Ben Adams and Shana Mlawski take a two-hander on a Side Quest to the very ends of the Earth. After the tramautic events that lead us to the World  of Ruin, our Book Club has been scattered to the four winds, leaving only two intrepid podcasters.  So instead of tackling all of Week 5 (which is coming, never fear), join Ben and Shana for a discussion of their favorite Ends of the World, the world of balanced video games, the image of the Last Man on Earth and other video game apocalypses. [audio:http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/oti-book-club-final-fantasy-vi-6/oti-book-club-final-fantasy-vi-6.mp3] → Download the Final Fantasy VI Podcast Possible Episode Titles “Kick the Tires and Light the Fires” “Do we want to save the world? What’s the world done for us?” The Overthinking It Book Club The book club has always been an experiment to see if we, the worldwide community of Overthinkers, can have as much fun looking at a work of literature as we have when we talk about movies, TV shows, and music. Now, we’re taking that idea into a whole new medium, and turning our eyes to the world of interactive fiction – fancy talk for video games. Beginning the week of October 15, we’re going to spend a month and a half playing the RPG classic Final Fantasy VI, in honor of the 20th Anniversary of the game’s North American release. Get The Game If you have the game already, great! Time to dust off the SNES and get cracking. Otherwise, the game can be acquired for iOS and Android. The Syllabus We’ve divided the game into six roughly equal chunks. You’ll get the most out of the club if you have played through these sections by these dates: Introduction: October 15 Week 1: October 22 (Chapters 1-2: Narshe through the Returner’s Hideout) Week 2: October 29 (Chapters 3-5: Locke’s Scenario, Terra’s Scenario and Sabin’s Scenario) Week 3: November 5 (Chapters 6-7: From Narshe to Zozo and the Opera House all the way to Vector) Week 4: November 12 (Chapters 8-10: From Vector through the Sealed Gate, Thamasa, the Floating Island, and the World of Ruin) SIDE QUEST: The End of the World (this podcast) Week 5: December 3 (Chapter 11: Cid’s Island to Darril’s Tomb) Week 6: December 10 (Chapter 12: Kefka’s Tower and wrap-up) The Forums For our discussion, we’re going to use a special section in the Overthinking It Forums. Friday before each section begins, we’ll open up a forum for the coming week with some study questions to get our discussion started. As you play over the weekend, you can answer our questions in the week’s forum, start your own discussion topics there, and chime in on discussions that others have started. Everything up to and including the week’s section of the game is fair game for discussion—but if you’ve played ahead, no spoilers for what is to come! (We’ll open up a “all-game” thread for those.) The Podcast Sometime mid-week, we’ll release a podcast where a panel of Overthinking It writers and guests will talk about the game. We’ll talk over the week’s gameplay, address some of the study questions, and highlight our favorite discussions from the forums. Book Club: Final Fantasy VI, SIDE QUEST originally appeared on Overthinking It, the site subjecting the popular culture to a level of scrutiny it probably doesn't deserve. [Latest Posts | Podcast (iTunes Link)]