With a Terrible Fate With a Terrible Fate

On this episode of the With a Terrible Fate podcast, we celebrate Dan's birthday with a conversation ranging from becoming a real boy to becoming a... real old man!
We begin with a postgame analysis of Lies of P in which it takes Aaron and Dan a hilariously long time to uncover that, contrary to their first impression based on each other's perspective, they'd actually chosen different endings to the story! This lays the foundation for a discussion of how games' content can prompt philosophical dialogues between their players, revealing a wealth of hidden depth that makes Lies of P well worth the time of the thoughtful gamer—especially if she comes to it with a background in the oeuvre of Hidetaka Miyazaki.
Later, we turn to Dan's birthday as a context for revisiting formative childhood games we hated and striving to read them anew through the principle of charity, a core tenet of With a Terrible Fate's ethos. We articulate practical methods for approaching games from this perspective, including the distinction between asking what a game is "capital 'A' About" and what a game is "capital 'S' Saying." When we apply these methods to some of those first games that left a bad taste in our mouths, we argue, we have the opportunity not just to discover new value in an old game, but also to recontextualize our entire gaming history in the bargain.
Whether you're seeking new ways to evaluate the game you just finished or new values in the games you've been seething over for decades, this episode has something for you!
Works Referenced
Dan Hughes, "Understanding Xemnas in Kingdom Hearts II," With a Terrible Fate. May 21, 2021.
Richard Nguyen, "Beyond the Moral Binary: Decision-Making in Video Games," With a Terrible Fate. April 25, 2016.
Enrico Pasini, "Leibniz's Dissatisfaction with the Cogito," G.W. Leibniz: Razón, Verdad y Diálogo, edited by Juan Antonio Nicolás, Alejandro Herrera, Roberto Casales, Luis Velasco, Leonardo Ruiz, and Alfredo Martinez (Colección Nova Leibniz / Latina 5), Granada: Editorial Comares 2023, p. 35–48. Author's manuscript; open access.
Aaron Suduiko, "The Horror of Code Vein is You," With a Terrible Fate. November 22, 2020.
— —, "Scarlet Nexus: The Pathos of Karen Travers," With a Terrible Fate. November 8, 2021.
— —, "The Tragic Irony of Final Fantasy XIII-2," With a Terrible Fate. November 29, 2016.

This week, With a Terrible Fate's podcast is a romp ranging from adaptation to serialized storytelling to metafiction. We kick off discussing Lies of P in the contexts of Pinocchio, Miyazaki-inspired games, and philosophically-minded stories as Aaron nears the conclusion of his first playthrough. (He's since wrapped this up, so stay tuned for overall first impressions!) Later, Dan presents his latest views on how to read the eras and progress of Final Fantasy as a series, inspired by his latest journeys through Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and Final Fantasy XVI, and in conversation with Aaron's current work on the Tales of series in Tales of Praxis. Finally, we both wrestle with the relationship between a game's fourth wall, metafictional storytelling, and how to involve a player without disenfranchising the story's characters—as well as how our views in this area have changed over the years.
Mind the spoilers for the whole Final Fantasy series, the Tales of series, Lies of P, BioShock, The Stanley Parable, NieR, and Undertale!
Check out With a Terrible Fate's publications on many of the games in this discussion, such as: Final Fantasy, Tales of, Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Code Vein, BioShock, The Stanley Parable, NieR, and Undertale.

This week on With a Terrible Fate's podcast, we celebrate the communities, black sheep, and arduous challenges of gaming! We begin with Aaron breaking down With a Terrible Fate's lecture on bosses at PAX East last month, along with broader reflections on everything from cosplays to upcoming indie games you won't want to miss. All the talk of bosses leads us to Dark Souls II, one of the subjects of the lecture, inviting a broader discussion of why games which you or a fandom didn't initially enjoy can oftentimes be the most rewarding "new game plus" experiences. Then, with Dark Souls on the brain, we consider what may be the "Dark Souls" of platinum trophy experiences: Dan's journey to get the platinum on Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, what it means to the game, and how we find value in achievements more broadly. Finally, we round things out with a discussion of our current gaming adventures, including Dan's experience of Japanese history in Rise of the Rōnin and Aaron's Chekhovian madness on the way to the climax of Tales of Xillia.
Be on the lookout for spoilers regarding the Dark Souls series, Final Fantasy VII Remake and Rebirth,  Rise of the Rōnin, Nioh, and Tales of Xillia.
Articles Cited:
• With a Terrible Fate at PAX East 2018: "How Games are Changing Serialized Storytelling"
• Aaron Suduiko: "The Language of Trophies in Final Fantasy VII Remake"
 

This week on With a Terrible Fate's podcast, Aaron and Dan take a deep breath and dive into their very first, unfiltered, spoiler-rich thoughts about Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Save this episode until you've finished the main scenario and are ready to dig into its microscopic and macrocosmic implications! We're already eagerly planning new analyses centered on this latest addition to the Final Fantasy VII corpus, consistent with the spirit and approach of The Legacy of Final Fantasy VII Remake.
Ahead of the Rebirth roundtable, we also anticipate With a Terrible Fate's lecture at PAX East 2024, which took place this past weekend! (The podcast was produced ahead of the convention.) We were overjoyed to engage a wonderful audience of hundreds of thoughtful, passionate gamers on the topic of bosses' interactive and narrative content over the course of almost three hours, and we're delighted to welcome many of these newcomers into the broader With a Terrible Fate community. Unfortunately, we encountered some unexpected recording issues and only walked away with partial footage from the lecture, but we're excited to share as much as we can with the entirety of our audience in one form or another in the near future. Stay tuned!

On this special edition of the With a Terrible Fate podcast just ahead of analyst Dan Hughes' wedding, Dan and Aaron wrestle with the marvelously multifaceted problem of how we can best come to understand the nature of characters in our favorite video games. What draws us to specific protagonists in party-based games? How can game-based conflict actually help us to better appreciate the characters that have been cast as bosses? How do game attributes like player choice and ludicrously long playtimes make it possible to know and support characters in ways unavailable to the heroes of books and film? What light can our favorite games shed on key moments in our lives, such as a wedding? Listen in to answer all these questions and more!
Articles Cited:• Dan Hughes, "Understanding Xemnas in Kingdom Hearts II"
• Aaron Suduiko, "The Philosophical Justification for FromSoftware's DLC"

This week on With a Terrible Fate's podcast on the storytelling of video games, we kick things off with a discussion of Dan's recent journeys through Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, only to discover the game as a surprisingly illuminating throughline for a rich diversity of reflections on the structures of serial video-game stories, the interpretation and analysis of our personal experiences within video games, and the evolving culture of expectations around major upcoming releases! Listen in for a conversation exploring the gamification of The Odyssey, the methodology behind interpreting a playthrough, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth's lessons about demos, and maybe even a lesson from Assassin's Creed III, 12 years later.
Articles Cited:
Dan Hughes, "Understanding Xemnas in Kingdom Hearts 2"
Dan Hughes, "Solving the Puzzle of Roche in Final Fantasy VII Remake"
Aaron Suduiko, "The Missing Soulmate in Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch"
Aaron Suduiko, "How Elden Ring Turns Its Player into an Outer God"
Aaron Suduiko, "Time's Arrow: Chester Burklight in Tales of Phantasia"