My friend
Fr. Mark Higgins, a priest of the Archdiocese of Southwark, England, recently told me of a really cool book he had picked up about Final Fantasy 5. The book is part of the "Boss Fight Books" series on classic video games.
I was able to get a copy myself on
Kindle, and for anyone who was a fan of Square's 16 bit gem, I would highly recommend it.
The book is also interesting inasmuch as it is framed though the biographical details of the life of its author- Chris Kohler, of fame to many in the retro game world (through his contributions to the podcast Retronauts and his other authored works) and also the world of trivia (through his membership of the trivia panel in the podcast Good Job Brain).
Who would have thought that Chris Kohler would have had so much involvement in the original gang of Geeks that fan translated FFV in the early days of the internet, and yet that is what this book reveals, he even was part of the team that produced the first English FAQ! And so the guy has some really interesting bits of information to share on the game, its development and on its reception via emulation world.
The book also shows how FFV has become even more popular in the world of internet 2.0 as fans challenge each other with scenarios like- "beat the game with 4 nijas" or "no mages allowed", reading about their adventures actually got me to boot the game up once again and begin a play though.
So thanks to Fr. Mark Higgins for the head's up, if anyone else has spotted a book, game or podcast that might be of interest to me as Catholic gamer and a classic RPG fan, do let me know.
