Hi everyone!
I see you guys are on the topic of how newcomers perceive the story and the relationships, so I thought I might butt in and give my perspective!
I'm really new to the fandom and knew almost nothing about FF7's story, I already played other FF games but never got into VII until I played Remake.
To give context on my takes, I already been spoiled about some things from looking at Twitter/Forums: Aerith dies, Cloud's mind is messed up and Tifa somehow fixes it, Zack, the guy with black hair at the ending, was Aerith's boyfriend and Cloud's friend, who also dies (or not?), Sephiroth is an alien(?), etc.
While I knew there was a love triangle in the game, I never really thought the discussion would be so heated. I made the mistake of trying to discuss it on Twitter and I was bombarded with people insulting me and telling me I was wrong. One of them even had "Anti-Tifa" in their Twitter bio and their feed was filled with rantings against her character, which made me really sad 'cause she was one of my favorites (I just love punchy women with big hearts, lol).
Anyways, from my humble (and probably wrong) opinion I feel like both pairings are really valid and have really sweet moments together, but I felt like Aerith's character was more of a spiritual companion(?) rather than a love interest. She seemed really hanged up on her ex (Zack) that died and the scene in the playground was really sad, w/ her trying to relate to Cloud through her experiences with her ex. It seems like her role in the story is to be the light to Sephiroth's dark and to guide the group through the right path, rather than just being Cloud's girlfriend lol.
Also, I got the Aerith dream scene on my first playthrough and the whole "don't fall in love with me" felt really weird and forced, seeing as they only knew each other for like 2 days and Cloud never gave signals of loving her, so far. I guess it's there as a meta commentary on how she dies later on, but for new players like me it was a weird scene.
Cloud and Tifa, on contrast, feel like they are skirting around each other, trying to get close but kinda failing to do so. I assume it's cause of their complicated past, but I took it as they had a crush on each other as kids but the separation/Cloud being experimented on(?) made them a bit distant. I felt a lot of romantic tension between them and I'm really interested to see more of their past together when I play the OG soon.
TLDR: Cloud/Aerith feels like they are companions in defeating Sephiroth, with a lot of romantic undertones in their relationship. Also, Zack is there as a variant.
Cloud/Tifa seem to share a very complicated past that will probably get resolved as they get closer. To me, this relationship seems more interesting in that we may get a lot more development from them. If I am right in my reading, I also feel like they will be the endgame couple. Also, they have a lot of skinship which in Japanese media it's a big thing.
Sorry for the long rant, I have a lot of thoughts and the Twitter debates were intense, lol.
Also, I see a lot of hate for Tifa on Twitter which, like I said, left me feeling sad 'cause I loved her, personally. Is the hate mostly because of shipping reasons or do people genuinely dislike her character?
Thank you for letting me post! I hope I brought a kinda new perspective into the debate, or a least an interesting one.