You know Final Fantasy, right? One of the longest-running and popular gaming franchises of all time. And unlike a lot of other long-lived games, it’s much heavier on storytelling, world-building, and character design. There’s a lot going on here, and a lot of it can be examined through an academic lens.

And that’s what one group of researchers set out to do in their new book about the psychology of Final Fantasy. In this episode of the podcast, I’ll talk with seven of the chapter authors in this collaborative work, exploring topics like the psychology behind Final Fantasy’s storytelling, its use of gender subtypes, how its music enhances our enjoyment, how we develop attachments to characters, and how the game makes use of fundamental psychological drives.

Remember that Patreon supporters get the ad-free version of the podcast delivered straight to their phone, as if by magic: https://www.patreon.com/pog

• Subscribe in iTunes here
• Listen or subscribe on Spotify
• Listen or subscribe on Stitcher
• Or just search for “Psychology of Games” in whatever you use to listen to podcasts
• All previous podcast episodes

Links:

• Buy the Psychology of Final Fantasy: Surpassing The Limit Break book
• Anthony Bean on Twitter
• Anthony’s Geek Theraputics
• Rachel Kowert on Twitter
• Rachel’s Psychgeist channel
• Emory Daniel on Twitter
• William Gibbons on Twitter

Audio Credits:

• “Robot Motivation” by The Polish Ambassador, licensed under Creative Commons: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
• Gymnopedie No. 1 by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3837-gymnopedie-no-1 License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/