Don't get me wrong, we were just on the topic of Rinoa. I actually disliked Squall far worse than anyone else in the game. Squall was an ass, but Rinoa's obsession with him just made her out to be a wet blanket. My annoyance with Rinoa mostly came out of pity.

It's funny to remember how big the hype behind FF games were during that Playstation era. Grandia received its first-ever U.S. release around the same time, and I remember being excited because the Japanese Sega Saturn release was much-heralded. This was Grandia's ad campaign:

That's not even my favorite thing that happened on 9.9.99!

I've really enjoyed the games that have streamlined the random battle process. FFXII and Bravely Default featured some of my favorite battle systems in recent years.

I have to agree pretty hard with this one. JRPGs have been my favorite genre ever since I was a teen, but nowadays I keep trying to chug along with them even though they feel like homework.

Squall's horrible treatment of Rinoa - and her ongoing puppyish devotion to him - made me sympathize with her a lot less. I loved her introduction as the confident girl who approaches him at the school dance, but it was all downhill from there. I remember the Battle of the Gardens (the true highlight of the game)…

Right. It makes me think I like him best when he's at his most straightforward. I have similar mixed feelings on New X-Men too.

You're not alone. Morrison's pretty overrated IMO as well. Amongst my small group of comic-reading friends, too, we don't really have any fans of his. One of my friends bought the Filth and swore off reading any of his stuff again, sadly.

I just about lost it when they briefly showed Sarah Gadon dancing with him at the end.

I agree with you there. The first two episodes were amazing, and I remember recommending this mini-series to all of my friends after I watched them. Over the next few weeks, I got less enthusiastic and became more annoyed by some of the changes.

The apocalyptic future seemed a bit too cliched in the book for me, and I remember wanting that section to be over quickly. It was just a little too over-the-top and lacked the grounding of the rest of the book. I think I preferred the route the show went with it. They just told you enough to give you the idea that…

The same thing applies to both DC stories. I believe Ordway and Perez had to step in for more than was originally planned, plus Ivan Reis had to come in and pinch hit several pages as well. I remember the last issue feeling relatively inconsistent in artwork compared to the earlier issues. At least one of the double…

"Too many words" is a criticism that blows my mind. You're not likely to find many masterpieces if you're afraid of wordiness and exposition.

I'll go up to the bat for it to an extent. If nothing else, Kaare Andrews' artwork is incredible throughout the series, and he draws a really kick-ass black costume.

Civil War also had huge gaps in its original release due to McNiven's pace - especially compared to DC's Infinite Crisis, which started with Phil Jimenez but quickly became a hodge podge of whatever artists were available.

The funny thing with that Glenn bullshit is that it caused even my casual, non-comic reading friends to start looking up comic book spoilers because there were so many think pieces about how Glenn died in the comics. Almost everyone knew that this Negan moment was coming as a result. And now they expect us to just…

Seriously. That was like stopping the Red Wedding right after they started playing the Rains of Castamere.

I have to admit I laughed out loud at that one.

Which is probably an accurate assessment on her part. The writers of Civil War have admitted they have no idea what's going on with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and actually thought the whole fish oil thing was a joke.

Especially because a "Volume 0" sounds potentially skippable, but in this case they are not!