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Why is Cloud your favorite character?

leadmyskeptic

Pro Adventurer
It's interesting that you include Tactics...from what I remember, his 'characterization' as it were in that game was pretty odd...thats part of why I wanted to ask, because it seems to me that Cloud was such a complex and 'confused' (in a good way) character that, after the OG, they dropped most of the shades and just made him a certain type of not-necessarily-consistent-with-the-original character. I mean can you picture AC Cloud saying "Let's mosey"?
 

Roger

He/him
AKA
Minato
I don't generally expect Cloud to still be saying mosey two years out from FFVII anyway, that's not on AC. People grow up. Cloud after what happened, grew up a little slower in some way. Certainly being unconcious from 16 to 21 means you still use speech patterns other people grew out of but I would expect him to adjust in that respect.

Cloud was certainly made simpler, Geostigma is an excuse to not let him move on, his characterisation once again informed by the one event even people that didn't play FFVII know about, Aerith's death. But nevertheless his interactions with Vincent, Marlene and all the rest of them don't say nothing about his character. It's easily a cut above Super Smash Bros in that respect.
 

Tashasaurous

Tash for Short
AKA
Sailor Moon, Mini Moon, Hotaru, Cardcaptor Sakura, Meilin, Xion, Kairi, Aqua, Tifa, Aerith, Yuffie, Elena, Misty, May, Dawn, Casey, Fiona, Ellie
Crisis Core, Before Crisis, original game, Final Fantasy Tactics, On The Way To A Smile, Advent Children and Dirge of Cerberus. His fighting and racing game appearances don't count for me.

I wouldn't count Final Fantasy Tactics as part of the FFVII universe; more of a spin-off appearence like in the Dissidia and Kingdom Hearts games.

I don't generally expect Cloud to still be saying mosey two years out from FFVII anyway, that's not on AC. People grow up. Cloud after what happened, grew up a little slower in some way. Certainly being unconcious from 16 to 21 means you still use speech patterns other people grew out of but I would expect him to adjust in that respect.

For some reason, while I can actually hear Steve Burton as Cloud saying "Let's Mosey" in the Remake, I don't think that little speech(which is kinda cute, by the way) will actually be in the Remake.

You didn't hear him say it in the Dissidia games either. Besidse that, I really like Cloud.
 

Kieron_ODuibhir

Sinister Amanuensis
AKA
TrisakAminawn
It's interesting that you include Tactics...from what I remember, his 'characterization' as it were in that game was pretty odd...thats part of why I wanted to ask, because it seems to me that Cloud was such a complex and 'confused' (in a good way) character that, after the OG, they dropped most of the shades and just made him a certain type of not-necessarily-consistent-with-the-original character. I mean can you picture AC Cloud saying "Let's mosey"?

Hmm...the OG, Crisis Core, the little bit in DoC...gotta have AC at this point because a lot of the fanbase got their first impression there because it's so much more accessible than the game, and was even more so when it came out. Plus I like some of the stuff he did in the finale, and if being a comics fan has taught me anything it's how to cherrypick. :D

Hell, he has an appearance in Before Crisis I take into account even though I'm always willing to pitch Before Crisis canon over in favor of any other canon at all and the better class of headcanons.

I agree the full spectrum of Cloud's character does not get represented in the adaptations. I hope the remake doesn't take that too far. A lot of people go with the interpretation that most of the more 'fun' things about Cloud were the pieces of Zack he'd integrated into himself, since after all Aerith says he came into her life moving and talking like Zack so much it was surreal. And therefore assume he ditched some of those traits as he worked out what was and wasn't real.

I can go with this to some extent, including the mosey, but not so much I'm going to call the AC characterization 'real Cloud' and chop off anything that strays outside of it. Y'know?
 

jazzflower92

Pro Adventurer
AKA
The Girl With A Strong Opinion
It's interesting that you include Tactics...from what I remember, his 'characterization' as it were in that game was pretty odd...thats part of why I wanted to ask, because it seems to me that Cloud was such a complex and 'confused' (in a good way) character that, after the OG, they dropped most of the shades and just made him a certain type of not-necessarily-consistent-with-the-original character. I mean can you picture AC Cloud saying "Let's mosey"?

Hmm...the OG, Crisis Core, the little bit in DoC...gotta have AC at this point because a lot of the fanbase got their first impression there because it's so much more accessible than the game, and was even more so when it came out. Plus I like some of the stuff he did in the finale, and if being a comics fan has taught me anything it's how to cherrypick. :D

Hell, he has an appearance in Before Crisis I take into account even though I'm always willing to pitch Before Crisis canon over in favor of any other canon at all and the better class of headcanons.

I agree the full spectrum of Cloud's character does not get represented in the adaptations. I hope the remake doesn't take that too far. A lot of people go with the interpretation that most of the more 'fun' things about Cloud were the pieces of Zack he'd integrated into himself, since after all Aerith says he came into her life moving and talking like Zack so much it was surreal. And therefore assume he ditched some of those traits as he worked out what was and wasn't real.

I can go with this to some extent, including the mosey, but not so much I'm going to call the AC characterization 'real Cloud' and chop off anything that strays outside of it. Y'know?

Remakes and spinoffs tend to exaggerate a characteristic that made a character famous.
 

Blade

That Man
AKA
Darkside-Ky/Mimeblade
...please don't tell me you think the final cut of AC leaving out at least a third of the storyline including all the context made it a more intelligent movie. It really didn't. Making your audience work to understand what's even going on is a cheap way to pad a straightforward narrative, and sometimes it's actually useful and productive, but it's never the same as being deep.

Cloud became a less complicated character by writing his depression covering everything for the entire movie. I'd respect it more as a writing choice if the way it was executed didn't look suspiciously like a hack to make the movie easier to create.
To be honest I preferred the original first cut version of the film.

The "Wolf and Sword Grave" was a big enough hint to anyone about Zack really.

The scenes with Flowers implied Aerith regardless.

I think, overall people who dive in to AC without having any FF7 knowledge "ought" to be ignorant, because it's supposed to raise questions that you can answer by experiencing the other stories yourself.

As for my thoughts on Cloud, I always felt he was "relateable" because of his insecurity and doubts. Anyone would be, put in that situation of confusion.

The argument that "certain games" don't portray Cloud as accurately as others, while valid, doesn't sit well with me.

For example, do you say Cloud in Fortune Street (Itadaki Street) isn't Cloud? The game is a spinoff of Monopoly, like Mario Party. Where do you draw the line on what is and isn't Cloud?

I think there's a bare minimum of things players appreciate about Cloud as a character to want to play as him in one game or another.

Character analysis in the main story is one thing, but it doesn't take Rocket Town Science to just appreciate Cloud in the games he's been in.
 

Kieron_ODuibhir

Sinister Amanuensis
AKA
TrisakAminawn
...please don't tell me you think the final cut of AC leaving out at least a third of the storyline including all the context made it a more intelligent movie. It really didn't. Making your audience work to understand what's even going on is a cheap way to pad a straightforward narrative, and sometimes it's actually useful and productive, but it's never the same as being deep.

Cloud became a less complicated character by writing his depression covering everything for the entire movie. I'd respect it more as a writing choice if the way it was executed didn't look suspiciously like a hack to make the movie easier to create.

To be honest I preferred the original first cut version of the film.

The "Wolf and Sword Grave" was a big enough hint to anyone about Zack really.

The scenes with Flowers implied Aerith regardless.

I think, overall people who dive in to AC without having any FF7 knowledge "ought" to be ignorant, because it's supposed to raise questions that you can answer by experiencing the other stories yourself.

The argument that "certain games" don't portray Cloud as accurately as others, while valid, doesn't sit well with me.

For example, do you say Cloud in Fortune Street (Itadaki Street) isn't Cloud? The game is a spinoff of Monopoly, like Mario Party. Where do you draw the line on what is and isn't Cloud?

I think there's a bare minimum of things players appreciate about Cloud as a character to want to play as him in one game or another.

Character analysis in the main story is one thing, but it doesn't take Rocket Town Science to just appreciate Cloud in the games he's been in.

...I'm just saying he gets severely oversimplified a lot, and it does him disservice?

Like, I'm not saying Superman <em>isn't Superman</em> when he cameos in your cartoon and punches the bad guy out and says something about 'truth, justice, and the American Way!' but Clark is a complicated person with a lot of complex feelings and relationships, and if a Superman movie is producing the same amount of depth and complexity as the cameo we begin to have a problem.

And I'm not really comparing the theatrical cut with Complete, either, when I say AC was incoherent, and I don't just mean for people who didn't already know the franchise and get the references.

I mean that while they didn't need to explain it all in exhaustive detail, the fact that there was a degenerative illness killing a lot of people, especially children, and that Cloud also had it, and so did Denzel, were all important things to know a lot earlier than they became clear.

For that matter, Denzel's entire plotline works a lot better when he's clearly tied to Cloud &co as a member of their vaguely defined family, instead of just kind of...around. It's one thing to have new appreciation for the hidden meaning and foreshadowing the second time you watch something, it's another to have put pins in half the stuff you see and only the second time through be able to go 'oh, that's why there even is a scene focusing on this.'

There is a lot of jumping around from place to place without any real justification--like for example cutting from Edge to 'on the Northern Continent riding my bike through a forest you can't interact with directly in the game' without any discussion of how anybody crossed the ocean or how Cloud tracked Kadaj & co or why it's only Cloud on this high-stakes rescue mission.

They actually do try to justify why only Cloud fights the final battle, and like Tifa not coming along to rescue Marlene and Denzel, that's one that really goes over better if you haven't played FFVII. Like, 'obviously, that's what The Main Character does.' :awesome:
 

Blade

That Man
AKA
Darkside-Ky/Mimeblade
Character establishment when it comes to films is a tricky subject, especially with a rushed "on a huge deadline/small budget" narrative.

Could they have taken the extra time to explain things before heading towards the action? Depends on how the film was allowed to be handled.

To me, even if the film didn't express who Denzel was, it established a disconnect between himself and Cloud, which implied they were connected at one point. Even if the film time skipped from one place to another, that much would be obvious if the scenery changed or transitioned well enough without seeming jarring.

If you were given 75 minutes to explain everything, how would you fit everything inside those constraints withOUT going over?
 

Kieron_ODuibhir

Sinister Amanuensis
AKA
TrisakAminawn
I would include fewer things if I could not put in all the things I wanted and still make sense. Like. If I cut all the motorbike-riding scenes by one-third, that alone would give me a good ten minutes to play with. >> The action scenes are amazing, but most of them are slightly longer than they actually need to be.

But I would have written a very different movie with a lot more focus on the team as a whole, which would be even more work to make coherent within such time constraints and still be fun to watch, so.

(And the disconcerting cuts are not a hypothetical, I am discussing the very real and egregious instance where they spend several minutes on Cloud being shamed for self-pity and then skip the part where he travels to a different continent on his motorcycle. On reflection I think Rude may have said something about wtf Kadaj took all the kids, so that at least explains why Cloud didn't have to do detective work on that, but still. This is following up a game where your progression through the plot structure was largely controlled through the logistics of traveling between landmasses, what is with the intercontinental driving?)
 

Blade

That Man
AKA
Darkside-Ky/Mimeblade
Well, you can't exactly take a motorcycle across the ocean without a boat. :monster:

I mean, yeah there was that Junon/Costa Del Sol Freighter trick with the Hovercraft, but that's over-explaining it.

Jarring, perhaps, but could you really transition in to that scene any better without adding seconds to the run-time?
 

Roger

He/him
AKA
Minato
Crisis Core addressed how Zack got across the world on a motorbike by showing him on a massive bridge spanning over the sea.
 

Roger

He/him
AKA
Minato
Afo4CH0.jpg

The distance between the Midgar and Bone Town landmasses isn't much greater, just doesn't have shallows in between, introducing bridges is all that's needed.
 

Blade

That Man
AKA
Darkside-Ky/Mimeblade
Said "shallows" only conveniently appeared in later stories of FFVII.

Not FFVII itself.
 

ForceStealer

Double Growth
They actually are in the OG, in the 500 years later portion. So you could easily attribute that to Meteorfall.

And what do the shallows have to do with bridges? The bridge is Crisis Core is absolutely just crossing a river. But the point about Midgar's proximity to an archipelago nearly connecting to Bone Village isn't a bad one. Could be akin to the Denmark-Sweden Bridge/Tunnel. Of course there's the question of why they would build a bridge to the nearly-abandoned northern continent.

Also,

Kieron_ODuibhir said:
I agree the full spectrum of Cloud's character does not get represented in the adaptations. I hope the remake doesn't take that too far.

I disagree with this. Crisis Core, Case of Tifa, and Dirge of Cerberus all show a different Cloud more in line with his latter-FF7 persona. He was only depressed in Advent Children (and the end of Case of Tifa which of course leads right into AC). In Crisis Core he's reasonably happy and invites Zack over to dinner and such. In On the Way to Smile he drinks and jokes with Barret, and teases Yuffie. In Dirge he playfully boasts to Vincent.
 
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Roger

He/him
AKA
Minato
Said "shallows" only conveniently appeared in later stories of FFVII.

Not FFVII itself.

I mean the river in FFVII that you take the hovercraft over. The body of water seperating Midgar and Bone Town might not have that shallow bit, but it's not wider then what Zack's bridge is spaning over.
 

Clement Rage

Pro Adventurer
It's only a plot hole if there's no reasonable explanation. There are dozens of ways the characters could have crossed continents, is it really an issue that they don't show them waiting at a ticket office for a ferry?
 

Midgar_Blues

Pro Adventurer
This thread is pretty much dead, but here goes anyway. I love that dude because he has more layers than an onion. He's a deep thinker, he's flawed, and a bit of a wiseass, and I freaking love how his character comes back out after Tifa builds him up again. AC went kinda OCD on the emo. Though, I kinda get it; he saw Aerith and Zack die, he doesn't want to do that to Tifa. Plus, the two years after FFVII was really the only time for him to process everything that happened. That's when the PTSD kicked in for him.
 

TooManyFandoms

Uses the internet
Looks like you've revived the thread for a bit, I'll try to keep it going.

Cloud seems like a real, believable person to me, and in a video game, that's something special. He's a multidimensional male protagonist who was introduced as someone who might be considered "super manly" but as time went on, you realized as a player that he could change, become caring towards his party members, and that he was hiding something big. I know that this certainly helped to draw me into his character (and the game) and want to know the truth. And when you do learn how normal and ordinary he is, you realize that every recent thing in his life has happened just because it had to happen to someone, and it sucked. But he pulled through, even even if he was just a normal guy, he proved himself stronger than Sephiroth, who was supposed to be the puppet master.

I guess just the idea of being knocked down and having the strength to get up again like he did really stands out to me.
 

Nivaldia

Lv. 1 Adventurer
AKA
Muricaneus
No.., he is not my favourite. Its a superficial, "vacuum", boring character.
giphy.gif




Cloud, from my team three characters, seems to me the poorest character.

Cloud does not have enough "psychological depth" to give it a true definition, it is something very difficult to define.... that remains in air, he seems a character half done, without enough personality, as if the building lacked the last stone .. feelings are not enough based, coherent: powerful.

Compared with Tifa or Yuffie, characters drawn with simpler, but more robust traits, I would he laks the last sketch
 

Nivaldia

Lv. 1 Adventurer
AKA
Muricaneus
No.., he is not my favourite. Its a superficial, "vacuum", boring character.




Cloud, from my team three characters, seems to me the poorest character.

Cloud does not have enough "psychological depth" to give it a true definition, it is something very difficult to define.... that remains in air, he seems a character half done, without enough personality, as if the building lacked the last stone .. feelings are not enough based, coherent: powerful.

Compared with Tifa or Yuffie, characters drawn with simpler, but more robust traits, I would he laks the last sketch
 
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