that. I know what we're doing, but I don't actually know exactly what we're doing.
Speaker 1:Yes, and then I'll grade your answer, because that's my job. I'm pretty good at it.
Speaker 2:I feel like we're essentially doing our episode for Mega Con.
Speaker 1:Okay, yes, that's exactly what we're doing on stage at Mega Con is we're going to be talking about the psychology behind stories and video games like Final Fantasy. So Final Fantasy is in the title, but we aren't limited just to Final Fantasy. We're actually there to talk about story construction and mythological heroes, journeys, and we're going to actually share a bit of content from the gamer's journey with the audience to try to make people more aware of the book and get excited for it, and hopefully we get our stuff together, have things like QR codes for pre-orders and stuff. I'm really hoping that we can start sharing tangible things with this book, that was so cool. Yes, we're running out of time, though it's four weeks away, five weeks away.
Speaker 2:Less than a month.
Speaker 3:Yes so that is, it's strangely early this year. Very, I do not like it.
Speaker 1:Yes, mega Con is a May event for me and I feel wronged.
Speaker 2:I think I don't know. I think it's better because the May event was always. It always coincided with what's the holiday in May.
Speaker 1:Memorial Day Memorial.
Speaker 2:Day weekend and there was already too many people in Orlando for that weekend.
Speaker 1:The last time they did it, in May, they had the line to pick up badges running outside instead of setting up ropes inside. I have no idea why they thought that was a good and lawful good choice.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Someone almost died and several people needed medical attention, and I think that might be some of the rationale of why it became March and then now it's February.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's also about availability of the people like.
Speaker 1:So many people this year, jenny, famous people, so many.
Speaker 2:I know, I know I'm going to be there anyway for my friend who also has a book coming out, or maybe Is there's actually going to come out, because I'd like to meet them and ask them what that's like. Oh, and it's a book, it's a photography book, so it's all photos that he's taken at Mega Con throughout the years of the incredible cosplayers.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's so fun.
Speaker 2:I can't wait, and so I'm part of his team this year. I'm so excited.
Speaker 1:Cosplayers are some of the coolest people ever.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Agreed Gene. What have you been up to this week?
Speaker 3:Uh-oh, I've been playing against the storm, which is, in other stuff, a very interesting game. It's a city builder, but it's a rogue-like city builder. So most city builders, you sit there for dozens of hours and you just keep growing. You're say, bigger and bigger. Right, this one. You go on little individual missions that last like an hour to two hours, cos. Basically the concept is you're in this post-apocalyptic setting where it rains nonstop and there's only one city that is dry, and so the queen sends you out to go build settlements, to send back supplies back to the city. So each level is a series of missions essentially, or objectives essentially, where it's like you got to send back 50 crates of copper or vegetables or whatever back to the city. But yeah, it's a short time limit because eventually the queen, if you don't do it in time, the queen just gets fed up with you and shuts down your city and you're fired. Oh okay, but yeah, it's interesting. So every time you start up a new level, it's what does the queen want and how do I get there?
Speaker 1:And what's the gameplay? Genre or play style?
Speaker 3:It's a city builder and it's. You put down some buildings, you tell your workers to do things, but it's, whereas a regular city builder you're literally doing it. This one you have to be goal oriented, Like again I say, post-apocalyptic setting. So you're in the middle of a forest and you just have to cut down trees and figure out what resources are around you.
Speaker 1:That's like the first half of every map in the classic Warcraft games.
Speaker 3:And so it's. But yeah, in Warcraft you don't have a real time limit other than the enemies possibly becoming a murder.
Speaker 1:You they're getting stronger and hopefully you're getting stronger. Sometimes you should attack quick or sometimes you should continue growing and get even stronger.
Speaker 3:In this game it's at the queen wants 50 crates of vegetables and I'm digging around and I can't find proper ground to put down a farm. Then that means I got to switch gears and figure out how to buy vegetables from merchants to send back as a constant flux of strategy based on her demands. It's interesting that way.
Speaker 2:Okay, I like it.
Speaker 3:And so, yeah, you fulfill the goals in an hour and a half, and then it's, the level ends, and then they said you on a new part of the giant Pop-apocalyptic forest. And then, oh, okay, yeah, I figure out what's here again Okay.
Speaker 1:I Haven't heard of. So what do we play this on? Is it PC or PlayStation steam.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they're working on a console version, but, yeah, right now it's just on steam. It is currently, I believe, the highest-rated so city building game on steam. It's crazy.
Speaker 2:What's the name again?
Speaker 3:against this storm.
Speaker 1:That's funny, because that sounds like the reason that our episode couldn't start on time tonight.
Speaker 2:Oh true.
Speaker 1:Okay, I do have one more ordinary world thing to share, and this is super exciting because it really is what the last Close to year of my life has been about, maybe, but definitely the last five months. We were able to get Accepted into the YouTube partner program this week, so I got the email on Monday morning and what happened the breakdown of why is it really is about the gaming persona. Going back around three weeks ago, I Added the podcast to the YouTube channel for Dr Gamalogy viya the RSS feed and this is something that's relatively new to YouTube. I didn't do it day one, but I got an email reminding me that this is something I could do, so I answered it and I spent an afternoon connecting it and figuring out the few steps that I was screwing up, and I got the podcast on there. And then, now that the podcast is on there, you see a logo version of Of all these episodes and I was like, oh, that really isn't very cool. I really should get back To doing the video episodes, and that's why we're on squadcast right now, because I figured out how to connect that over to OBS and now we have our video episodes, and so then I started putting all the video episodes up and so that was about four videos plus a hundred and sixteen or so podcast episodes all hitting the channel at once. Youtube thought that was so cool and just started shooting our episodes via the algorithm all the different topics. And I was telling Jenny last week it was a one-on-one episode and I was just talking with her about we're having some episodes get hundreds and hundreds of listens, better than anything that ever happened on Apple or Spotify. I'm sharing that in this episode because there might be other podcasters that listen to us and maybe you know as far as was a good idea to go through the steps to add your podcast to YouTube. I Was so skeptical that I put it off for months and now it's. Yes, absolutely. That is a very smart thing to do. We just started getting Hundreds of watch hours out of nowhere that we weren't used to on the channel. Everyone who is new to our little ecosystem here the doctor game ology channel and the gaming persona podcast Welcome. We're excited to meet you. You're coming in a good time because we're really Reviewing a lot of episodes or making them more of a nice Entry point to what we're talking about, because the first 100 episodes went so deep and specific that we had a little bit there. Personally, I felt what are we gonna do next? Now we're in the YouTube partner program. That really changed. That really shuffles up YouTube, twitch, facebook those are the three places our show goes and that really just shoots YouTube to definitely the main spot. I think let's do the call to adventure and get into our topic for the week. Alright, jenny and Jean, we have a basic question to answer, and that question is what is final fantasy? So let's just spend a moment talking about that question, why we're asking it and what is the answer. What is final fantasy?
Speaker 3:If you want to get historical on it, it is we do. Okay, it is the second oldest Japanese RPG series. It was only beaten by Dragon Quest by a year. Dragon Quest came out of 1986. The first one, fantasy, came out 1987. Yeah, but that combined two games, basically established the Japanese RPG genre as we know it. Before that there was a bunch of random games that weren't mega popular, but those two sold millions and Made it into a thing. But, yeah, they established a lot of the norms of that series, of that of the genre. But they are term-based RPG adventures where you go through a fantasy world doing quests in a vague Idea of generally there's a work, there's something threatening the universe and we, a band of four or five, three, four or five heroes, got to go Evil. Yeah, beat the evil. Yeah, we gather gear, we fight monsters, we level up, we develop Backstories. The first song fancy. Did the first song fancy? Everyone was generic people. They were warrior or Ninja, like they weren't care or what else could they be? Lots of things black black mage age.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I actually have a black mage, red mage and white mage from final fantasy, one on my back window. You know how people have their family stickers. Those are my family stickers on my car. Oh yeah, I love it final fantasy one is such an amazing Game. Even the first time I played it for real, other than playing it on my friends consoles in childhood, because I never owned a final fantasy game During the time where I'm a minor, living in my parents house, so my only connection with Final Fantasy until the 2000s was playing at Friends house. And then I played Final Fantasy one all the way through on my first iPhone and I just fell in love with that game. I had already played Final Fantasy 7 at the time, but I just loved Sitting at school and anytime I'd be in between classes and had no assignments to work on, I'd just be playing Final Fantasy one. And that's probably why I am the way I am, because if you listen to all these episodes, I do my best to admit this whenever I can. When I'm learning at that time in my life about all these Psychological theories, but then I'm playing these specific games, it's like the ideas were not Competing with each other for space in my mind. It's like they were becoming a mutually supportive Series of concepts. I'm learning about person-centered counseling and cognitive behavioral therapy While playing Final Fantasy one, and that's why I'm weird.
Speaker 3:Okay, all right, I guess that we jump ahead in history there. Now we're talking about some fancy the series, which spans Dozens of games. The number games go up to five and C16, but there's plenty of side games, mobile games, board games yeah, it runs the gamut. There's even a VR fishing game. What? Yeah, there's a VR fishing games for five. Fancy 15 were Noctis, must fate, must face the depths of the sea.
Speaker 1:Can I play this on my meta quest to?
Speaker 3:I'm not sure it was on. We have it on steam VR? Oh, not sure.
Speaker 2:PS.
Speaker 1:VR. Oh yeah, Now I need to do this.
Speaker 3:But yeah, it runs, damn it. There's gambling games, there's card game, it's all over.
Speaker 1:Jenny, did you just hear a really good episode? Yeah, we totally need to do a gambling episode of the gaming persona. Given what I am and also your work backstory, it just yeah, that's a no-brainer, so that is a spoiler everybody. Eventually we're gonna have to cover gambling and video games, but not this day, jenny. That's the wrong franchise. We could talk triple triad with Jean, if you want. That's even more fun. It's the card game from Final Fantasy 8 that also is in 14. So, jean, you said dozens of games. I know that's easily true. I'm actually doing the math in my head and wondering with all the bizarre Extra games that there are, has it reached a hundred?
Speaker 3:I'm not sure. I guess it might depend on if you count some of the redoes. For instance, the fact I see pixel remasters adds on Six yeah, yeah, six plus games by itself. Actually there's a yeah, I guess the six yeah.
Speaker 1:I forget if they included games like mystic quest in that bundle or not also there's dissidia, right, but when this, when dissidia Nt came out, there was a mobile game, opera omnia X or something, and so if we're counting mobile games, then definitely final fantasy is. Oh my gosh, my entire career is doctor game. Olgi arguably happened because I got to do a presentation about Final Fantasy. Brave, exvious, cool, which was a mobile game that attempted to Enter in characters from the entire history of Final Fantasy plus Ariana Grande. So, oh yeah, and Katy Perry, no, I don't know what you're talking about right now. Ariana Grande is a character in Final Fantasy.
Speaker 3:Brave exvious, Jenny yeah they did a collaboration along. Like I said, a few years later they did one Katy Perry it was the. Both of those people had some Fantasy-themed music videos and then they were like, let's just make that into a character Okay yeah, you play as them doing what fighting there.
Speaker 1:They're just one of your characters in your battle. Party of five.
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness yeah. I love that. Yeah, gary, let's finish.
Speaker 3:Katy Perry in this music video is a cyborg and she's got all kinds of cyborg related abilities.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's great. My, honestly, all of my interaction with Final Fantasy, I'll say the majority of my affiliation with Final Fantasy, is Final Fantasy 14. As most people know, my introduction To Final Fantasy was Final Fantasy Tactics and then, I'm not a fan of Final Fantasy Tactics Jenny. I don't actually have an opinion on it because, again, I wasn't playing and it was just something I saw in passing a few times and it looked fine.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you're watching it. See, I was playing it and I'm bad, so I think that might be the difference. Yeah, and then I played.
Speaker 2:Final Fantasy 10 for a day. How you play that game for only a day. It's one of the best stories of all time.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I played it for a day, but then I watched it another three days.
Speaker 2:So it's a thing that I have with single player games. I just don't like it. I love watching people game play single player role-playing games, but Jenny myself, I just get bored so quickly. I have a question for you and you don't have to answer it.
Speaker 1:You can like do any hand gesture that you want if you don't want to answer. Do you have a good relationship with your dad?
Speaker 2:I do now.
Speaker 1:Okay, so it's fine, but it's not like fantastic.
Speaker 2:Okay, we don't know what to do.
Speaker 1:Okay, we don't need to go into that, because now we're in personal land and I don't know if we need that to be in the episode. The reason I'm asking is when you were saying your difference of not really falling into Final Fantasy 10, my first thing I thought of is that story is one of the best stories for the mythological telling of a son seeking some moment of atonement with the father figure, and Not that they need to forgive their father. It's just there's a Powerful angst to Tetus, that is, and he's the character that you start controlling from the beginning, although there are other amazing characters in the game and I didn't get that far in that game. Okay, I was just thinking that if there are strong feelings in a father-son relationship, the hypothesis is maybe that story resonates more Powerfully and earlier in the story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I could see that, but I didn't get to that part in the story where that would have hooked me.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah. If you only played that day, the best you might have gotten is like one or two flashbacks about Blitzballs.
Speaker 1:Blitzball. Final Fantasy is so fun too because it does add in non-story, non-game related elements to distract you but make the game more fun. And I don't mean distract in a negative way, I just mean that this is weird and it's definitely part of the game and I'm supposed to play it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, one of the best things about a good Japanese RPG is that they really invest in the world building and some of these little weird games like triple triad and Blitzball are baked into the world and it's yeah, this is. Blitzball is the equivalent of Soccer in soccer. Slash football in the world of Spira. It's a big deal. Literally everyone on the planet cares about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's definitely clear from the get-go, and Tetus is a major star. He's the face of their league. Basically, that's what I got out of the game.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he's the Michael Jordan. I guess Jack was the Michael Jordan of the franchise and he is Toby.
Speaker 1:I'm instantly sad. Now, five am Workouts, everybody. That's how you do it, okay. So what is Final Fantasy? It's really hard to have a focused answer to that question, I think. But it started in the 80s. 2023 saw Final Fantasy 16 released on PS5, and it's always a story About a character who could become the warrior of light, seeking to save their world from darkness, and it's always a game that is played with the rules of a role-playing game, meaning your character starts at level one or seven in the case of the Fancy seven remake always starts a very low level. You defeat enemies, whether it's turn-based or action style fighting. You have swords and melee combat. Sometimes you have Weapons that are ranged like bows and guns. Sometimes you have magic and different characters specialize in different things. And when I'm reading up on the early games and Jean, since you play a lot of TT RPGs, maybe you can expand on this but I get a feeling that for the 1980s you have muds, multi user dungeons as a way for people to do D&D style gaming through a computer. But there might have been a different style of game Enthusiast in the 80s that didn't want to type words, they wanted to see a little bit of a fantasy world, and when I look at those early Final Fantasy games I start instantly thinking of well, you can't do the advanced dialogue based questing like you can in Dungeons and Dragons, but maybe this is a version of D&D that can exist on the Nintendo entertainment system. Mm-hmm, that you do go into combat, you have your party of four. That just feels to me like a very, very TT RPG kind of thing the party of four working together and you all have different classes, so you're not the exact same thing, and so I feel like it's a way to carry on some of that early gaming heritage into an electronic based format.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's definitely one of the first Examples of that. There were some earlier in. I believe. Some of the very first RPGs Were earlier, like 83, 82 ish, where, if you heard of the series wizardry, they are first-person dungeon crawl experiences. You don't really have a big expanse of overworld like you do in a Final Fantasy. It's a you're in a dungeon, your, your, your party, are just going around trying to get deeper and deeper into the dungeon and, yeah, you make some choices along the way. It's a different Experience. I've got that. It replicates that feel of the TTRPG but in a very what's the word? Distilled fashion, because some of those early D&D adventurers words just about you're going to a dungeon and you fight until you find the dragon and then you kill the dragon. It's replicating that experience. Yeah, those things were very up to the GM to make up a story to wrap around the framework of what do you do on your way to the drag.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So if we compare that to how Final Fantasy in 1987 starts delivering stories, you are getting a little bit of a story and a little bit of context from the world that those first person experiences maybe were lacking. But it's a different play style. But you do, even in Final Fantasy 1, you get the basics. You can go into the city area, go into the castle, if I remember right, and here that you need to find Garland Right, that was his name. Before he became chaos. Your party of four hopefully leveled up just a little bit so that when you find Garland he doesn't wreck you, Because that's something that happened to me once. One time I just went straight to him and he destroyed me. So that is why we study for our tests, kids. Yeah, you got to level up a little bit and then you just have to start going across the world collecting crystals, right, Is that?
Speaker 3:I don't exactly remember, but oh, basically you somehow learned that Garland is an unkindable time traveler kind of guy, that you must go destroy his fiends to remove his immortality. And yeah, by extension, you have to get the crystals.
Speaker 1:And also Final Fantasy 1 is a really cool time right now because you can play it on the Pixel Remaster and you also can play Strangers of Paradise if you need a Dark Souls feel to your Final Fantasy 1 gaming.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that is actually a sleeper hit. It's very rough around the edges, but I had a great time about that game.
Speaker 1:There are so many people that I get to interact with on threads that are just that game is just over, with them Over. When you say a wrestler is over everything they do the crowd loves that game is definitely a sleeper hit. And if you're in the community that feels it's a sleeper hit, it's not a sleeper hit, it's a hit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that game, though, is so absurdly complicated that I can understand why it turns away most people.
Speaker 1:Souls games, I think, are extremely complicated.
Speaker 3:But also that game is. The game has the classic Final Fantasy job system, but it doesn't explain to you how to make your job not suck. You actually need to master it In real life.
Speaker 1:People haven't explained to me how to make my job not suck.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for instance, if you just play a Black Mage singularly and that's all you did, you are awful, you actually have to come blind.
Speaker 1:The ability to do it. Don't listen to Gene. If you played Black Mage, you're awesome. Don't listen to him.
Speaker 3:You have to combine the abilities of five different jobs to make a class work in that game. That's why I guess that's very complicated. For instance, you need the MP recovery abilities from other jobs. You need the ability to when you hit people, you recover more MP. You need all these supporting abilities from other jobs to make Black Mage work. And so most people go into this game saying I want to be a fighter and then they find out fighter sucks by itself and they don't understand.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, I didn't understand either. Thank you, gene. I might have a good shot now, but yeah, you're antidote about.
Speaker 3:Garland yeah, he is the first boss in Stranger in Paradise and he is brutal. I spent three hours fighting him on the demo I did too.
Speaker 1:I did beat him, but that demo was terrifying so hard. Okay, I need to comment that this episode might just be part one and not have other segments. I have no idea, but it's been so fun talking about what we did this week and then getting into what is Final Fantasy, but that is such a huge question.
Speaker 2:It is.
Speaker 1:We do have other things that we can add on the research side, but I'm going to take us on the road of trials so we can face our challenges and discover our strengths. And this is going to be short everybody. There is research about psychologically, how can Final Fantasy be used and understood, but to my shock, there's not a lot from the last eight years, meaning that all of these researchers are talking about older Final Fantasy games. So if you're talking about the MMO games, you have Final Fantasy XI and you have Final Fantasy XIV. Final Fantasy XIV is the one that I play on my streams and I presented on it DIGRA and is currently up for review for another publication. But Final Fantasy XI was out when I was in college. When you're publishing something about that game in its 2005 and you're saying Final Fantasy is an MMO, that's about this, and you're saying it's 11. That could be a statement that is nearly 20 years old. So, where's all the research everybody?
Speaker 2:The main number games. There haven't been that many in the past eight years.
Speaker 1:In the past eight years there's been 16, 15, 14 has had several expansions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess, if you count the expansions, but two games in eight years.
Speaker 3:Seven remake.
Speaker 1:Oh yes, seven remake is one of the biggest gaming efforts that we've seen.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but yeah, it is.
Speaker 2:That just happened right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 2019 or no. 2020 is when remake one came out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that one, yeah, and that one and remake. Two will come out next month, next month.
Speaker 1:Oh man, we're going to do part two, we're going to do part three, our Final Fantasy coverage is going to go.
Speaker 2:It's climbing up quite well.
Speaker 1:Oh man, I'm so excited to see that happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when next month does it come out?
Speaker 3:Later like 20 something.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay.
Speaker 1:There are a lot of psychologically valuable lessons that you can get from Final Fantasy. A lot of people look at Final Fantasy as a good representation of understanding different gender based roles and also seeing more fluid conceptualization of gender in certain situations as well. So not adhering to a toxically masculine version of video game characterization, for example. It's an old activity that you can do in Final Fantasy now because it's from the 90s when Final Fantasy seven came out. But I'm playing through remake again. I just finished the chapter that's in the leisure district and cloud has to dress up like a woman and get picked by the crime ward as his sexual play thing for the night so they can interrogate him. And in the 90s you're playing these little pixel versions of the characters and so cloud had to dress up like a girl. In the 90s Now that doesn't seem as important of a plot point, but in the 90s, when there just wasn't as much acceptance of things like that and you're seeing the hero character be willing to do that to complete a mission and not even make a big deal about it, I think that's pretty cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and also in that same storyline. It's interesting the way they presented in that in the end that possibly cloud didn't even need to do it, because Tifa is totally capable.
Speaker 1:Tifa would have been fine.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly, the only part that would have been a problematic is afterwards, when they get dumped down to the sewers and then, if she's on her own, the sewers that's.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that would have been bad, but yeah, they didn't portray it as Tifa is a weakling that needs help, that's true, yeah, like a Princess Leia kind of hero, where she does get rescued, but then, as soon as they let her out of the cage, she's calling the shots and shows that I've got this, you buffoons. Tifa is so awesome, so I just needed to say that so that it's in the transcript for the episode. Oh, my goodness, I was reading a book. Let me grab the book. I want everyone to see this book.
Speaker 2:It's from the 1940s.
Speaker 1:It is by Edith Hamilton. It's mythology, gods and heroes, and so I'm just reading through it so I can have a little bit of mythology in my mind to start my day. This week I've done it about three days in a row and one of the cool things that I found is that there is a daughter often in the telling of these tales, a daughter of Zeus that was named Aris, and she became a goddess of discord and strife. Okay, aris is Arith's name on the PS1 version of Final Fantasy VII because it was spelled A-E-R-I-S. It didn't become T-H until Kingdom Hearts came out and she was a guest character representing Final Fantasy VII. Cloud's last name is Strife. So I'm instantly seeing and that's just the beginning, there's a whole rabbit hole here of all of the ways that Final Fantasy uses well-known ancient mythologies to help become the DNA of their stories. And that's my favorite thing To see the words in this book, of Chapter 1 of this book, to see the words Aris and Strife in the same sentence was just that's neat. It made me giddy on Sunday morning. I just I couldn't believe it. It was such a cool read. So this book actually came out seven years before Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. So just sharing a little bit of that timeline and DNA of what it is I'm reading and thinking about. Final Fantasy captures a lot of those things. I see Psyche for Geeks in the chat. I just want to address this. You're not at the level to play games like Final Fantasy. You absolutely are.
Speaker 2:You totally can you absolutely are, take it from me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you can do it. Final Fantasy is a very easy to get into game. Yeah, yeah, I mean you'll have, yeah, the whole first chunk of every game, except one is an extended tutorial.
Speaker 1:You can't really screw it up Final question, though when would someone like Psyche for Geeks or someone who's thinking that way, where should they start if they're saying I love video games, I love the idea of playing video games. Final Fantasy is so big, I can't just play Final Fantasy 16.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll just say it really depends on what game style you like.
Speaker 3:Depending on what your mental priorities are for a game.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:You can play 7 or 10 because they have the most. How do I say this? They have the most guided experience at the start, and then they hit a certain point and then the world opens up, Whereas other whether it's some of the other games in the series you have a tutorial that's like an hour and then you can do what you want, Like Final Fantasy 8, that one.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's hard. That's confusing to me.
Speaker 3:You don't even get money the regular way. You have a job and you get paid a salary and you got to not suck.
Speaker 1:Oh, that sounds like wife Jean. How do you do that? Every episode you make something sound. You made.
Speaker 3:That's a child blew my mind words. If you are not doing something relevant, if you're just driving around the wilderness and a rented car by the way, you rent cars in that game If you're just driving around the wilderness in a rented car, your job status will drop and your pay will get cut Because you're not going to work.
Speaker 2:That sounds terrible guys.
Speaker 1:It is a good life lesson, though, jenny.
Speaker 2:Don't play that one, Okay. So if you so 7 or 10, I will say 10 really wasn't that difficult for me to play. I've never played 7, but 14 is. So if you're the type of person that likes to play with other people, the environment in 14, the community in 14 is very welcoming and if you were to get with a guild, I'm sure there will be plenty of people to help you and guide you and take you under their little sprout wing.
Speaker 1:I do feel like getting connected with AIE on the Crystal Evelyn server was a really valuable part of my experience in Final Fantasy 14. Because there's so many people that play the game as one of their main hobbies and if you just say, hey, I need someone to help me get through this dungeon, they will jump. At least one person will jump in and help and you can do Discord and connect with them and have voice chatting going so that you can learn things quicker than by typing. Also, the Final Fantasy games all have different innovations on play styles. Some of them are turn based, meaning it's more like a Pokemon game, where you know a battle starts and then you do an attack, your next party member does an attack, all four members do an attack and then the enemies do attacks and you just trade back and forth. And then there's other games where you run around with a sword, a gun and magic and you try to hit the enemies more than they hit you. So it really depends what it is you're excited by in a video game, and you can find that in Final Fantasy they've covered nearly everything in their close to 100 games, even VR fishing, apparently. Let's go on the return and get back to our daily knives. Oh my gosh, I turned into a ninja. Okay, we get back to our daily lives and take our next step forward. Alright, part one is in the books. This is definitely going to be at least a 200 part series. So, what are we taking with us into the coming week about our answer? Did we answer? What is Final Fantasy tonight?
Speaker 2:Someone put that in the comments on YouTube, please.
Speaker 3:I think they started, I think we established that Final Fantasy IZO Series has something for everyone. It does, yes it does.
Speaker 2:That's true. What is Final Fantasy? Final Fantasy is something for everyone.
Speaker 1:Another thing, too, is I wish more mental health professionals knew about Final Fantasy. I know people in the geek therapy side of mental health services probably do have some awareness of Final Fantasy, but I also feel like there's a shocking number of people that have no idea what that is. For example, this is a different franchise, different IP, but my online name used to be Dr Swotor, which was a problem because when I'd be at conferences or fan conventions I'd say I'm Dr Swotor on Twitch and other social media and they'd be like what's that? How do you spell it? They had no idea what SWTOR is. I came up with this idea of I need a different name, and that's how Dr Gamology became me, because I figured everyone can hear that and have an idea of what I'm about. That problem is solved, but I really think if I would have named myself Dr Final Fantasy even though I believe Final Fantasy is a bigger game property than Swotor, I still think that the people in my circles have no idea what it is, which is why we did this episode is I can now point to. I did a podcast episode about this where we talked about the history of the game, what it is. I even brought out my mythology textbook and shared one really simple connection that real mythology is hidden inside all these games. Oh, my goodness, gene, what is the name of the character with all the arms and swords that's in every Final Fantasy, starting with four? Oh, gilgamesh.
Speaker 3:Gilgamesh, and he started in five. He started in five, okay.
Speaker 1:Thanks, gene. Gilgamesh has lots of ties to ancient mythology, folklore. What have you? And so to bring the ruler that was Gilgamesh and characterize him as this timeless character that can cross all the generations of Final Fantasy and keep appearing and keep getting refreshed in different forms that match the new game aesthetic. Some of the games are traditional fantasy, some of them are industrialized fantasy, some of them are just Game of Thrones with the Devil May Cry play style. So you really just there is no Gilgamesh and 16 is there.
Speaker 3:Not yet.
Speaker 1:Not yet. Ah, dlc, that's what DLC four is for. Give that to us, square Enix, that's what I need.
Speaker 3:They even added him as DLC to Final Fantasy 13 too, when he showed up with machine guns.
Speaker 1:That's the best Final Fantasy 13, and I will not hear any other opinions on the matter. Right, Jenny? What are you bringing with you into the week?
Speaker 2:What am I bringing with me? Honestly, to be honest, I saw the Witcher in the back of my head, so it's been distracting for me, but I'm looking forward to learning more about different. Throughout this episode, I've learned a lot about different Final Fantasy games that I have not known anything about, and I'm looking forward to next week's episode where we dive a little deeper.
Speaker 1:Yeah, also just as a side note, there was a stream I did last year with Chocobo GP Racing or whatever, which is a really bad Mario Kart attempt with Final Fantasy in it, oh man. So this is back into the chat, but Shara does such a good job of modding my channel and everything I do online and made a really good point. And since we're in the YouTube Partner Program, don't forget to hit and subscribe and turn on that bell. All right? So if these conversations sound fun to you and you're looking for some great people to play online games with, check out aie at aie-gillorg. And I have one last quest for everyone to collect for the day Play Final Fantasy and continue the journey.
Speaker 2:See you next week.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
