Please, Hot n' Cold is far more epic. EPIC!

How can you even compare Laguna to Squall and Zidane? I know this line has become highly overused between the two of us by this point, but you are dead to me as well.

I'll avoid complaining about Laguna again though.

And having played through FF VIII, Squall really doesn't seem to slowly come out of his shell. It's a long, drawn out process, that just kind of happens all at once at one point. And, throughout the game, he does what you say, pushes people away and tries to justify it in his head. But that's basically all he does. His entire focus was on that one aspect of his personality, and that's hardly a deep character to me.

When an SNES game, within the first portion of the game, can add more to a character then the entirety of FF VIII did for Squall, then they have failed on a massive level. I'd start siting examples, but I have not the time.

And on one final note, that damned Draw system is something that I hope, in the remainder of my life, will never be put into another game. It was not 'amusing'. It was mindless busy work.