No One Can Know About This: A Podcast Where We Play Every Final Fantasy

This is the very best podcast that has ever been made. The amount of effort these creators put into this show deserves its own award. The time spent dictating every moment from a series of games that have gameplay that is essentially glorified data entry and stories that at their very best can be described, charitably, as “nearly coherent”, is a gift to us all. In a world where we give golden globes to podcasts in which a rich white lady talks about the enneagram with her former coworkers, this podcast deserves one hundred Pulitzers. I work as a solo carpenter. Audiobooks require too much attention when I’m trying to keep measurements in my head. Most other podcasts are open ended conversations with no narrative that keeps you engaged for hours upon hours, or else are about politics and cause me to scream at the sky in fury. As someone who no longer games at all, yet spent all of his high school years pouring hours into the PlayStation-era final fantasies, this podcast delivers me an unending supply of the content I need to get through the day. It feels almost impossible how perfectly this show meets my specific needs. A show about final fantasy I can find, surely. But a show dedicated to final fantasy where they know enough about the real world to correctly feel humiliated by playing it?? That’s impossibly perfect. My wife of 5 years has never even heard me say “Final Fantasy” out loud before. She has never heard the names Ryan or Jeff. I *always* tell her I’m listening to “The Daily” when she asks. Final Fantasy is a truly embarrassing thing for a father of two to engage with, and I know it, and they know it. I feel seen. No one can know about this. Does it have flaws? No, actually. So what if Jeff likes Apollo 13 a lot. Good for him! I’m happy for him and I’m happy to listen when he reminds me that he likes it! So what if Ryan is slowly radicalizing into a real life member of AVALANCHE and may soon find himself blowing up a nuclear reactor. He probably should, to be honest! And he gave us “if dogs had hands”! He’d have to kill quite a few innocent civilians through misguided and naive eco-terrorism before I stopped being able to enjoy “if dogs had hands”. Are bananas as funny as they think they are? Who am I to say. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Listen, they’re geniuses. They work hard at this. Too hard! But I hope they never stop. I’ll always be listening.

Podcast

My nostalgia for JRPGs is not just for the games themselves but hanging with friends on a couch while playing. This show delivers that feeling like nothing else.

Started from the beginning, just got to 7. A great listen with witty banter between two best friends. In-depth analysis of socio-economic and geo-political events of the game worlds and the world that was as the games were being made. 8 is the best one in the series.