—In particular, during the nighttime flower field scene in Chapter 14, Aerith tells Cloud “You can’t fall in love with me. Even if you do, it’s not real.” For those who are familiar with the original story, this line carries a lot of meaning.
Nojima: To be honest, some staff actually told me that this line made it seem like Aerith was looking down on Cloud, so it got rejected a few times. If you know Aerith’s fate, then this line would really pull at your heart strings, but if you did not know what happens to Aerith, then you might interpret the scene in a completely different way. I thought the gap between the two interpretations was very interesting. On another note, in Tifa’s scene in the flower field, I wanted Cloud to not look cool in this scene. Even though Cloud and Tifa are close in age, he has a 5 year blank slate, and he doesn’t have enough life experience to consider himself an adult. Even though most of the characters are around 20 years old, there’s one guy, Cloud, who has the mentality of a 16 year old, and that person tries to be like an adult. I really wanted to write that into the story. After the Sector 7 plate fell, Barret comforted Tifa with the temperament of an adult, and Cloud saw that and wanted to do the same for her [in the flower scene], but it didn’t go as planned. I wanted to try writing him as being awkward.
Nomura: On that same note, when recording Cloud’s voice, we had his voice actor perform his lines slightly differently depending on who he was talking to. For example, when Cloud speaks with Aerith, he stands up and tries to act cool, with Tifa he loosens up a bit, with Jessie he sounds confused. When Cloud speaks with Aerith, he’s too self-conscious and gives weird replies.
I guess on the good side of it, it did give me an idea for a next post here!
