Yes, it really is a weird take on both Cloud and Aerith.
I really look at the history of the LTD with curiosity nowadays, because to me the story is very straightforward (if you truly think about it, before he made up his fake persona, Cloud doesn't remember a state where he's not in love or at least crushing hard on her; how can people claim she's second best is beyond me). And I think this was the most interesting to me:
In this rare interview of Masato Katō, we do see him talking about how they worked on FFVII; they first talked about the story all together thoroughly, then would get assigned subevents. And, I noticed: Mideel, Lifestream scene, Highwind scene, the ones he took care of were all the major cloti events. But, I'll get back to this.
When FFVII was launched, it was a one time game, no Compilation needed, etc. Back then, the developpers clearly didn't think much of the love triangle - to them it was a tool, and whatever fans wanted to believe, be it! They were also young, trying out new stuff - those were exciting times for them. But because they were young and inexperimented, they made errors in their storytelling and the message was definitely misunderstood by the fans - how many tried to revive Aerith when the message was that we have to live on with the dead in our hearts?
What was done was done, and Nomura was a little flippant when he answered interviews because he truly didn't care about who Cloud loved.
But, because there is always a but, the Compilation began as they worked on BC and AC. They still made storytelling errors that they didn't notice, but this time, women told Nomura they pitied Tifa; and he did not understand, because to him, Cloud and Tifa had a good relationship. However, they absolutely and spectacularly failed to convey this in AC, and the feedback they had made them scramble back to the story: what went wrong? I sometimes do wonder though if them wanting to cater to both CAs and CTs back then made them have such a way to tell the story in which, if fans wanted to, they could pretend Cloud was in love with Aerith. So many cloti fans got out of the movie thinking that they weren't a couple yet that it was a major drawback for years in fandom (you really don't want to read fics from that era lol, so depressing it made me stop reading CT fics altogether), and I can't say that we weren't looking for clues there - because most fans before AC thought that Cloud was in love with Aerith, so it definitely tainted how that movie was interpreted. The ending especially with Aerith looking over Cloud was so bad in showing their intent that SE had to take it off in ACC.
There was definitely wrongness in how they portrayed and made their characters look to the public. There was a lot of unawareness from them in how the fans would understand what was shown, and I think it shows in AC - I absolutely despised Cloud there. AC had cool graphics but pretty terrible story. The dialogues were, in all honesty, kept to a bare minimum, which made Cloud's motivation hard to understand - and he was the main character! So, when women complained to Nomura, it was because there was a real reason to not understand this story and those characters. And I think that it made the devs understand that they had failed to convey a big part of their story - in fine, this is why ACC does exist, and why we can see more clearly their intent there. It made them realise that the way they presented their characters was important to convey their story (look at Aerith in OG; look at what she became in Remake, they nearly entirely redid her character, accentuating her feelings for Zack to the max).
Then we got
On the way to a smile novellas which helped understand the context, but as Nojima was trying for the first time to write, there were still errors in how everything was handled, which led to serious fights in the LTD. By that time though, I knew that Cloud and Tifa were definitely a couple, as I felt during the OG. Then came CC, ACC, the novellas revised and now Remake, which, I think, truly shines in its characterisation; this is the best the characters have ever been, because finally SE cares about how the characters present themselves to people. They're not only tools for a story, but also make the story and they want everyone to love them.
I think the main problem that existed is that the characters were tools, just like the LT was; convenient tools that helped conveying a message. As I noted way earlier in this message (
) Masato Katō was the one who designed ALL the major CT interactions; which means that the man who understood best Cloud and Tifa, their interactions, was also the one who left and never talked about it. Which led to devs never really commenting on them while it's probably one of the best love stories SE has pulled from 7 and on (sorry I do not know about earlier Final Fantasy games). Which did lead a lot of people to believe that Cloud loved Aerith, when it was not the story. SE finally cares about people understanding their message, so you can clearly see that all the differences between the OG and Remake are made to explain things better (minus chapter 18 lol). And that includes the LT, because there has always been an answer to it, which has always been the Lifestream scene; as I said, true!Cloud never knew a state where he wasn't in love with Tifa, and that's what the Lifestream scene also tells.
But it took MORE THAN A DECADE for fans to begin to understand this, and it's a long time that taints fandom a lot. By then it's natural that people won't want to let go of what they thought happened, they are too invested, and that leads to the current LTD debacle (it should be dead).
Their basic idea seems to be that "if SE wanted cloti to be canon, they would've written a very special memo". That, or Cloud and Tifa would've turned towards the camera and decidedly said that they're together now.
