8.6K
Downloads
51
Episodes
Welcome to the podcast home of With a Terrible Fate, your first and final source for literary studies of your favorite video games. Subscribe for a range of accessible deep-dives into the storytelling of specific video games, as well as the theory of video-game narrative more broadly. Find all our written, audio, and video content, along with options to support us, at https://linktr.ee/withaterriblefate.
Episodes
7 days ago
Fairy Tales, Fantasies, and Fourth Walls
7 days ago
7 days ago
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.
Saturday Apr 13, 2024
PAX East 2024, Second-Chance Games, and Perilous Platinums
Saturday Apr 13, 2024
Saturday Apr 13, 2024
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"
Monday Mar 25, 2024
First Thoughts on Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
Monday Mar 25, 2024
Monday Mar 25, 2024
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!
Thursday Feb 22, 2024
How to Get to Know a Video-Game Character
Thursday Feb 22, 2024
Thursday Feb 22, 2024
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"
Thursday Feb 15, 2024
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Infinite Narrative Lessons
Thursday Feb 15, 2024
Thursday Feb 15, 2024
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"
Wednesday Feb 07, 2024
Video Game Analysts' Journey Across Japan
Wednesday Feb 07, 2024
Wednesday Feb 07, 2024
On the latest episode of With a Terrible Fate's podcast, Dan Hughes and Aaron Suduiko fire up the mics two weeks after their vacation in Japan to share stories from their journey and reflect on how their latest adventure through the cultural progenitor of so many video games has informed how they think about the medium! From stumbling upon the mythological origin of the Triforce to witnessing the inseparability of politics from religion in temple and shrine tours, this episode has something for every thoughtful gamer. Later on, Dan shares his first impressions of Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, and Aaron offers a spoiler-free reflection on his playthrough of Inscryption, which he finished in the early morning hours ahead of the recording! Happy Belated New Year, and welcome to the 2024 edition of With a Terrible Fate's audio home for the literary gamer.
Friday Dec 15, 2023
What Do We Do When We Talk About Games?
Friday Dec 15, 2023
Friday Dec 15, 2023
This week on With a Terrible Fate's podcast about the study and culture of video-game storytelling, we take a reflective look at the good, bad, and ugly of what it means to talk about games. Where does lore analysis end and literary interpretation begin, and how can streamed "book clubs" of games help create good-faith homes for a positive mode of analysis among common fans and thinkers? How might a game award show need to look different than film awards by virtue of differences in the medium? How can bad-faith internet personalities take advantage of the personal, experiential nature of games to lower standards of evidence in discussions with real stakes? What the heck do avatars have to do with the aesthetics of agency in gameplay? Buckle up: it's an overloaded podcast this week where we tackle all these questions and more!
Tuesday Dec 05, 2023
Awards, Holiday Gaming, and Demos!
Tuesday Dec 05, 2023
Tuesday Dec 05, 2023
With the last month of the year upon us, join the With a Terrible Fate podcast for December-themed game reflections! From the culture developing around the Game Awards, to analyzing what counts as a "holiday gaming experience," to reflecting on evolving standards around game demos, spoilers, and recommendations, this episode is stuffed with plenty of gifts for the literate gamer.
Tuesday Nov 21, 2023
Ludic Gymnastics
Tuesday Nov 21, 2023
Tuesday Nov 21, 2023
Do you find yourself bouncing back and forth between multiple games, or running a few different playthroughs at the same time to support different mindsets or moments throughout your day? Take a listen to this latest podcast episode, in which Dan and Aaron explore the many reasons for which we might bounce gymnastically between multiple games, and the many consequences (good and bad!) this might have for our playthroughs. From seres like Persona 5 and Tales of Arise featuring multiple explorations of the same characters, to games like Tales of Graces f and Ni no Kuni II offering timely pictures of modern struggles, to motivations like "reading," "grinding," and "bedtime routine" guiding our game curation, this conversation offers something for every sort of gaming moment—just as games themselves do!
Tuesday Nov 14, 2023
Products & Artworks; JRPGs & Ghostbusters
Tuesday Nov 14, 2023
Tuesday Nov 14, 2023
Welcome to the latest incarnation of With a Terrible Fate's podcast: unstructured, organic conversations about current gaming experiences, how they inform our understanding of the world, and how they relate to the broader language of video-game storytelling! In this inaugural episode, Dan Hughes and Aaron Suduiko discuss their recent adventures in the Tales and Pokémon series, and they wrestle with the difference between series that lose touch with their identity through productization and series that enhance our experience through robust, thematically grounded networks of content. There's even a bit of GOTY talk, so you may walk away with some new—or very, very old—game recommendations to add to your own list!