The dog and Shale are both really good companions, seemingly because they exist outside the fighter-rogue-mage trinity that Bioware balanced to the point that none of them feel very powerful.

I'll be playing Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age. The job system, now available for the first time outside Japan, is a major change that makes this much more than a remaster. Characters are no longer guaranteed to have access to the same skills—though the game is generous with giving access to White Magick—or…

I would say it's more substantial than this Crash reboot in terms of what's different, so I thought I would ask.

I love the God of War games, but somewhere along the way the critical consensus became "they were flashy but mindless games where all you did was press square, square, triangle on the way to your quicktime event victory" along with "they were really gory and gross and we should feel bad for ever playing them." The…

Is there going to be a review of Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age? I want to know how much I should be prepared to discuss in What Are You Playing This Weekend?

That's different, as the Marvel TV shows are technically in the same universe and it's presumably some combination of budget and interest that keeps the film actors from appearing in the TV shows. But DC's current shows are all separate continuities from the films—and each other, in the case of the Arrow-verse and…

Someone really needs to explain the concept of "vertical integration" to them.

I mean, you could argue that healthcare reform doesn't matter that much to the middle class in Middle America because most people in that category have insurance through work. Given how opposed they were to the very concept of the ACA, the evidence is pretty strong that they don't want healthcare reform so much as…

So is DC still doing that thing where they restrict their television properties from using characters if they will be appearing in films? That's such a terrible idea.

I give a lot of points towards execution. Even setting aside online theorizing, there's just not much new under the sun; a dedicated consumer of fiction is going to start recognizing tropes and storytelling elements and thus it becomes much more difficult to surprise the audience. Occasionally you can surprise the…

As soon as I read this, I thought, "Zazu."

I replayed Chrono Cross like…two years ago? And it holds up strong.

Square's solution was pre-rendered backgrounds—hand-painted in the case of Legend of Mana and Chrono Cross—and exaggerated character models (or sprites, in the case of Legend of Mana). Vagrant Story leaned on a striking "animated facial texture" option that allowed its characters to be very expressive without actually…

FFVII certainly couldn't look uglier.

I think Squaresoft was the only company that really figured out how to make PS1 games look OK. Vagrant Story still looks really stylish.

The Leper is awesome!

All the discussions will be dead when the AV Club moves away from Disqus.

Yeah, I know! Men don't face a lot of danger in our society, but "appeared to be doing something inappropriate with a kid" is something we have to be cognizant about.

"Could you please not bring a baby to a loud, R-rated adult movie? The crying is extremely disruptive."
"WHY DO YOU HATE FAMILIES, YOU MONSTER!?"

Once in college I was picking up takeout from a local Chinese restaurant and while I was waiting the owner's little girl came over and tried to make me play with her. I was the only customer there and the mom was ignoring it all and it was just super uncomfortable. I can't imagine what it would've been like if the kid…