Off the Shelf is an interview format where we bring a guest on the show to talk about the following scenario: “Imagine you have a library full of books that represent to you the greatest video game narratives. If I were to pull 5 books at random off of those shelves, what would I find? How did each book earn a spot on your shelf?”

This week, I interview Dave Jackson from the Tales from the Backlog podcast. I highly recommend you check out his full podcast here. Also, here are the Tales from the Backlog episodes that cover each game we discuss:

Soma

Silent Hill 2

Spec Ops: The Line

Xenogears

Final Fantasy X

Final Fantasy X-2

The discussion of each game contains spoilers, so please refer to these timestamps to avoid those as needed:

(00:00 ) Introduction

(11:50 ) Soma

(33:00 ) Silent Hill 2

(44:35 ) Spec Ops: The Line

(55:10 ) Xenogears

(01:06:20 ) Final Fantasy X and X-2

(01:17:10 ) Closing Comments