The seven best lines of dialogue in FFVII

[OneWingedDemon]

Actually, looking back, Barret gets some of the best and most meaningful lines.
Like this:

Hey, how are you?
I just wanna know, which is it gonna be?
You wanna find out about yourself? Or are you afraid to find out?
Either way, you stay around here and about all you can do is worry about it.
Even if you do go nuts again when you see Sephiroth... If it happens, it happens.
I'll go upside your spikey white head and bring you back to normal!

 

[Fangu]

The most memorable line in the game, for me, is this one (especially the part in bold):

I'll let you hear my new appointment speech. Old man tried to control the world with money. It seems to have been working. The population thought that Shinra would protect them. Work at Shinra, get your pay. If a terrorist attacks, the Shinra army will help you. It looks perfect on the outside. But, I do things differently. I'll control the world with fear. It takes too much to do it like my old man. A little fear will control the minds of the common people. There's no reason to waste money on them.

Oh Rufus.

 

[Octo]

Re the cid/shera life saving thing. I meant the fact he realised she saved his life by detecting the problem in the engine in the first place, technically she saved him twice.

Also theres an obvious man/woman thing. Shera was hopelessly in love with the guy prior to "ruining" his big chance. She was willing to be killed just so he could fulfil his dream. Thats why she puts up with his abuse. So yeah, fucked up.

Also presumably the malfunction was detected at the last minute? I agree it would have made more sense to postpone the launch. My memory is a bit foggy here.

 

[Novus]

I'm pretty sure that Rufus' lines were taken from Machiavelli.
My favorite exchange is the Whirlwind maze:

Cloud:
Everyone, thanks for everything. >And...I'm sorry.
Cloud:
...Sorry.
Cloud:
...Sorry.
Cloud:
Especially you, Tifa. >I'm really sorry.
You've been so good to me...... >I don't know what to say...
Cloud:
I never lived up to >being 'Cloud'.
Tifa...... >Maybe one day you'll meet >the real 'Cloud'.
Hojo:
Ha,ha,ha... >this is perfect!!!
It means that my experiment was >a complete success.
Hojo:
What number were you? >Huh? Where is your tattoo?
Cloud:
Professor Hojo... >I don't have a number.
You didn't give me one because you said >I was a failed experiment.
Hojo:
What the--? >You mean only a failure >made it here?
Cloud:
Professor...please give me a number. >Please, Professor...
Hojo:
Shut up, miserable failure...
*** TRNAD_52 ***
Rufus:
Who...was that?
Hojo:
...He's a Sephiroth-clone I created >after the real Sephiroth died five years ago.
Jenova cells and Mako, with my >knowledge and skills, have been >combined with science and nature >to bring him to life.
Hojo:
...I'm not wild about the failure >part, but the Jenova Reunion Theory >has now been proven.
Hojo:
You see, even if Jenova's body is dismembered, >it will eventually become one again. >That's what is meant by Jenova's Reunion.
Hojo:
I have been waiting for the Reunion to start. >Five years have passed, and now the Clones >have begun to return.
Hojo:
I thought the clones would begin >to gather at Midgar >where Jenova is stored.
But my predictions were not entirely correct. >Jenova itself began to move away >from the Shinra Building.
Hojo:
But being a genius that I am, >I soon figured it out. >You see it was all Sephiroth's doing.
Sephiroth is not just content >to diffuse his will >into the Lifestream; he wants >to manipulate the Clones himself.
Yes, that was how it got started.
Hojo:
I wondered where the clones were going, >but I was never able to figure it out.
I couldn't figure it out, either.
Hojo:
The one thing that I did know was that >Sephiroth was at their final destination.
I wasn't pursuing Sephiroth.


I was being summoned by Sephiroth.


All the anger and hatred I bore him,

made it impossible for me to ever forget him.

That and what he gave me.
Sephiroth? Sephiroth? >I'm here.

And I brought you the Black Materia.
Show yourself to me. >Where are you?
Sephiroth...

So we finally meet again.

[copied from <http://letao.is-a-geek.net/ff7script/ff7script17.html>]

 

[Flintlock]

I'll put the list together for the front page sometime next week, so you've got until then to post your favourite lines if you haven't already. There won't be a vote, but I'm sure that everything that makes it onto the list will have been mentioned here at least once - ideally more than once, but I know some people have been avoiding repeats.

 

[Flintlock]

While compiling the list, I noticed that "Words aren't the only way to tell someone how you feel" isn't actually in the game script. Instead, we have "Words aren't the only thing that tell people what you're thinking". Yet the former is widely quoted all over the internet. Is everyone just getting it wrong, or is there something I'm missing?

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Well, the Japanese line being what it is (&#24819;&#12356;&#12434;&#20253;&#12360;&#12425;&#12428;&#12427;&#12398;&#12399;&#35328;&#33865;&#12384;&#12369;&#12376;&#12419;&#12394;&#12356;&#12424, either way would be an accurate way to translate it. My guess is that at some point, one of ye olde fan translators (could have been me, could have been someone else; I have no clue) was translating something and used the alternate-but-popular rendering. Given its similarities to the official rendition, and given there's no difference in meaning, it probably just sort of propagated unnoticed from there.

 

[Flintlock]

The article is now available for your reading pleasure. Find out which lines made the cut

There were about a dozen lines which had more than one nomination, so I picked the three most popular and then used my own judgement to select the remaining four. I tried to include as many different characters as possible; only Cloud and Tifa have more than one line on the list.

It would have been nice to have more people giving the reasons behind their nominations, so I could use them as quotes. I'll make that clearer next time.

I'm very happy with the way those FFVII-style text boxes turned out. If we want to use them in other articles, we can put the CSS in a stylesheet. The front page image looks a little squished because I thought it had to be 500px wide, but I guess I was wrong. Did that change at some point?

 

[AvecAloes]

Awesome, Flint! I think you did a fine job in choosing from what we gave you I'm excited for more of this series!

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

You did good, Flint. While not all are selections I would have made, it's impossible to disagree with their significance.

 

[Flintlock]

You did good, Flint. While not all are selections I would have made, it's impossible to disagree with their significance.

It wouldn't be my list either, but my hands were semi-tied. Can't please all of the people all of the time, as you know. I'm not complaining, though; I think it's better to make this a community event than one person's opinion piece

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Agreed. You did well.

 

[Fangu]

I particularly love how you quote yourself, Flint XD You probably didn't have a lot to choose from though. I didn't think you'd be quoting members, it's a really good idea though. If I'd thought that far I'd said more than 'oh Rufus'

But yeah, nice job, I think the 7 are good selections. I missed some Aerith in there though but even though she says a lot of good things they're perhaps not very quotable. The featured image is really nice. If we ever were to completely change the layout of the site we should do it blue bubble style!

 

[Lex]

Yes, well done. I'm especially fond of the makeshift dialogue boxes

 

[ForceStealer]

Yeah I love the old dialogue box of the Let's mosey quote with the ACC Cloud render looking like he's standing on the edge with the Lifestream behind him.

Shows that that scene would work just as well in 'realistic' graphics

 

[Soakette]

Great article Flint. I was surprised to see my name mentioned! lol

 

[Flintlock]

Yeah I love the old dialogue box of the Let's mosey quote with the ACC Cloud render looking like he's standing on the edge with the Lifestream behind him.

Shows that that scene would work just as well in 'realistic' graphics

I chose the juxtaposition of a "serious" Cloud render with a less-than-serious quote deliberately I'm glad you like it. The background was based on the steps leading down to the Jenova Synthesis fight. It was originally more detailed but I thought it looked better in a more simple form.

In other news, someone accused the list of being too Cloti on Facebook. I knew it was going to happen when I decided not to use any quotes from Aeris, which is largely why I added something of a disclaimer to the second Tifa quote, but it was still a bit depressing to see it. Still, I invited the commenter to join the conversation in this thread and share their own list of top lines.

I want your ideas for what the next article in the series will be about. I've had a few ideas, but I know that a group of people will always come up with something better than just one person You can post them here or PM them to me.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

The graphics for the article seriously were awesome, Flint.

In other news, someone accused the list of being too Cloti on Facebook. I knew it was going to happen when I decided not to use any quotes from Aeris, which is largely why I added something of a disclaimer to the second Tifa quote, but it was still a bit depressing to see it. Still, I invited the commenter to join the conversation in this thread and share their own list of top lines.

Did they just skim the lines you selected and not read the paragraphs under them? Or fail to remember that the Barret quote comes right after Cloud has a) beaten Aerith up, then b) dreamt of her and c) chosen not to go after her out of fear of doing something bad again?

The line may be from Barret and have more significance than to just the one scene, but that whole scene is related to Aerith.

Fucking Christ, people just look for reasons to get pissed off when it comes to Aerith and this site.

I want your ideas for what the next article in the series will be about. I've had a few ideas, but I know that a group of people will always come up with something better than just one person You can post them here or PM them to me.

Seven best battle sequences?

 

[Pixel]

7 favourite moments from the game. 7 fave songs... that pole was done ages ago, so wouldnt take much work

 

[Poe-Lantern]

I would have argued that Jenova's only line was one of the best. I remember when I first read it, it was so chilling that I missed the spelling error.

Seven best battle sequences?

I agree with this.

 

[Flintlock]

Seven best battle sequences?

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by that. Could you give some examples?

I'll just remind everyone that the subjects don't have to be from VII, but if they're not, they should preferably be from the whole series. I'd like to do a series one next

 

[ForceStealer]

7 best boobs - just so we can anger Tifa haters again.

 

[Fangu]

I would have argued that Jenova's only line was one of the best. I remember when I first read it, it was so chilling that I missed the spelling error..

Oh god yes the 'Puppet' line!! How could I have forgotten that! I'd put that on my list.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by that. Could you give some examples?

I'll just remind everyone that the subjects don't have to be from VII, but if they're not, they should preferably be from the whole series. I'd like to do a series one next

Well, I didn't want to say "seven best boss fights" because that would exclude random encounter enemies that someone might think worthy of mention, as well as potentially the scripted battle where Cloud and Seph fight the dragon. "Mandatory fights" carries similar exclusions, particularly with random encounters and optional bosses (or the avoidable Turk fights).

There was also the issue of whether someone counts something like the fight with Hojo as one boss fight or three. It just seemed most inclusive to say "battle sequences."

 

[Pixel]

I wish more people had voted on this. I didnt see very many lines suggested more than once, so it must have been difficult to put the list together.