Bookwarm Games

Boss rushes and aerial choreography above the melee, with pauses to discuss Squall's ring. Most challenging of all: playing cards with the random rules, stacked onto sames and plusses...Ultimecia/ Artemisia makes her appearance, plotwise, along with Cerberus and Alexander in quick succession, and Rinoa goes into a coma after Seifer departs. Welcome to Disc 3. Thanks for listening! For more FFVIII study resources: https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-viii/

Back from our momentous side quest to Manchester, we debrief the Multiplatform 2025 Rituals of Play conference and share some takeaways. See https://videogameacademia.org/2025/06/06/rituals-of-play-a-side-quest-to-manchester/ for more. Next time, we'll dive back into FFVIII proper with the Garden Battle and mosey on to the end of Disc 2. Thanks for listening! For more FFVIII study resources: https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-viii/

Lengthy description of a trio of side quests (Shumi Village, Chocobo Forest, and Tonberry King) leads into reflections on Fujin and Raijin as foils to Squall and the team, busy with their own long conversations at last revealing lost memories on the broken basketball court of Trabia Garden. Leapfrogged in release order by our episode 16 on Game Studies and Side Quests to make sure that one was out before the conference.For more FFVIII study resources: https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-viii/ Thanks for listening

Time to prep for Manchester Game Centre's Multiplatform 2025 Conference: Rituals of Play, where we'll be presenting on FFVII and FFVIII, respectively. Shout-outs to Signum University and the Game Studies Study Buddies, among other scholars and sources. For more FFVIII study resources: https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-viii/ Thanks for listening

Rinoa rage quits on most runs, but with just the right (wrong) choice of instruments, the romance on the solar panels plays out at more leisure. Perhaps it's fitting that our audio is even rougher than usual? Sorry about that! For more FFVIII study resources: https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-viii/ Thanks for listening

We clamber over Fisherman's Horizon and consider Parallel Lives and horospheres among its disciples of the way of nonviolence (aside from inadvertent miscasts by the shop). For more FFVIII study resources: https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-viii/ Thanks for listening

Balamb Garden as Midgar; as Ithaka overrun with suitors; as Inferno. Encounters with the luciferean capitalist empodded in one of the basements and magic machinery larded with fossil fuels in the layers of several others. Both power a Garden that moves, dodges missiles, comes unmoored and comes dangerously close to wrecking the town before it squalls out to sea. For more FFVIII study resources: https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-viii/ Thanks for listening!

Missile Base Mission, feat. Selphie, Rinoa, and Irvine. Is Squall Dead is one thing, but after this part the better question looks like "What about Selphie and whoever else went to the missile base?"For more FFVIII study resources: https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-viii/ Thanks for listening!

Desert transformations in the D-District Prison. For more FFVIII study resources: https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-viii/ Thanks for listening!

In conversation with Dr Tim Summers of Royal Holloway, University of London, and Ludomusicology, the video game music research group. https://pure.royalholloway.ac.uk/en/persons/timothy-summers https://www.ludomusicology.org/ His new book is Pixel Soundtracks: Exploring Video Game Music Through Twenty Games You'll hear snippets of audio from Buck Rogers; Uematsu's FFVI Opera (and Toby Fox/Undertale's Mettaton riffing on it); Dvorak's Songs My Mother Taught Me; the Prelude of Stravinsky's Firebird; the Wagner Museum theme from The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery; the Title theme from the Follins' NES Silver Surfer; the opening of MOTHER/EarthBound Zero (and cf. Undertale's opening); the Michael Nyman/ St Paul's Cathedral Choir arrangement of Suzuki/Tanaka's Eight Melodies from MOTHER; Kondo's Kakariko Village from Zelda: Ocarina of Time; the Summers Resort theme and a fun sound effect moment that plays after you've OK'd naming all your characters and favorite things in EarthBound. I think that's all of

We're at the start of Disc 2, beginning again in Winhill and then finding ourselves in the Galbadian Prison with nary a save point in sight. From music-box idylls to techno-crucifixions--what's that, Moomba? Laguna's been watching over Squall just as we've been dreaming of him...? For more FFVIII study resources: https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-viii/ Thanks for listening!

A botched sorceress assassination takes us up to the end of Disc 1, drawing dispel from her and casting reflect with the aid of a Guardian Force drawn from the statues she animates. For more FFVIII study resources: https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-viii/ Thanks for listening!

What happens when gacha mechanics meet mythic storytelling on the latest Project Moon mobile game, Limbus Company? We discuss Professor Kozlowski's proposal for Manchester Games Centre's Multiplatform 2025 conference on the theme "Rituals of Play".More on https://videogameacademia.org/ Thanks for listening!

In the Tomb of the Unknown King, turning right and contemplating brotherhood and perspective.For more FFVIII study resources: https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-viii/ Thanks for listening!

Remember that mini game where you can dig up the mop? In this conversation we take a step back and revisit Final Fantasy VII, since Steve has been speedrunning it lately. For more FFVII study resources, see http://videogameacademia.org/courses/past-semesters/final-fantasy-vii/To be continued, with a closer look at Ben's essay: http://videogameacademia.org/2024/09/03/a-crystal-darkly-the-growing-pains-of-final-fantasy-viii-and-ix/ Thanks for listening!

Dante carried in his sleep by angels; Don Quixote in the Cave of Montesinos; Squall and his young mercenaries learning their history through the medium of a dream. We yap this time from the Laguna dream sequence in the forest to the drama in Galbadia Garden. For more FFVIII study resources: https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-viii/ Thanks for listening!

We're bound to the mast with wax in our ears, playing blind and playing leapfrog through the overworld around Timber. Also, a Sorceress and her boy. For more FFVIII study resources : https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-viii/ Thanks for listening!

But the moogles, chocobos, and loveable misfit rebel groups are still here. Returners, AVALANCHE, step aside: the Owls are still around. From the Training Center to the trains of Timber, swerving Homerically/Quixotically into a dream sequence with Laguna and Julia, and plotting with the Owls. For more FFVIII study resources : https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-viii/Thanks for listening!

Did you pass the SeeD Exam? I heard you only have to kill a hundred people to get a perfect score!For more FFVIII study resources : https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-viii/Thanks for listening!

That's pronounced gee ef. The Little Prince > FFVIII (but then again, The Little Prince > almost everything else, n'estc-ce pas?With Alexander Schmid, replaying and reflecting on Final Fantasy VIII.A few more preliminaries this time: guides, versions, whys and wherefores... Storywise, we're through Fire Cavern and SeeD exam, respectively.For more FFVIII study resources : https://videogameacademia.org/courses/current-semester/final-fantasy-viii/Thanks for listening!