Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out!

In the grand Final-e of our Final Fantasy VII discussion Gino and Chris @zombiepie -REDACTED- close the book on FFVII. We discuss the end of the game's story from the underwater Mako reactor to the game's final cutscene. We also dive deep into a bunch of the game's side quests including the chocobo racing minigame, the Ancient Forest, and the Battle Square. We also cover the utter destruction of the game's combat system that is Knights of the Round, Quad Magic, and Mime. Near the end of the show ZP has some special shout-outs for some of the minigame design team members. We finish up by arduously determining which of the two FF game's we've played is the best FF game ever and which is the worst. Who wins: FFVII or FFVIII? Yuffie or Selphie? Buster swords or gunblades?

Final Fantasy Seventh Heaven: Part 4- The Grand Final-e

For some reason I read the title thread to the tune of Slayers "South of Heaven".

@jesus_phish: I have never gotten that feedback before, but I'll take it as a plus.

Oh man, after all that you've put @zombiepie through, I'd be afraid of whatever game he selects for you to play after FF IX.

I did appreciate your very Ranking of Fighters "scientific" analysis of the merits of VII versus VIII. It was weird listening to both of you guys end up talking fairly positively about VII overall, especially after last episode was basically a break-down of why the plot of that game exits the boundaries of logical consistency after a certain point. These blogs and discussions have managed to scare me off of playing VII, in any case.

@thatpinguino: Will the accompanying blog be up soon? I'd prefer to read that before listening to the podcast.

Keep up the great work guys.

@outlawtorn13: You'd have to ask @zombiepie. Dude puts in a ton of work on those.

@arbitrarywater: I didn't expect to praise FFVII so much either. I still prefer VIII, but I can admit that I like it more as a cultural oddity than as a complete product. If we're having this conversation after IX, I'll be singing a different tune.

That was a really fun podcast! You guys did a great job covering a lot of material while having a fairly in-depth conversation. Let me know if you ever need a backup sherpa for FFIX @zombiepie. I spent an inordinate amount of my youth on that game.

@jesna: Thanks! I think we'll have maximum sherpa-ing for FFIX considering I'm far from the only FFIX fan among the moderation team. Actually, it seems like a lot of users of this site are fairly on board with FFIX being the best or one of the best FF games. That's far from a norm online, but I think it speaks well of the collective taste of GB users.

Great work as always! Can`t wait for Zombiepie`s blog.

Also I do not acknowledge any forums that do not declare FF IX as the best FF game.

7 is still the top for me, the sheer wow factor is still the highest of all the FF I have played. I guess 9 has better mastery of technique and tricks of the trade, but the impact just isn't there.

Maybe I should marathon 8 to 13 (minus 11) before 15 comes out considering I never finish 3 out of 5 of them.

@odinsmana: Damn straight! We're recording our first FFIX podcast soon and I can't wait. I totally forgot about how great the active time event system is because my last few FFIX playthroughs have been speedruns. That game is just so well composed. And coming straight off of VII, I can see how it achieves so many of the narrative tricks that VII attempts, but fails. Like IX actually makes great use of accents and manners of speech to differentiate characters by class and region, while FFVII's shoddy translation flubs so much of the subtleties.