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 this fever vision of an episode, Chris @zombiepie -REDACTED- and Gino discuss most of disc 2 of Final Fantasy VII. ZP rants about the disc's terrible opening levels, nonsensical story, and obscure side-content. Gino tries in vain to provide some larger context. In the end, no one is entirely satisfied. But then again, this is Final Fantasy VII. Enjoy a podcast full of nitpicks, awe, and disappointment. We explicitly discuss the ice levels, the Northern Cave, Snowboarding, Cloud's moment of doubt, the hunt for huge materia, Cloud's mental recovery, and Zack.

Final Fantasy Seventh Heaven: Part 3

You can find ZP's latest blog about his experience with the game here.

Excellent, been looking forward to this.

Nice. Seems like I can listen to this and save myself from/prepare myself for playing that game again after many years.

Deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep liiiiiiiiisteeeeeeens, uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh..... uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh.

@outlawtorn13: I'm glad you're enjoying the series. FFIX is soooooooo clooooooose.

@guanophobic: I'm gonna take that as enthusiasm.

@2mello:As someone who just finished FFVII for the first time in like 5 years, you really don't need to replay it. It has high points, but the annoying bits are way longer than I remembered.

Gino tries in vain to provide some larger context. In the end, no one is entirely satisfied.

Hearing you try to explain aspects of the game's plot to a befuddled @zombiepie was pretty great, especially when you got befuddled yourself. The fact that Sephiroth's nature is never clearly spelled out (either by the poor translation or something else) makes for some entertaining podcast discussion.

@arbitrarywater: I think that, ultimately, FFVII does a poor job of defining the parameters of Jenova and Sephiroth's powers so it leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Like for as bad as FFVIII's BS is, and it is very bad, you at least had some kind of sense of who people were and what they could do. Their motivations might have been poor or poorly defined, but you could at east be fairly certain about what constituted reality. FFVII flips between clones, mind control, magic, and dreams so much that it's a fucking chore to keep it all straight.

@thatpinguino: Time Compression in VIII was pretty batshit though.

@encephalon: Oh sure, it's a batshit concept. But "that's a really dumb plot point" is a different problem than "who the fuck is that and what can/can't he do". It's a bit hard to keep the sorceresses straight in FFVIII thanks to the stupid mind control stuff, but at least they don't all have the same character model as Ultimecia. With FFVIII I'm get what they're doing, but I find it profoundly stupid. With FFVII there are major questions about who people are, what they can do, and why they do it that seem ambiguous.

@thatpinguino: it's been really interesting to absorb all of ZP's confusion about Sephiroth and Jenova's capabilities. I accepted everything that happened at face value when I first played VII. In a world where slotting marbles into your jewelry lets you cast wizard magic, some stones are better left unturned.

Frankly, my thoughts on Sephiroth centered around my lack of interest in him as a villain. His design is iconic and he's a great vehicle for Cloud's development, but part of me always wished Shinra remained in the spotlight throughout. Seriously, Rufus really coulda been something. Homie fights Cloud on the roof with a shotgun and weird dog, then when things go south, he grabs a helicopter and bounces. Dude's a baller.

@encephalon: Yeah, when you compare Sephiroth to some of the other FF villains he doesn't hold up as well. He's more of an idea than he is a character. Most of his plans and motivations are only really conveyed through surrogates and you see most of his villainy through flashbacks. So he ends up being a constant ominous force, but not a compelling character.

It's a real shame Shinra sucks so much. If they weren't such a terrible organization, I'd be all in for Rufus being the villain.