Zack and Cloud cont
I have never read the Ultimania, so if it says they are close friends, then I guess Square Enix wants it that way.
But they don't act like close friends in Crisis Core, that's all I'm saying.
Of course I've seen the DMWs. There's one where Zack is musing to himself that he wishes he could show Aerith the sky. When Cloud asks him what's up, he brushes Cloud off with "Guy stuff". If Cloud was his best friend, don't you think he might talk to Cloud about Aerith? In all the DMW cuts scenes and all the time jumps you'd think some scenes could have been offered that show them acting together like close friends, but I haven't seen one, and I've played an awful lot of missions.
Of course I know Cloud was unable to speak because of the mako poisoning. Zack would have grown to care for him deeply precisely because Cloud was utterly dependent on him, in the same way that adults can come to love babies, but if you can't talk to each other you cannot develop a friendship.
It's probably a huge mistake to read too much into a few words that were, in any case, composed originally in another language. The script of CC is not exactly Shakespeare. Nevertheless, were I to be offering comfort to my best friend in a sticky situation, I'd say something like, "We've been friends a long time, haven't we?" or "We've been through so much together, we'll survive this too," and not the slightly uncertain, "We're friends, right?" which to me sounds a lot like, "we've been through so much we must be friends by now, don't you think?"
For me, one of the poignant things about this game is that, although Zack and Cloud hit it off right away on the way to Modeoheim, and are, I suppose, friends from that point on, their real closeness only starts developing during and after the Nibelheim incident, but it's wordless and is about one good person caring for another, helpless one; and at the very moment when it could begin to flower properly, it's cut short, just as Zack's relationship with Aerith is prevented from fully flowering, by his death - or maybe we should say by his conscious decision to sacrifice his life.
I'm not saying they weren't friends. Zack had lots and lots of friends. In Before Crisis he says that you only have to go on an assignment once with someone to be their friend. He rescues Cloud because that's the kind of guy he is, because it would be unthinkable to leave him behind. A lesser man would have left Cloud behind.
I prefer my interpretation because it makes Zack a more interesting character. However, if SE say they're best friends, then that's that. If that is the case, though, they should have made their best friendship more convincing in the game.
Bye for now