Let me be weird,
@KindOfBlue
As for whether he's Mr. Right for the girls, that ultimately depends on what each girl is looking for. Personally, I think Tifa has been the most supportive of him, but the other way around? I'm only half convinced. But maybe it's just hard to be the partner of someone who has a ton of issues. Putting those issues aside, if that's even possible, I can't get a good sense of what Tifa would like in a relationship actually. Someone reliable, homely maybe? Cloud fits that bill well enough I guess.
But I was thinking what makes him good in relation to being a good partner to either of the women, and I still feel it's a bit of a question mark for me.
Tifa is a grounded, very normal girl. What is interesting is that in the OG and I suspect it's the same here, she fell in love with the image of Cloud. While leaving her, he left a strong impression on her mind that kept coming back, so she thought more and more about him until she fell in love with him (her scrapped diary shows that very well). But as she says in both OG and Remake, she doesn't know him that well at that moment. He's the kid next door who always gets in fights. This is why chapter 3 happens. Because Tifa needs to assess who Cloud is. She knows him well enough to be able to tell that he's changed when he wants to kill Johnny, that he scares her. The irony is not lost on anyone, I hope, that his SOLDIER persona drives her away from him - remember also that she found Sephiroth cold, and wasn't interested at all in Zack except to talk about Cloud in CC. This is a pattern. She is looking for someone far more normal than a SOLDIER.
This is why, around her, he lets his guard down. Why he's more relaxed, acts more like his true self would; because the story needs Tifa to see the real Cloud behind the smoke. The story needs her to fall in love with the true Cloud. Because people keep asking, what kind of man would Tifa fall for? The answer is here: it's Cloud. The true one. She needs to connect to him in a deeper level in order to trust him, to believe in him - giving Cloud the reassurance that he needs that he is "Cloud of Nibelheim".
And in Remake, when you see him protecting her the way he does, especially on the pillar, making sure she'd make it, supporting her... to me the pillar and its after fall is the big moment when you see Cloud truly taking care of Tifa the way a man does with his girlfriend/wife. The way he's depicted, making her stand up, and never letting go of her until they are down in sector 7, then silently be there as she discovers the rubbles, being ready to support her again, until he can comfort her in chapter 14... to me this screams husband material.
Why wouldn't you fall for such a man? I have said it already, but to me, this scene is actually the biggest scene screaming about Cloud's feelings, and how he wants, he needs her to be fine, both physically and mentally. There's a lot of special treatment he gives her throughout the game, but this is possibly the biggest realisation about it when you look at it closely.
I'm not going to talk about Aerith here, because for her, it's more complicated with her knowing some parts of the future. But we know she sees Zack in him and that's what attracts her to him at first.
But she had to aid him to do it. Furthermore, he's still ready to walk out because he didn't become a hero or famous. His Jenova cells can't read her and import the memory this time because she isn't even present. And he shows no hesitation to fulfill the promise regardless of his hero or fame status. This is very different.
I agree that this is very different; I always felt that in the OG, this was a big plothole, because it is THE memory Cloud uses to realise he's "Cloud of Nibelheim", but it was a memory she pushed him to remember. To me, they closed that plothole by making sure that he'd remembered by himself this time around.
The fact is that this time around... Sephiroth, the one from the future, wants Tifa gone. He doesn't want her around Cloud because she gives him strength, she's always been a "self" catalyst, so to speak, for Cloud. So not only does she helps him in the Lifestream to regain his true self, she's also the one able to push him to better himself (see: the save she does at the top of the Shinra tower). And that Sephiroth knows that - the normal one doesn't seem to especially care, I'd say. The way he tries to manipulate Cloud feels a tad different from the usual Sephiroth, so we'll have to see where this goes, but my gut feeling is that Tifa is the one who can protect Cloud's psyche against his manipulation.