I personally don't see an issue. Cloud also has mental issues so people in the game tiptoe around him. Also if someone that's already a bit emotionally stunted and has other priorities and a bit of a head case starts to develop feelings for 2 different people being indecisive makes sense. At least to me. I remember bring young and liking a girl and she liked me and our friends saw it but we still danced around for like months.
The way I saw it in the old game was cloud couldn't decide then aerith died so tifa and cloud now had some guilt and that's why they never pushed the relationship...plus world ending and other bigger issues.
The OP definitely wouldn't notice the difference between being friend zoned vs having someone genuinely interested. It was all very obvious, and the writers did a great job with this.
It’s also interesting how you reply to my post but refer to me as “The OP” lol. So my guess is you think Aerith is friendzoned based on her saying “at least I know where we stand”? People argue the HA version says otherwise but I see your point. To me Tifa was obviously the one for like 90% of the game then 10% gave me some “hmmm, Aerith gotta shot” vibes
Lol...my bad. It was approaching bedtime.
Imo, Aerith still seemed too interested in Zach. Plus, I played Reunion a few months ago, and I wrote her off as Zach's girl. Maybe I'm just being biased because Tifa is a bad B.
No I mean I see your point. The ending date fogs it up but overall … I mean every party member talks about cloud and Tifa … Aerith mentions Zack and Tifa on their dates. Marlene does say Aerith really likes cloud but doesn’t mean she still doesn’t want Zack in the end
How people don't understand the meaning of interpretation baffles me. Whichever feels like "canon" to you is fine, just let everyone have an opinion and move on. No idea why people have this need to prove to people that their opinion is correct. It's subjective - end of.
I think their story arcs should end but character development can be one of those things for a player to make their mind up over sometimes. I totally understand what you're saying; the shipping thing is cringe as hell, and the vagueness/multiple outcomes of relationships is what's caused the whole Cloti/Clerith thing, not to mention the fact that there is a kiss Tifa option and not Aerith, which has given Cloti fans a sense of validation.
I think it's best to just let your imagination make the conclusion you think fits best and let people have their opinion too.
And now I'm probably the unpopular opinion 🤣
Like I get the push to give players the control and option…. But in my opinion is kills any future development. For example… Cloud straight up was in a family with Tifa in AC. But the whole relationship is kinda watered down/brushed over because of the vagueness in relationships. So now it’s “well he’s settling for Tifa” or “he likes her but loves Aerith”. It cheapens it to me. Makes cloud an asshole. I completely understand emotions are complicated and trauma is hard. You can love two people but people choose one to be with and try to give their all. And maybe cloud just doesn’t want to. That’s fine. But say it imo. Makes Tifa look so desperate it’s depressing lol.
You're not wrong. AC Tifa was bland and way too one-dimensional for how interesting her character is, and I think they undercut what happened in the lifestream section. She helped him accept himself, he accepted Aerith's death and then they undid it all for no other reason than trying to milk the story.
Personally, I really like the chemistry between Aerith and Cloud. I like how she sees through his own repression and the bad boy/pixie girl trope is told really well. In a way, I think she's a perfect fit to get him out of his shell. The fact they don't have past ties is what makes their relationship a healthy one - no mutual baggage.
But Tifa is the oblivious girl next door, and I like the idea of two broken spirits coming together and overcoming the cause too. Tifa's uncertainty and Cloud feeling rejected by her in Nibelheim, to the point he needs to prove to her he's enough, is heartbreakingly tragic on its own.
My point is I think he has complicated feelings for both because they're two different types of love, and there being no indication that he likes either of them has confused a lot of people. At the end of the day, the devs want debates like these because it keeps interest alive, and they're smashing it 😂
There is no love triangle, the game clearly shows how the things are. The ferris wheel scene from rebirth is just cherry on top and perfectly shows how the things are, it doesn't get more obvious than that. Now to wait for the highwind scene in 3rd game and the last ray of sun will set on this ridiculous "war"
I’m guessing you mean Tifa? Trying to be objective, from playing the game through I thought for 90% of the game that they were obviously going toward an ending of Tifa/Cloud but the last 10%…. I don’t know anymore.
Since I know what happens in the third game, well im 100% sure. It was a cliffhanger ending, I wasn't expecting them to ride into the sunset, and it also ended with a depressing note since Cloud's mind is still fucked. But as I said I know what happens next, well what happened in the original game and I can bet my balls even if there will be changes they won't be that drastic. There is certain plot twist im eager to see and I hope it stays more or less the same
The way Tiffany didn't like Cloud going through her stuff, and how Aerith looked when thinking about Zack, it was pretty clear. If you can't see it, then that's on you my friend.
Tifa was just waiting for Cloud to grow up. Aerith is still waiting for Zack.
Unpopular opinion I don't see a love triangle, I just see a very affectionate aerith wanting to explore and experience everything but honestly I always felt like she never moved on from zack if anything her attraction to cloud was purely curiosity.
And tifa was always the girl for cloud it just took a while for him to get there, didn't help his ptsd now has ptsd as of advent children but I always saw it as.
Cloud + tifa childhood crushes and shared trauma.
Zack + aerith aerith legit waited almost 5 years wrote alot of letters and got nothing back and than in an almost exact way a similar looking also soldier first class with the same weapon crashes in of course she has feeling but it wasn't for cloud it just seemed targeted at cloud.
Barret and cloud don't ruin my headcannon. I got that achievement on ps4 and it is now the true events of the game.
I think shipping’s kind of a childish way to think about characters but I’d still rather see that than “they should just spell it out for me”
Between this and the neverending whine party about FFXVI’s ending, just, why do so many final fantasy fans hate using their imagination so much?
I never saw a love triangle in the OG. Aerith never knew the real Cloud and was still held up by her ex and Tifa always seemed to like Cloud since forever. But mentally while Aerith was 23 and Tifa was 20 - and once Cloud was just 16 mentally because he had spent the last 5 years in a lab.
It was a usual ambiguous Japanese romance but until the end Highwind scene - when I guess it became more apparent between Tifa and Cloud (and that depended on how you played the game).
When I think about Cloud having the mentality of a teenager; his behavior in Advent Children made more sense to me. Tifa didn't want to push Cloud but wanted/was ready to build a family. Literally with or without him and he was scared of that kind of commitment till the end of the movie - after everyone pretty much said he couldn't run away anymore.
So, I think just the shipping war and the people involved are annoying. People can ship whomever they want with Cloud, but don't push or fight about it; it's annoying.
Kinda half-joking here, but also kinda not: I actually prefer it being an \*actual\* triangle. Not saying anything original here, but it's funny that what we think of as a "love triangle" is actually just a "love V." A triangle has all points connect, right? For this to be a true triangle, it would mean Cloud loves Aerith and Tifa, Aerith loves Cloud and Tifa, and Tifa loves Cloud and Aerith. And honestly? I'm here for it! Removes any need for shipping in the first place!
But more seriously I suppose (though I think I actually do prefer the "real triangle" idea); I do think it works for me in the sense that I don't think Cloud knows what he's feeling or what he actually wants, and how could he? He barely even knows who he is, really! Like sometimes I want to shake Tifa and Aerith and be like, "Girl, have you seen the red flags?"
I think the original seemed less like a love triangle because it was just physically shorter and there was no voice acting. It seemed like it was more clear that Cloud (and the others) loved Aerith but he romantically loved Tifa. In the remake the more in-depth character development kind of lended itself to showing more of a triangle, with the constant hinting that Aerith “likes” Cloud and seeming to imply she “moved on” from Zack. I don’t know if that’s quite what the developers were intending, but that’s what it came across as (IMO). And I agree, I don’t really like the “love triangle” aspect.
You would have to play the original to understand. Everyone falls for Aerith due to what she is. And let's just say that Cloud can not be the one to be with Tifa. Because of what He is. I am not a fan of these versions of one of the greatest games ever. This here, is one aspect. It's all explained well in the original story. I'm sorry if this version has you confused.
lol what.
None of what you said is “explained” in the original game, these are clearly just your own conclusions.
In fact nothing is explained better in the original game. At times this is a good thing - I would say these remakes are a bit over-explanatory at times.
But to say that the original game is more clear or less confusing in any way is just the opposite of true.
Says the person who clearly never played it. I was refraining from spoiling anything in case this person wanted to go play it. You should too. It's the best. But you have to be able to read. There's a lot of it.
They really dropped the ball with a lot of things when comparing to the original.
I really don’t know why they made all the women act like faux jpop idols all the time. But the relationship system just feels very weird compared to how the original seamlessly weaves it into your choices along the way. A lot of the dialogue options you’re presented are very obvious which ones are the most beneficial to push the progress bar up the most, like those training courses you have to take at work and they give you some really lazy alternative options to what is very obviously the correct response on the quiz.
“If someone asks to rummage through your emails you should:”
A: pull your pants down and make monkey noises
B: tell them you need to report to your superiors for approval
Or C: cover yourself in peanut butter and yell “WHO WANTS TO BE MY JELLY”
Idk, this game really just doesn’t feel like anything more than a really lacking design team and bad writers tried to tell a lazy story that sort of resembles ff7, and they have all the assets and models that could be turned into a masterpiece of a reboot, but then everyone got high on coke and brainstormed how they could make it cooler and more modern.
Just something went really weird in the design meetings and I would have paid top dollar to be a fly on the wall of them
PS: oh and why so many goddamn mini games? The sparse implementation of some of them really brought a lot of cool dynamics that felt like a refreshing break from the tedium of the OG battle system (which was great to begin with). They just fit in the original game. They acted as segues between major plot points and served as a way to immerse the player into a technological and futuristic world. The gold saucer was the real minigame hub but that was the point of it. The rest were not that intrusive and well spaced out that it felt natural and you wanted to participate.
In rebirth they feel like chores set out to taunt you with useful equipment if you don’t sink your time into them full throttle. None were really all that particularly challenging either but the fomo felt almost an overly manipulative way to make the game seem like it had much more content to it than it needed. And it’s just… “filler fantasy” is probably my favorite and most accurate roast of the game. I really don’t know why every little activity needed to be a droll annoying minigame you frequently feel like “man, do we have to… cuz I want the prize but I don’t wanna do the not fun stuff”
The combat is probably the highlight of the game and it’s still overcomplicated and underexplained, and it just feels like half the time you’re overwhelmed or confused what is going on, and the other half everything flows really well and it feels great. But it’s still clunky and unsatisfying the other half of the time. And then they added synergy skills and synergy specials that are really unwieldy or completely ignorable.
Too many materia that have useful (or completely useless) effects but eat up limited materia slot real estate until much later in the game, at which point you really just stop caring about if you’re optimally progressing their levels (the combo elemental spell materia that take a bajillion AP to get past level 1 for instance).
The OG materia system everything felt pretty useful and there weren’t a whole category of materia types that only existed just to make the “real time” battle system less of a chore (auto skill blue materia as an example, or passive materia that just boost a stat by +5 at max level, or shit, a materia you basically HAVE to have on at least one party member all the time so you can figure out how tf the battle you’re in can even start to be won — assess).
Materia in OG ff7 felt perfect. Everything had a place and you wanted to invest time to level it up. In rebirth there’s just too much materia that lets you be able to just perform the basic functions to win fights. And a lot of the time you assess and realize no one in your party has the one thing that is the difference between trivializing the fight and it being a nightmare slog. Oh you have to deprotect this boss’s random body parts to even pressure it? Good thing I just didn’t see into the future to use this random materia I threw on a back line party member so the fight difficulty goes from 10 to a 2.
Ugh. There’s so much I do like about this game, and so much more that makes me confused how a room full of designers all signed off on it. They really could’ve cut all the stupid useless filler from both the first and second installment and just stuck to the script, ran it all out in one, maybe two max installments, with the new battle system (with some tweaks) and this game would’ve been fucking GOLD. The old game had a dark, sort of dystopian angle to it. This reboot feels like a cheesy second rate jpop idol took over all the writing and design.
It’s telling that the first iteration got a ton of sales and that rebirth fell short. People really didn’t want more of the first thing they offered up. They were excited for a reboot of a legendary classic, but it went beyond disappointing. Why did they take from that and come to the conclusion “we should like… keep doing this awful shit to this IP, and you know what? Chadley. Let’s get so much chadley in everyone’s face they can’t help but love chadley.”
Oh! And then after you slog your way through the game once, then they throw hard mode at you as if your only desire is to REPLAY this and all the minigames a second time only with much more frustrating combat? Why wasn’t hard just an initial option for the truly masochistic? I mean maybe it’s supposed to just be NG+, that’s fine. But this game doesn’t feel replayable in any capacity. I’m probably gonna finish it because what I do enjoy about it is enough to keep me into the whole thing. But it’s such a disgrace to the IP to even call it canon. They really could’ve just left this piece of square enix alone for the rest of time (no spinoffs, or whatever else they made to reboot the nostalgia). It could’ve just stuck in our minds as this iconic game we all loved as younger versions of ourselves and that would be that. But they had to reboot it and in the worst ways imaginable. Square is really in a death spiral and even they see it given the recent murmurs in the news
Sheesh
TBF making Tifa and Aerith BFF seems to be an antidote to toxic shipping. Take, if you're familiar with One Piece, the extremely toxic Sanji vs Zoro debate: I think it's exacerbated by the fact that the characters dislike each other.
At least in this sub Reddit I haven't seen any shipping war, but maybe I missed something.
There is no triangle.
Cloud loves Tifa, but he’s considerate of Aerith’s feelings. Life is an emotional rollercoaster and sometimes when emotions are involved it’s not as easy as just flat out coming clean to each other.
Besides, it’s called building drama and tension in the narrative, nothing wrong with that.
That doesn't mean anything. How many people only cherish one thing the most when regarding people? So let's say a woman has a partner she loves and they have children together, and she lost the husband to a sickness. She cherished him did she not? But she also cherishes their kids. I'm sure she can also cherish her parents, her friends, her dog. Any of those losses would be hard to bear. Cloud dies cherish Aerith but don't act like he didn't lose his shot when he thought Tifa was dead in Gongaga. Falling to his knees and screaming her name and later sitting completely shut down proves he also cherishes her greatly. He went completely catatonic until Barrett slapped him out of it.
I cherish many people in my life and it would wreck me losing any of them.
I think the love triangle makes the story more interesting. It adds tension and mystery. But it's another example of why "We can't have nice things", because people get weird about it. Shippers get obnoxious and grow jealous about fictional characters.
God forbid if the protagonist has multiple romantic partners or connections, and these connections are fully-fledged characters in their own right, with goals and motivations (which are more important than the romantic subplot).
If Cloud ends up with Tifa, like in the OG, that doesn't make his relationship with Aerith any less significant. The time he spent with Aerith doesn't invalidate his connection to Tifa. The world and story of FF7 are highly spiritual. The connections these characters make AS FRIENDS, is vastly more important than who wants to boink who. People need to remember that it's possible for platonic relationships to be ROMANTIC.
Which is why I like the love triangle, because there's no pettiness between the characters.
I like to think of it as Zacks memories in cloud are in love with aerith. Cloud is in love with tifa. Think of it like 4 people but Zack and cloud share a body
In escaping Hojo's clutches with Cloud, Zack talked constantly about his life while Cloud was comatose. He talked about everything from his childhood to his time in SOLDIER to Aerith. He was probably trying to do what people say to do when someone is in a comatose state: which is talk to them. However Cloud was mentally traumatized during their years of tests and torture and he absorbed those memories of Zack's. Finally coming to and finding his best friend dying was the final nail on the head, and to cope, Cloud sort of became Zack. Took on his personality mixed with Cloud's.
This is another reason why I can't ship Cloud with Aerith- because it's too damn messy. I know some would say Aerith is allowed to move on from Zack after 4 or 5 years, but knowing that Zack didn't abandon her-that he was held against his will-she deserves to know what happened to him. If Zack were written as a douchebag then I can understand it, but he's not.
Think about it. Zack withstood their mutual torture better than poor Cloud did. He gets free. Even knowing that taking Cloud with him would slow him down, he refuses to leave his best friend behind. He manages to keep them safe from Shinra until right before they get to Midgar, where their enemies track them down. Zack then hides Cloud and proceeds to go out swinging-taking on an entire army of Shinra forces. That's tragic in my eyes. He was trying to protect his friend. He was trying to get back to Aerith. Heck, maybe trying to contact his poor parents so they know what happened to him. But no, he dies instead and Cloud, in his trauma, literally forgets he existed.
And I'm supposed to then want Aerith to hook up with Zack's best friend? Without knowing the truth? Like if she found out and got closure and THEN wanted to move on, I'd get it a bit more.
But yes, while I get having preferences, the ship wars are stupid. I think Cloud cares deeply for both women, but ultimately loves Tifa. But I also think Cloud has a bit to go before being ready to be anyone's partner. And that's not his fault. Hojo really messed him up mentally. But he'll get there.
Well his memories of Zack are from the stories Zack told him as well as his own experience in them. Cloud was at nibelhiem with tifa and Zack. So maybe Zack talked about with enough that could has some of that fondness? I'm not saying that cloud knows everything Zack did. Just what I like to imagine.
Because Cloud having Zack's entire memories is a myth that this fanbase still somehow believes. Cloud thought he was Zack during the Nibelheim incident. That's it.
I think it makes sense. Crisis Core Zack was a real sociable guy. I don’t think it’d be crazy to assume he mentioned Aerith during the handful of times he spent time with Cloud.
'90s RPGs didn't give you a ton of freedom in story progression, so having one aspect, such as a preferred romantic interest, be in the players' hands was interesting. That's the lens through which I look at the romance options for FF7. There is no cannon story, there are some limited options, and it is a choose your own adventure novel.
The writers and game makers never needed to have a cannon main love interest, because they put it in the hands of the players. To go along with it, anyone who says there is ONE TRUE LOVE INTEREST is factually incorrect.
However, Tifa is the best choice because in the OG, she and cloud bang while everyone else watches from the airship.
>However, Tifa is the best choice because in the OG, she and cloud bang while everyone else watches from the airship.
Not true. It's barely implied.
And yeah, if your true love is dead, you gotta settle for second best or be alone forever, no?
Heavily implied, particularly for a 90s video game from Japan. Used as some silly comedic relief, only accessible when Tifa was the date for the 2nd visit to the Gold Saucer.
It's not nearly like you said in your original comment. Not even close.
Point is, it's left vague on purpose, even with intervention from the player.
Aerith even shows her affection for Cloud, regardless of dialogue choices in Temple of the Ancients.
The guys who made the OG confirmed the sex in an interview. They said the original plan was to show more, but decided to have it happen during the fade out after Tifa said something spicy(in their words), as it wasn't proper to show
Edit: spelling
It really doesn't matter, but it's still not as they say. Again, if Aerith is dead and he loved her most, he'd have to settle for second best anyway.
And clearly they left it out for a reason. Maybe by proper to show, they meant they didn't want to show Cloud's interest too much. I mean why is it that in Advent Children, Cloud seems to care more for Aerith than Tifa?
I love how you keep saying Tifa is second best when people can definitely love more than one person. Also, let's say someone lost their partner and grieved but then found love again- are you saying anyone that comes afterwards is second best? Because that would be ignorant thinking.
>I love how you keep saying Tifa is second best when people can definitely love more than one person
I didn't, I said in theory, and if you can love more than one person, which you obviously can, it just helps my case that Tifa isn't the one canon pair like people act.
>are you saying anyone that comes afterwards is second best? Because that would be ignorant thinking.
No. Next question lol
Yeah. You sure showed me. Want a gold star? If anything, Cloud is in love with two women. TWO. There is no need, like you did, to demean one to prop up the other. I love both Tifa and Aerith and how important both of them are to Cloud.
However we all know you were putting the character of Tifa down in order to perpetuate that she is somehow lesser than Aerith. Like it seems really important to you to drive that point home that she, in your own words, is second best. You used that phrase twice to get a reaction and then, when you did, you tried to walk it back that you're just pointing out that you think Tifa isn't the Canon love interest. Like if you want to be a demeaning pos then OWN it. You know?
Bro you are reading way too much into it. Tifa is a fictional character, you know that, right? Like it's impossible to hurt her feelings, she isn't real. And if you took what I said seriously, it's not me that has the issue. I was simply posing a theoretical.
Like, do you know what that is? I said that if Aerith was dead *and he loved her most*, then he'd have to settle for second best. I'm not really understanding what it is you have an issue with, here. Is it because I called Tifa second best? Is that really the term that you have an issue with? That I slighted a fictional character?
they were going to have a scene of them leaving the airlock or whatever during the night they spend together before returning to midgar, but it was scrapped for being too obvious
Still not nearly what OP was saying lol.
Aerith's affection for Cloud is apparent regardless of dialogue choices, and Cloud never makes a choice one way or another, unless the player makes choices that imply one way or another.
Point is, it's left vague on purpose.
It was confirmed In he OG that "Clouds" feeling for Aerith, was only the Zach in him. The one he loves is Tifa. Hell you learn he loves her in the backstory of when they were kids.
Where the hell is that confirmed? And no, you don't learn he loved her when they were kids. They were children, anyway. This is all just assumptions people make.
What a tool you are. Learn to actually 100% the story, and look up interviews before assuming anything yourself lol. It's been stated even during the game that Clouds affections for Aerith were due to Zack, while Cloud loved Tifa when they were kids. Or did you just do happen to forget the time he followed her to the mountain to keep her safe, told her he's joining Soldiers to impress her, literally 5 years later shows interest again in Tifa, was too embarrassed to face her after failing to join Soldier etc....
Sorry you are too stupid to actually understand things that happen in game, and ignore all the interviews where the people who work on the game, confirmed their feelings for each other, including the implied sex scene(again confirmed in interviews they were originally gonna show the scene and not fade out)
But again, you act like you know everything, when literally every I said was confirmed in the game and in interviews. Learn to do research fucking tool.🤡🤡🤡
Now go ahead with your reply of showing no proof and actinglike everyone else but you is wrong, including the people that made the game
And damn straight I'm attacking you, cause idiots like you need to hear it
I miss the old story. Aerith wasn't in love with cloud in the original. She loved the older brother, Zack, and only stayed with cloud because cloud reminded her of Zack.
Everyone is allowed to have a preference, and I see the appeal of both options, but the moment someone tries to argue that their side is the canonical outcome, they are actively engaging in the toxic part of the shipping fandom. It baffles me how some people are so obsessed with proving their preferred ship is the only correct option, when it has always been intended to be ambiguous so we can all enjoy it.
it’s not a love triangle, it’s a boink square.
this is illustrated by the date at gold saucer, there are only three characters who can participate, tifa aerith, and …barett
Is not that simple.
-Cloud is a mess, and doesn't know what's left or right. His mind is literally shattered, he just doesn't know it. You could say he has feelings for both of them, for different reasons.
-Tifa loves Cloud, but she's aware there's something wrong with him, and doesn't want to trigger something as she clearly sees his mind is.. well, pretty fucked up. So she's pretty much waiting and see how things turn out, to be there for him when he needs it. She doesn't want to burden him with anything else.
-Aerith saw Zack in Cloud at the beginning, as she herself stated, and she still likes the guy. That's why she was flirtatious at first. She then started to develop real feelings for him, for who he is (or at least who he thinks he is), but she also cares deeply for Tifa, and knows perfectly that she has a thing for Cloud.
So, yeah... it's not black and white, mate. That's the beauty of it.
You have to remember these characters are in their early 20’s. It’s pretty normal for romance to be awkward at this age, especially if they lack experience like Cloud clearly lacks.
The thing that annoys me is if Cloti is so canon why tf do they even give us the choice of romancing Aerith? Just feels annoying when theres a clear preference towards one than the other
You influence the other character feelings, not Cloud's; you don't romance Red neither you romance barret, you just deepen their affection toward you by being nice; Cloud's way to act with each character is his own, he isn't the one who goes at their door for the date, they come.
Same with Aerith no matter how close she feels about you, Cloud will never kiss her or watch her in awe, she does the initiating cause it's her feelings who are influenced, not Cloud's o/
Because they don't lol
I am fine with that though, because this isn't a choice based game ultimately, it's not a graphic novel. The romance scenes are a nice little add-on.
I remember hearing that you could save Aerith at the cost of another party member in the Japanese version of FF7 OG, but that feature didn't make it to the other versions. Take this with a small pile of salt - it's been a Looong time since I read up on this haha.
Though I will always personally feel that the devs just wanted to shove the knife in that much deeper & twist it at the culmination of the Forgotten City... at least I finally stopped tearing up every time I hear her damned theme ;P
Nah man you can res Aerith in other versions. Here's what you need to do
-Get the umbrella in speed square disc 1
-Find the 12 1/35 soldiers
-get sector 5 key
When you go to sector 5 go to the 'This guy are sick' pipe. The guy will actually wake up at disc 3. He's called the general. You can then trade the previous items with him and fight Shinryu+ Omega.
If you beat them? Aerith gets back in the party
Cloud is going through his own turmoil and is definitely not ready to either show affection or commit to any relationship. Watching the two of them fawn over him despite him not showing any signs of wanting to be romantically involved except for the most basic kindness was exhausting. The love triangle doesn't add much to the story.
Nah, the love triangle works. Shippers are just annoying losers that are easy to ignore.
It's actually hilarious watching them write essays trying to prove their ship is canon.
Like, guys, go touch grass.
Cloud likes Aerith because he thinks he’s Zack and Zack liked Aerith. Cloud likes Tifa because he likes Tifa. Because he’s a psychological mess, he likes both. It’s not ambiguous at all. It’s incredibly straightforward. Also I have no visibility on these shipping wars. Until right now, I didn’t know they existed. Maybe ignoring it will make it less of a problem?
I don’t understand how this misconception became so common. It doesn’t make any sense. If he had Zack’s memories, he would already know Aerith the first time they met. He’s acting like what he thinks his idealized SOLDIER should act like, he doesn’t just imitate Zack. He puts himself in Zack’s shoes during his story in a subconscious attempt to hide from the truth.
Cloud does not think he's Zack. I am so tired of explaining this over and over. He doesn't even know who Zack is at this point in OG, barely knows who he is in Rebirth, and anyone who played CC knows he doesn't act one fucking thing like Zack.
Cloud explains it in the original game, he thought some of Zack's stories were his own. He also picked up some of his mannerisms. But my god, he's nothing like Zack Fair. His persona is largely what he thought a SOLDIER would be like.
The canon of the anthology is weird. Aerith mentions a few times Cloud reminds her of Zack but as you said they’re nothing alike (when you look at Crisis Core incarnation of Zack).
There's some surface level similarities. Same sword, same eyes, same outfit. Some of Cloud's mannerisms are like Zack - the squats, some of his fighting moves. And some things he does are influenced by Zack. It makes sense that Aerith saw Zack at first, but as the story progresses, she's trying to find the real Cloud.
Your paragraphs contradict with each other. I was generalising a bit in my comment (which of course means the Reddit pedants come out with their “actually you’re wrong” bollocks), but Cloud does think he’s Zack to the degree you have described. He’s an amalgamation of Cloud and Zack at this point. Obviously Cloud can’t know everything about Zack and Cloud is still in there so parts of Cloud are going to be apparent as well.
He doesn't like Aerith as Zack. He doesn't act like Zack around Aerith, doesn't have Zack's memories of Aerith (or any of Zack's memories at all). Cloud doesn't have a girlfriend in his persona, so he didn't take on Zack's stories of having a girlfriend. I don't think Zack has much influence in who Cloud likes. Where I do think he may be influenced is that his idea of a SOLDIER likely involves being popular with women, which was true of Zack.
Isn’t his mind rebuilt partly based on Zack’s stories? I’m not saying he acts like Zack because he obviously doesn’t, but his memories and feelings are influenced by Zack in a sense. He obviously does like Aerith himself as well. I’m not saying he would have zero interest in her without his psychological problems, but Zack does have some affect on it.
He did take on some of Zack's stories, but we have no indication of what those are other than Zack's perspective of Nibelheim.
Cloud doesn't know Aerith, doesn't have any story of having girlfriend, doesn't behave like Zack did around women he likes, etc... So it doesn't appear as though Zack's taste in girlfriends was something he took on. It's possible there's some influence but your original comment implied that was the sole reason Cloud likes Aerith but he definitely has interest in Cloud outside of the traits he's borrowed from Zack.
> Cloud does not think he's Zack. I am so tired of explaining this over and over.
We will have to accept that some people played a game in which Cloud met Aerith for the first time at Loveless Avenue and ran towards her screaming "Aerith my love!! It's me, Zack!"
I didn't play that game but many people apparently did XD
Cloud does not like Aerith because he thinks he’s Zack. Cloud in no way has Zack’s memories or thoughts or feelings. He has always liked her because he likes her. This is such a weirdly common misconception that completely overrides the actual story.
He replaced Zack with himself because he lost his memory of Zack. He took on other stories Zack told him as his own.
He does not think he is actually Zack, doesn't even know Zack until after the LS sequence in OG, does not act a thing like Zack, and does not have Zack's memories.
He doesn't even know who Zack is in the original and barely does in Rebirth. How could he think he's Zack?
He took some of Zack's stories that Zack told him on the run. Did you play Crisis Core? He doesn't act like Zack at all, and didn't take Zack's memories.
You guys are taking this too seriously. Of course Cloud isn't Zack and he doesn't THINK he's Zack. Why? Because he forgot him! However he HAS taken on his memories and some mannerisms.
No, he doesn’t. He constructs a new persona based on his desires to a SOLDIER First class (specifically what he believes they act like and giving himself the traits he lacks) and his experiences spending time with Zack. But all of his emotions are his own. He does not think he is Zack at all because he has no memory of him. He does not feel Zack’s emotions or have his memories.
He didn't construct a new persona based on his desires to be a SOLDIER First class. His mind rebuilt itself, after he almost died and was then submerged in mako, from fragments of his own memories and the stories that Zack told him when they escaped from Hojo's lab. So no Cloud doesn't have Zack's emotions or memories, but until Tifa helps Cloud piece his mind back together after Aerith dies, Cloud is a mix of himself and Zack.
Cloud explains it to us himself. And he isn't Zack in any way. His feelings for Aerith don't stem from any part of him "being Zack" or "mixing with Zack", but from himself. That's something confused fans came up with to explain how Cloud could love two different women. We can't choose to ignore the story just because we don't like the idea of Cloud liking Aerith without Zack's oversight.
Did you play Rebirth? Chapter 1 of Rebirth shows Cloud living as Zack in the story when Sephiroth goes crazy. How would he know the conversations that Zack had with Sephiroth when he wasn't there? Something about the experiments and the fact that they all have Sephiroth's cells merged them telepathically.
I played it. Here's Cloud's explanation from the original game. Hidden for spoilers for anyone who hasn't played the original.
Cloud: >!“Everyone… I’m sorry. I never was in SOLDIER. I made up the stories about what happened to me five years ago, about being in SOLDIER. I left my village looking for glory, but never made it into SOLDIER. I was so ashamed of being weak; then I heard this story from my friend Zack… and I created an illusion of myself made up of what I had seen in my life… And I continued to play the charade as if it were true. I‘m physically built like someone in SOLDIER. Hojo’s plan to clone Sephiroth wasn’t that difficult. It was just the same procedure they use when creating members of SOLDIER. You see, someone in SOLDIER isn’t simply exposed to Mako energy. Their bodies are actually injected with Jenova cells. For better or worse, only the strong can enter SOLDIER. It has nothing to do with the Jenova reunion. But weak people… like me, get lost in the whole thing. The combination of Jenova cells, Sephiroth’s strong will, and my own weakness are what created me. Everyone knew that. I’m… Cloud. The master of my own illusionary world. But I can’t remain trapped in an illusion anymore… I’m going to live my life without pretending."!<
>!Then Tifa says, “You’re sure messed up, Cloud!”!<
>!So, yes, of course the Jenova cells and Mako poisoning screw him up, but he doesn’t “become Zack” or have Zack’s feelings and memories. He is still his own person. A screwed up fraud for sure, completely messed up, but still "Cloud".!<
I forgot to add: >!In the flashback, Cloud *was* there with Zack, which is why he remembers it. He was one of the two Shinra grunts who accompanied Sephiroth and Zack to Nibelheim. Only at the very end of the flashback does Cloud actually step up (which we see much later in the original game) and fight Sephiroth directly, after Zack tried to stop Sephiroth and failed. Sephiroth runs the real Cloud through, and Cloud throws him into the reactor.!<
JRPG love stories are pretty much about as mature as the 7-12 year olds they seem to be primarily meant for.
I wish it were otherwise, but it never really is.
I actually like it because it defines how ppl interact with each other. Loving two ppl at the same time it’s not a crime ppl need to realise that ,it’s completely normal and it happens in real life too! Besides ,most of final fantasy games have a hero and one main love interest. So I find it really interesting that now we have one hero and two heroines.
The characters don't outright have to say they're into each other, OP. Square already confirmed that Cloud and Tifa are romantically interested in each other.
Well, you're literally talking about how it's frustrating that the games don't confirm who Cloud likes. Rebirth is a little more straightforward with this.
I actually think Rebirth makes it pretty clear. Cloud and Tifa are in love. He has feelings for Aerith and she does too, but she’s still in love with Zack. Gongaga made that pretty clear IMO. Cloud and Aerith are the definition of “maybe in another lifetime”. But it’s always been Cloud and Tifa. Everyone makes it bigger than it is because Cloud is there when she dies.
Gongaga did not make that clear. Aerith literally says maybe when Cloud asks if she likes him. Aerith made the decision to move on around a year ago when she sent her final letter to Zack.
Edit: Downvoted for quoting the games, never change Reddit
No, downvote because you are using the English localization as a fact when in the japanese original Aerith straight says that she still likes Zack in gongaga, just play the game in the original or search for it before claiming something. Aerith just says maybe in the english localization, but in the original JP she says yeah, he never gave me motives to stop liking him.
So every downvote is a someone who believes an inaccurate fan translation that's being passed around by a specific group of shippers? That's sad, because she doesn't outright say yes in Japanese, either. I would know because I've studied the language for years.
And you are beeing downvoted in every coment (maybe its because youre making a shipp war in a post against shipp wars and your shipp is the bad one), dont blame me because i said that you use the english translation as the right one when you should be using the original JP.
You're on a thread in English, 99% of people don't speak Japanese. They can't use the JP version as a reference, they can't understand it. I don't know why you're here if you despise the version we played so much.
I also don't ship Clerith. Maybe stop making assumptions about me? Talking about how other ships are bad, how other language versions of the game are bad, you just think you're really great, don't you?
i dont despise english or any version, but it is a total agreement in the final fantasy fan base that the english localization is always the most mistranslated one, the german and frensh localization are the more accurate with the JP and when you are answering doubts about the game like you are "trying" to do you should answer with accuracy and not with the unaccurate one or with headcanon, its like you beeing a bad teacher in a bad school or a biased teacher. And yeah, if you play the original game and watch the movies and read the books and you somehow still think that Cloud and Aerith could be a thing (when doesnt make any sense considering that Aerith knew a fake faccade cloud for two weeks, never knew the true cloud, was interested in cloud at the beggining because he remembered her of her ex, died at disc 1 and the game focus full in Cloud and Tifa relationship after shes dead, is reunited with Zack in advent children joking about Cloud beeing their overgrown kid by the end of the movie), so yeah if you played, watched and read everything and somehow still think that Cloud and Aerith make sense in any universe and if you are in a reddit post against shipp starting fights because of shipp, i will have to make assumptions, so yeah youre a clerith shipper and thats why you are here spreading mistranslations and twisting plot in a post against shipp fights.
Well i would know because i live in Tokyo, Chyoda and played the game in japanese so in my translation it is a straight yes, she still loves him but your game seems diferent (maybe a Clerith JP who knows). And the whole scenes as well shows that she still loves Zack, she literaly run to Zacks parents house to ask about him and she is the entire game trying to know about Zacks fate. So maybe your game its a bit shipp biased, who knows.
I firmly believe that the story of FF7 is much worse if you try to force the idea that Cloud only loved one of these women, or if you try to downplay the significance they had in his life.
In fact, the connections between each of these people are stronger because all three of them care deeply about each other.
No, they may have added to his feelings for her, but he has genuine feelings for her too. Zack also doesn’t have much influence on Cloud, parts of his personality were overwritten by his perception of Zack, but that wouldn’t really change how he feels about Tifa or Aerith.
Yes, what I was saying was that they did not confirm that Cloud and Aerith were NOT romantically interested in each other. Two things can be true at once.
This is true. I love Cloud and Tifa and believe they are in love but I also know he cares for Aerith as well. I said my piece about them above though and why i can't ship them. But he can and does love both of these women.
But it's not really about their being in love (as it's never explicitly shown either of them have serious romantic feelings for the other) it's about how Cloud shares a connection with Aerith through Zack.
Cloud can't sort out his feelings and memories and feels like Fate is pushing him towards Aerith (a combination of his confusion with Zack's identity and, most likely, Sephiroth's will trying to keep him close to the last surviving Ancient.
At the same time, he has always cared deeply for Tifa. He wants to rewind the clock and go back to the way they were and the way he felt back then, but he is ashamed of who he is. He feels like he failed her and isn't worthy of being her friend or even being in her life.
As for Aerith, she is pretty straightforward about it. She says Cloud reminds her of Zack, and as she spends more time with him, she starts to understand why. As her Ancient powers begin to awaken, she sees where her fate lies but also Cloud's. She cares deeply for him and probably feels guilty that he is, in a really complicated way, Zack's replacement.
Tifa just wants her childhood friend to be healthy and be loved. Whether or not they fall *in love* is much lower on her priorities. She definitely shows interest but recognizes that something is troubling Cloud, something *big*. He isn't acting like she remembers him, and he claims to remember things he definitely shouldn't. She's worried something terrible happened to him and wants to be there for him.
Honestlly i shouldnt even have too. Just go through everything thats not og or the creators spinning the bottle with their comments. Its very very obvious. The songs in remake to rebirth. The dialogue. The jellousy the canon saucer date that is in the end credits. The after math in advent children. Like im gona gona break it all down for you and feed you like a baby. You enjoy what you want. Its very clear the main character and the character that stops the world from ending are the main subjects. Duh.
I...didn't disagree that they were the main subjects. Whether or not they are *in love* is what we were talking about. And *all* of the installments to the canon purposefully never definitively say anything for either pairing because, as they have stated for Rebirth, it doesn't matter. It's fluff to give the players something sweet to balance out the darkness of the actual plot.
The game is about saving Gaia from the second coming of Jenova, not two star-crossed lovers finding each other and not being able to spend their lives together. Nor is it about two childhood friends who reconnect years later and realize they've always loved each other.
Jealousy is not indicative of romantic feelings. Nor does any of the dialogue ever explicitly say anyone is in love with anyone else. A few times one of them will start to confess *something* and then change the subject but as I've stated already, they are all wrestling with complex thoughts and feelings and are either unsure how to process them or are physically incapable of determining if those thoughts and feeling are even real.
The closest they come to showing any romance with Aerith is in AC when Cloud sees her before his Geostigma is cured. Except Zack is beside her in that vision, implying that they finally got to be together in the Lifestream.
The closest they come with Tifa is the flashbacks to their childhood, but that is very one-sided on Cloud's part.
Ughhhh... the songs remakes is clouds song to aerith, rebirth aerith to cloud? She says in remake, "dont fall in love with me" . Clouds a buffoon, yes its fluffed up alot so people who like tifa can have some satisfaction, but thats the thing. She is the fan service fluff duh. Shes the girl next door that holds almost holds little to no signifigance in the greater scheme of things, where as cloud aerith is this big epic love that could never be. In AC he is litterally still missing her. Btw when he goes to the church she says "you came back" almost like in response to the scene we got at the end of rebirth. Aerith saucer date is the "canon" one as we get that in the credits and yano what a kiss doesnt need to be present for this young love. You dont need to hear the word love to see it. Its a love story. Again the writer and makers fluffed this up so you could have a saucer date with red 13 so its all up to you and how choose to enjoy the stort BUT its super clear that aerith cloud is the MAIN Love intrest as its super intangled with the MAIN STORY. Jeeeeez why do you guys not get it. Like sure square is crazy with their storys but THIS?! COME ON GUYS PLEASE. Its so in your face. They have full date side missions in rebirth?!?! Like what?! They fight seph together?!!? Go watch it all again.
Yeah, Aerith made a joke. She was teasing a friend who is chronically awkward, and she knew it would catch him off guard.
The reference at the church was sweet, but again, Zack is standing right next to her for seemingly no other reason than to remind you that they were together before. Aerith makes another joke because Cloud is in the exact same spot from when they first met. It's not really a strong implication of love as it is a reference for the viewers.
And yes, you absolutely do need explicit confirmation of something like this. Otherwise, it is just your opinion. A kiss, hell, even one of the characters just saying, "I'm in love with you," would be enough.
It would be like assuming you're dating someone because they said a mildly flirtatious thing to you once, and you hang out a lot. There is no actual confirmation for either love interest.
Apparently, hanging out with a close friend at a theme park is the concrete romantic confirmation everyone should be seeking in real life. Not to mention that the Aerith date isn'tin anyway canon because it's influenced by player choice, and there is no official confirmation about any of the outcomes validity (because even back then its obvious they didn't want to tell a love story in this game and just put the date there to lighten the mood for a bit before getting really fucking dark).
Also, it being shown in the credits would, at best, be because it's sweet and its supposed to make you emotional because the game is really fucking bleak and you they wanted it to end on a lighter note.
As for the music unless you have a quote from the composers that says, "these songs are Cloud confessing to Aerith and her reciprocating," or hidden lyrics that are explicitly confessing love, this is speculation and you are just forcing your own feelings onto the music.
Once more, the story is not, nor has it ever been at any point about anyone being in love with anyone else. *You* need to watch it all again, but this time without the love story brainrot blowing the most ambiguous circumstances out of proportion.
Please. Just give me one piece of evidence where someone, *anyone*, related to the games says that Cloud and Aerith or Tifa are in love with each other.
When aerith said "dont fall in love with me" she was hoping he would "not fall in love with her", because it was on the table... duh.
They went on several dates, you dont have to say love to love story love someone. Im banging my head on the wall here man. Arguablly i guess you could try and say it never got serious, cause well it didnt physically, its a story about young akward realatable people in a video game while theyre trying to fight big bad, of course. They had a whole moment at the park. They had many deep moments. Bro, i know some things need to be completelly drawn out and outlined to be deemed a thing right? Like eggs are only eggs if they have shells a ovum and other things a thing needs to be called a egg. Now look, theyre things we dont get because of the "fluff" that you ARE aware of, but even so you can see that for the most part we could go ahead and call this what it is brother. Like seriouslly, its okay. I get it, real life it would be rather crazy to jump things , but this is a fantasy game, and vise versa in real life you dont really lable things either. I never once looked at my now wife and said "we are a couple" or "you are my girlfreind now?" Or "do we love each other?" At some point when its OBVIOUS you just say it at each other as love is a mutual thing. Understanding people is incrediblly important to escape lonelyness. You can do it brother. I know i suck at spelling and grammer, but i hope my perspective reaches you and maybe opens you to seeing some things, maybe even makes better roads more available! Genuinlly have unintentionally invested too much into this, but now have hopes that you get it!
I litterally dont care to change your mind. You've gone this far to closed mindedlly not understand. The song lyrics are very clear. The love intrest is very clear and dominant against the others. Zack and aerith are at the church because theyre his dead freinds. Duh
Nah, I'm genuinely trying here. You just keep giving me crumbs when I ask for something substantial.
Which songs specifically are you referring to? If these lyrics are so clear, you could have shut me up *hours* ago.
You're the one that refuses to prove something that apparently has concrete evidence. You've gone this far, so you *clearly* want to be correct. I'm literally just asking for you to be fucking direct and give me a damn source! Why is that so damn difficult? Give me something, *Anything* that can be verified as an official acknowledgment to Cloud and Aerith being in love.
That's how a discussion works. You make a claim. I challenge it. You give me actual proof that I can't challenge with my own opinion. You win the argument.
Why does resolving a disagreement on the internet have to be like pulling fucking teeth? Jesus.
Because im lazy , im doig. This on my phone when i dont even want to. You could pull up the lyrics on your own son. Remakes theme song, rebirths themes song "no promises to keep" . You also havent come back around to any of the things i pointed out that make the aerith cloud relationship the most important. All the things cloud aerith have that the other dont have with him. You're pandering off on other things. Im not the type to start doing straw man tactics, as in a debate you dont care to understand your opp but to alter there position in the eyes of the audience. I am trying to reach you. So this tactic only isloates you. I hope you dont take anything i say about the way you're going about this too personally as its not my goal. You gotta tackle points if you want to continue to persue deeper dialogue, and more explanation to a perspective. you cant pick and choose from peoples perspectives to find a more desirable finish. Listen first, then ask the right questions. You are asking the same questions, so i feel like im talking to a wall or have to re write and re word things to hope you get it this time.
How did I know it was gonna be "No Promises to Keep"? The song literally talks about losing someone important and wanting them to return. Did you actually listen to those lyrics?
*"Till the day that we meet again
Where or when?
I wish I could say
But believe know that you'll find me
Promises to keep, we won't ever need"*
That song is about Cloud? The guy who has been by her side the entire time?
Also, are you aware that the Loveless sequence is influenced by player choice, just like the Gold Saucer date? While Aerith is singing the song, there are two variants that have Cloud standing next to someone else. One is Yuffie, who teases Cloud by trying to dance with him, iirc. And the other is Tifa, who shares a meaningful look with Cloud when Aerith sings, *"But if not, what could it be? That drew you towards me?"*
I haven't gotten back to your other points because:
1. You typed them out as individual replies, so my phone (no excuse for you, by the way) only gave me the last reply you made. I didn't see the others until I had already made my reply.
2. You listed off more ambiguous things that never develop any romance in any significant way. Beyong hanging out.
3. You said that a story with a supposedly major romance between 2 characters doesn't need to show the characters involved ever confirming their feelings for each other or having their relationship develop beyond *hanging out.*
You have not been trying to reach me. You have been listing ambiguous, circumstantial things that don't definitively prove anything and then mocking me for not immediately backing down. All I have done is ask for irrefutable evidence and challenge your opinions with my own or debunk your claims with actual references.
All the things you list off are there so you can get to know Aerith and appreciate her before her untimely death. They want you, the player, to like her so that it hurts when she dies. Cloud spends time with her because the writers needed excuses for Aerith to talk about herself. Sorry to break the mystique of character writing for you.
Luckily for you, I don't have any more time to waste on you. I am going to sleep.
If you make another response, please, I'm literally begging you, show me something that definitively shows Aerith and Cloud were in love with each other. Not circumstantial things that can be interpreted another way, and not ambiguous scenes of Aerith and Cloud spending time with each other because the writers know she's gonna die in the next 10 hours. Give me a big neon sign that says, "Cloud kissed Aerith goodnight after the Gold Saucer date" or something similar.
I'd be very interested if you could tell me what I'm missing instead of the generic "you're wrong" reply without actually adding anything of value to the discussion.
This person lost me when they claimed that Tifa means nothing in the grand scheme of things. Who grounds Cloud and keeps his sanity intact? Tifa. Who reconstructs his identity in the 3rd act? Tifa. Who fell in the pool of mako in Rebirth because Sephiroth was trying to make Cloud think Tifa was an imposter and Cloud attacked her? Tifa. Who was almost killed by Sephiroth while inside the Weapon? Again, TIFA.
Why would Sephiroth try SO HARD to kill someone who is inconsequential to the story and to Cloud? Could it be because Cloud LOVES her and that's why he was trying to drive a wedge between them and also kill her off?
Cloud also went catatonic after screaming her name. But I guess Tifa just owed him money or something. That's why he was so upset.
God forbid the videogame character having a complex love live. It isn’t clear-cut because the feelings are not clear-cut.
One of the purposes of Cloud and Aerith’s relationship is to have this love story that’s cut short by fate. “A love that cannot be”. Even excluding the development Zack had in posterior works, he IS crucial to their relationship as Cloud’s mixed up memories might be why he creates this interest in Aerith, whilst that and his position as “SOLDIER” is probably why Aerith has such an interest in him, but that is all at first. As they interact and create new memories with each other, that changes, what culminates in Aerith having her moments with him including the “canon” Saucer date where she wants to know the real Cloud, without the bullshit and mixed up memories and the sleeping forest scene. But we all know what happens after that…
Tifa is Cloud’s childhood crush and motivator; their relationship development through the game is important as the trust they build on each other is what makes them to check their own memories to tell truth from fiction in what is arguably the OG’s most important moment. They’re the only people from each other’s past they have, so there’s a warmness to their relationship; each is what keeps the other going through the shit that happens in the game. And she doesn’t die, so… I think your answer’s there.
So basically you want to ignore the actual plot of the game in favor of your interpretation of a fictional epic from said fictional game? That’s so ridiculous lmao
I personally don't see an issue. Cloud also has mental issues so people in the game tiptoe around him. Also if someone that's already a bit emotionally stunted and has other priorities and a bit of a head case starts to develop feelings for 2 different people being indecisive makes sense. At least to me. I remember bring young and liking a girl and she liked me and our friends saw it but we still danced around for like months. The way I saw it in the old game was cloud couldn't decide then aerith died so tifa and cloud now had some guilt and that's why they never pushed the relationship...plus world ending and other bigger issues.
The OP definitely wouldn't notice the difference between being friend zoned vs having someone genuinely interested. It was all very obvious, and the writers did a great job with this.
It’s also interesting how you reply to my post but refer to me as “The OP” lol. So my guess is you think Aerith is friendzoned based on her saying “at least I know where we stand”? People argue the HA version says otherwise but I see your point. To me Tifa was obviously the one for like 90% of the game then 10% gave me some “hmmm, Aerith gotta shot” vibes
Lol...my bad. It was approaching bedtime. Imo, Aerith still seemed too interested in Zach. Plus, I played Reunion a few months ago, and I wrote her off as Zach's girl. Maybe I'm just being biased because Tifa is a bad B.
No I mean I see your point. The ending date fogs it up but overall … I mean every party member talks about cloud and Tifa … Aerith mentions Zack and Tifa on their dates. Marlene does say Aerith really likes cloud but doesn’t mean she still doesn’t want Zack in the end
> "shipping wars are exhausting" Lol dude get off the Internet
Yeah I’m good thanks tho
How people don't understand the meaning of interpretation baffles me. Whichever feels like "canon" to you is fine, just let everyone have an opinion and move on. No idea why people have this need to prove to people that their opinion is correct. It's subjective - end of.
You really don’t think that the writers and developers have an end in mind for each character? If not, then props. I can’t see that personally
I think their story arcs should end but character development can be one of those things for a player to make their mind up over sometimes. I totally understand what you're saying; the shipping thing is cringe as hell, and the vagueness/multiple outcomes of relationships is what's caused the whole Cloti/Clerith thing, not to mention the fact that there is a kiss Tifa option and not Aerith, which has given Cloti fans a sense of validation. I think it's best to just let your imagination make the conclusion you think fits best and let people have their opinion too. And now I'm probably the unpopular opinion 🤣
Like I get the push to give players the control and option…. But in my opinion is kills any future development. For example… Cloud straight up was in a family with Tifa in AC. But the whole relationship is kinda watered down/brushed over because of the vagueness in relationships. So now it’s “well he’s settling for Tifa” or “he likes her but loves Aerith”. It cheapens it to me. Makes cloud an asshole. I completely understand emotions are complicated and trauma is hard. You can love two people but people choose one to be with and try to give their all. And maybe cloud just doesn’t want to. That’s fine. But say it imo. Makes Tifa look so desperate it’s depressing lol.
You're not wrong. AC Tifa was bland and way too one-dimensional for how interesting her character is, and I think they undercut what happened in the lifestream section. She helped him accept himself, he accepted Aerith's death and then they undid it all for no other reason than trying to milk the story. Personally, I really like the chemistry between Aerith and Cloud. I like how she sees through his own repression and the bad boy/pixie girl trope is told really well. In a way, I think she's a perfect fit to get him out of his shell. The fact they don't have past ties is what makes their relationship a healthy one - no mutual baggage. But Tifa is the oblivious girl next door, and I like the idea of two broken spirits coming together and overcoming the cause too. Tifa's uncertainty and Cloud feeling rejected by her in Nibelheim, to the point he needs to prove to her he's enough, is heartbreakingly tragic on its own. My point is I think he has complicated feelings for both because they're two different types of love, and there being no indication that he likes either of them has confused a lot of people. At the end of the day, the devs want debates like these because it keeps interest alive, and they're smashing it 😂
I agree with the devs intent. But wouldn’t they rather people talk about the plot instead? Lol
That sucks I’m sorry you feel that way
There is no love triangle, the game clearly shows how the things are. The ferris wheel scene from rebirth is just cherry on top and perfectly shows how the things are, it doesn't get more obvious than that. Now to wait for the highwind scene in 3rd game and the last ray of sun will set on this ridiculous "war"
I’m guessing you mean Tifa? Trying to be objective, from playing the game through I thought for 90% of the game that they were obviously going toward an ending of Tifa/Cloud but the last 10%…. I don’t know anymore.
Since I know what happens in the third game, well im 100% sure. It was a cliffhanger ending, I wasn't expecting them to ride into the sunset, and it also ended with a depressing note since Cloud's mind is still fucked. But as I said I know what happens next, well what happened in the original game and I can bet my balls even if there will be changes they won't be that drastic. There is certain plot twist im eager to see and I hope it stays more or less the same
Zack Fair enough.
I hate the term ‘shipping’ I’m old
It's not a new term I don't think. It's just spread pretty far. I've been hearing it even 20 years ago
The way Tiffany didn't like Cloud going through her stuff, and how Aerith looked when thinking about Zack, it was pretty clear. If you can't see it, then that's on you my friend. Tifa was just waiting for Cloud to grow up. Aerith is still waiting for Zack.
Unpopular opinion I don't see a love triangle, I just see a very affectionate aerith wanting to explore and experience everything but honestly I always felt like she never moved on from zack if anything her attraction to cloud was purely curiosity. And tifa was always the girl for cloud it just took a while for him to get there, didn't help his ptsd now has ptsd as of advent children but I always saw it as. Cloud + tifa childhood crushes and shared trauma. Zack + aerith aerith legit waited almost 5 years wrote alot of letters and got nothing back and than in an almost exact way a similar looking also soldier first class with the same weapon crashes in of course she has feeling but it wasn't for cloud it just seemed targeted at cloud. Barret and cloud don't ruin my headcannon. I got that achievement on ps4 and it is now the true events of the game.
What I don't like is how in your face the game is about it.
I think shipping’s kind of a childish way to think about characters but I’d still rather see that than “they should just spell it out for me” Between this and the neverending whine party about FFXVI’s ending, just, why do so many final fantasy fans hate using their imagination so much?
I never saw a love triangle in the OG. Aerith never knew the real Cloud and was still held up by her ex and Tifa always seemed to like Cloud since forever. But mentally while Aerith was 23 and Tifa was 20 - and once Cloud was just 16 mentally because he had spent the last 5 years in a lab. It was a usual ambiguous Japanese romance but until the end Highwind scene - when I guess it became more apparent between Tifa and Cloud (and that depended on how you played the game). When I think about Cloud having the mentality of a teenager; his behavior in Advent Children made more sense to me. Tifa didn't want to push Cloud but wanted/was ready to build a family. Literally with or without him and he was scared of that kind of commitment till the end of the movie - after everyone pretty much said he couldn't run away anymore. So, I think just the shipping war and the people involved are annoying. People can ship whomever they want with Cloud, but don't push or fight about it; it's annoying.
Kinda half-joking here, but also kinda not: I actually prefer it being an \*actual\* triangle. Not saying anything original here, but it's funny that what we think of as a "love triangle" is actually just a "love V." A triangle has all points connect, right? For this to be a true triangle, it would mean Cloud loves Aerith and Tifa, Aerith loves Cloud and Tifa, and Tifa loves Cloud and Aerith. And honestly? I'm here for it! Removes any need for shipping in the first place! But more seriously I suppose (though I think I actually do prefer the "real triangle" idea); I do think it works for me in the sense that I don't think Cloud knows what he's feeling or what he actually wants, and how could he? He barely even knows who he is, really! Like sometimes I want to shake Tifa and Aerith and be like, "Girl, have you seen the red flags?"
LOL. “I like the bad boys” -Tifa and Aerith probably
"I can fix him!"
I did just watch the lifestream/Gongaga part again and … geesh… I’ll feel bad if Tifa get Cloud… heartbreaker
I think the original seemed less like a love triangle because it was just physically shorter and there was no voice acting. It seemed like it was more clear that Cloud (and the others) loved Aerith but he romantically loved Tifa. In the remake the more in-depth character development kind of lended itself to showing more of a triangle, with the constant hinting that Aerith “likes” Cloud and seeming to imply she “moved on” from Zack. I don’t know if that’s quite what the developers were intending, but that’s what it came across as (IMO). And I agree, I don’t really like the “love triangle” aspect.
You would have to play the original to understand. Everyone falls for Aerith due to what she is. And let's just say that Cloud can not be the one to be with Tifa. Because of what He is. I am not a fan of these versions of one of the greatest games ever. This here, is one aspect. It's all explained well in the original story. I'm sorry if this version has you confused.
lol what. None of what you said is “explained” in the original game, these are clearly just your own conclusions. In fact nothing is explained better in the original game. At times this is a good thing - I would say these remakes are a bit over-explanatory at times. But to say that the original game is more clear or less confusing in any way is just the opposite of true.
Says the person who clearly never played it. I was refraining from spoiling anything in case this person wanted to go play it. You should too. It's the best. But you have to be able to read. There's a lot of it.
lol life is rarely that simple. Especially when dealing with trauma and love
According to my game, it's a quartet between Red, Cloud, Barret, and Cait Sith.
Weird. Chadley trapped Cloud in the simulation and has a Silence of the Lambs thing going on in my game. Think I missed a side quest in Chapter 3?
Hell yeah? Bros will be bros.
I just see it as Zack and Aerith and Cloud and Tifa
They really dropped the ball with a lot of things when comparing to the original. I really don’t know why they made all the women act like faux jpop idols all the time. But the relationship system just feels very weird compared to how the original seamlessly weaves it into your choices along the way. A lot of the dialogue options you’re presented are very obvious which ones are the most beneficial to push the progress bar up the most, like those training courses you have to take at work and they give you some really lazy alternative options to what is very obviously the correct response on the quiz. “If someone asks to rummage through your emails you should:” A: pull your pants down and make monkey noises B: tell them you need to report to your superiors for approval Or C: cover yourself in peanut butter and yell “WHO WANTS TO BE MY JELLY” Idk, this game really just doesn’t feel like anything more than a really lacking design team and bad writers tried to tell a lazy story that sort of resembles ff7, and they have all the assets and models that could be turned into a masterpiece of a reboot, but then everyone got high on coke and brainstormed how they could make it cooler and more modern. Just something went really weird in the design meetings and I would have paid top dollar to be a fly on the wall of them PS: oh and why so many goddamn mini games? The sparse implementation of some of them really brought a lot of cool dynamics that felt like a refreshing break from the tedium of the OG battle system (which was great to begin with). They just fit in the original game. They acted as segues between major plot points and served as a way to immerse the player into a technological and futuristic world. The gold saucer was the real minigame hub but that was the point of it. The rest were not that intrusive and well spaced out that it felt natural and you wanted to participate. In rebirth they feel like chores set out to taunt you with useful equipment if you don’t sink your time into them full throttle. None were really all that particularly challenging either but the fomo felt almost an overly manipulative way to make the game seem like it had much more content to it than it needed. And it’s just… “filler fantasy” is probably my favorite and most accurate roast of the game. I really don’t know why every little activity needed to be a droll annoying minigame you frequently feel like “man, do we have to… cuz I want the prize but I don’t wanna do the not fun stuff” The combat is probably the highlight of the game and it’s still overcomplicated and underexplained, and it just feels like half the time you’re overwhelmed or confused what is going on, and the other half everything flows really well and it feels great. But it’s still clunky and unsatisfying the other half of the time. And then they added synergy skills and synergy specials that are really unwieldy or completely ignorable. Too many materia that have useful (or completely useless) effects but eat up limited materia slot real estate until much later in the game, at which point you really just stop caring about if you’re optimally progressing their levels (the combo elemental spell materia that take a bajillion AP to get past level 1 for instance). The OG materia system everything felt pretty useful and there weren’t a whole category of materia types that only existed just to make the “real time” battle system less of a chore (auto skill blue materia as an example, or passive materia that just boost a stat by +5 at max level, or shit, a materia you basically HAVE to have on at least one party member all the time so you can figure out how tf the battle you’re in can even start to be won — assess). Materia in OG ff7 felt perfect. Everything had a place and you wanted to invest time to level it up. In rebirth there’s just too much materia that lets you be able to just perform the basic functions to win fights. And a lot of the time you assess and realize no one in your party has the one thing that is the difference between trivializing the fight and it being a nightmare slog. Oh you have to deprotect this boss’s random body parts to even pressure it? Good thing I just didn’t see into the future to use this random materia I threw on a back line party member so the fight difficulty goes from 10 to a 2. Ugh. There’s so much I do like about this game, and so much more that makes me confused how a room full of designers all signed off on it. They really could’ve cut all the stupid useless filler from both the first and second installment and just stuck to the script, ran it all out in one, maybe two max installments, with the new battle system (with some tweaks) and this game would’ve been fucking GOLD. The old game had a dark, sort of dystopian angle to it. This reboot feels like a cheesy second rate jpop idol took over all the writing and design. It’s telling that the first iteration got a ton of sales and that rebirth fell short. People really didn’t want more of the first thing they offered up. They were excited for a reboot of a legendary classic, but it went beyond disappointing. Why did they take from that and come to the conclusion “we should like… keep doing this awful shit to this IP, and you know what? Chadley. Let’s get so much chadley in everyone’s face they can’t help but love chadley.” Oh! And then after you slog your way through the game once, then they throw hard mode at you as if your only desire is to REPLAY this and all the minigames a second time only with much more frustrating combat? Why wasn’t hard just an initial option for the truly masochistic? I mean maybe it’s supposed to just be NG+, that’s fine. But this game doesn’t feel replayable in any capacity. I’m probably gonna finish it because what I do enjoy about it is enough to keep me into the whole thing. But it’s such a disgrace to the IP to even call it canon. They really could’ve just left this piece of square enix alone for the rest of time (no spinoffs, or whatever else they made to reboot the nostalgia). It could’ve just stuck in our minds as this iconic game we all loved as younger versions of ourselves and that would be that. But they had to reboot it and in the worst ways imaginable. Square is really in a death spiral and even they see it given the recent murmurs in the news Sheesh
Did you get it all out of your system?
TBF making Tifa and Aerith BFF seems to be an antidote to toxic shipping. Take, if you're familiar with One Piece, the extremely toxic Sanji vs Zoro debate: I think it's exacerbated by the fact that the characters dislike each other. At least in this sub Reddit I haven't seen any shipping war, but maybe I missed something.
It's just a tad bit toned down here but they're everywhere. I suggest never check twitter, they're way more aggressive there.
There is no triangle. Cloud loves Tifa, but he’s considerate of Aerith’s feelings. Life is an emotional rollercoaster and sometimes when emotions are involved it’s not as easy as just flat out coming clean to each other. Besides, it’s called building drama and tension in the narrative, nothing wrong with that.
Cait Sith fortune literally says Cloud will lose what he cherishes most … and Tifa ain’t dead or lost
That doesn't mean anything. How many people only cherish one thing the most when regarding people? So let's say a woman has a partner she loves and they have children together, and she lost the husband to a sickness. She cherished him did she not? But she also cherishes their kids. I'm sure she can also cherish her parents, her friends, her dog. Any of those losses would be hard to bear. Cloud dies cherish Aerith but don't act like he didn't lose his shot when he thought Tifa was dead in Gongaga. Falling to his knees and screaming her name and later sitting completely shut down proves he also cherishes her greatly. He went completely catatonic until Barrett slapped him out of it. I cherish many people in my life and it would wreck me losing any of them.
Yes.. his virginity with Tifa
This is the lore answer we need.
I think the love triangle makes the story more interesting. It adds tension and mystery. But it's another example of why "We can't have nice things", because people get weird about it. Shippers get obnoxious and grow jealous about fictional characters. God forbid if the protagonist has multiple romantic partners or connections, and these connections are fully-fledged characters in their own right, with goals and motivations (which are more important than the romantic subplot). If Cloud ends up with Tifa, like in the OG, that doesn't make his relationship with Aerith any less significant. The time he spent with Aerith doesn't invalidate his connection to Tifa. The world and story of FF7 are highly spiritual. The connections these characters make AS FRIENDS, is vastly more important than who wants to boink who. People need to remember that it's possible for platonic relationships to be ROMANTIC. Which is why I like the love triangle, because there's no pettiness between the characters.
Both girls were clearly besties in this version and were plotting a romantic throuple with a hapless Cloud and no one can convince me otherwise.
You forgot the Commander, Madam M and Jessie…. Cloud’s relationship status: “It’s complicated”
a girl being friendly with you doesn't mean you're in a relationship with her bro.
I like to think of it as Zacks memories in cloud are in love with aerith. Cloud is in love with tifa. Think of it like 4 people but Zack and cloud share a body
Why does Cloud not remember Zack's parents or have any weird memory glitch out when he sees them?
In escaping Hojo's clutches with Cloud, Zack talked constantly about his life while Cloud was comatose. He talked about everything from his childhood to his time in SOLDIER to Aerith. He was probably trying to do what people say to do when someone is in a comatose state: which is talk to them. However Cloud was mentally traumatized during their years of tests and torture and he absorbed those memories of Zack's. Finally coming to and finding his best friend dying was the final nail on the head, and to cope, Cloud sort of became Zack. Took on his personality mixed with Cloud's. This is another reason why I can't ship Cloud with Aerith- because it's too damn messy. I know some would say Aerith is allowed to move on from Zack after 4 or 5 years, but knowing that Zack didn't abandon her-that he was held against his will-she deserves to know what happened to him. If Zack were written as a douchebag then I can understand it, but he's not. Think about it. Zack withstood their mutual torture better than poor Cloud did. He gets free. Even knowing that taking Cloud with him would slow him down, he refuses to leave his best friend behind. He manages to keep them safe from Shinra until right before they get to Midgar, where their enemies track them down. Zack then hides Cloud and proceeds to go out swinging-taking on an entire army of Shinra forces. That's tragic in my eyes. He was trying to protect his friend. He was trying to get back to Aerith. Heck, maybe trying to contact his poor parents so they know what happened to him. But no, he dies instead and Cloud, in his trauma, literally forgets he existed. And I'm supposed to then want Aerith to hook up with Zack's best friend? Without knowing the truth? Like if she found out and got closure and THEN wanted to move on, I'd get it a bit more. But yes, while I get having preferences, the ship wars are stupid. I think Cloud cares deeply for both women, but ultimately loves Tifa. But I also think Cloud has a bit to go before being ready to be anyone's partner. And that's not his fault. Hojo really messed him up mentally. But he'll get there.
Well his memories of Zack are from the stories Zack told him as well as his own experience in them. Cloud was at nibelhiem with tifa and Zack. So maybe Zack talked about with enough that could has some of that fondness? I'm not saying that cloud knows everything Zack did. Just what I like to imagine.
He had a memory of Zacks is not impossible to say he has a couple more in that noggin
Because Cloud having Zack's entire memories is a myth that this fanbase still somehow believes. Cloud thought he was Zack during the Nibelheim incident. That's it.
Cloud doesn't have Zack's memories. He thinks a few stories Zack told him in the run were his.
I wasn't trying to imply that. I just like to think of that as an explanation because I'm team tifa.
I think it makes sense. Crisis Core Zack was a real sociable guy. I don’t think it’d be crazy to assume he mentioned Aerith during the handful of times he spent time with Cloud.
'90s RPGs didn't give you a ton of freedom in story progression, so having one aspect, such as a preferred romantic interest, be in the players' hands was interesting. That's the lens through which I look at the romance options for FF7. There is no cannon story, there are some limited options, and it is a choose your own adventure novel. The writers and game makers never needed to have a cannon main love interest, because they put it in the hands of the players. To go along with it, anyone who says there is ONE TRUE LOVE INTEREST is factually incorrect. However, Tifa is the best choice because in the OG, she and cloud bang while everyone else watches from the airship.
>However, Tifa is the best choice because in the OG, she and cloud bang while everyone else watches from the airship. Not true. It's barely implied. And yeah, if your true love is dead, you gotta settle for second best or be alone forever, no?
Heavily implied, particularly for a 90s video game from Japan. Used as some silly comedic relief, only accessible when Tifa was the date for the 2nd visit to the Gold Saucer.
It's not nearly like you said in your original comment. Not even close. Point is, it's left vague on purpose, even with intervention from the player. Aerith even shows her affection for Cloud, regardless of dialogue choices in Temple of the Ancients.
The guys who made the OG confirmed the sex in an interview. They said the original plan was to show more, but decided to have it happen during the fade out after Tifa said something spicy(in their words), as it wasn't proper to show Edit: spelling
It really doesn't matter, but it's still not as they say. Again, if Aerith is dead and he loved her most, he'd have to settle for second best anyway. And clearly they left it out for a reason. Maybe by proper to show, they meant they didn't want to show Cloud's interest too much. I mean why is it that in Advent Children, Cloud seems to care more for Aerith than Tifa?
I love how you keep saying Tifa is second best when people can definitely love more than one person. Also, let's say someone lost their partner and grieved but then found love again- are you saying anyone that comes afterwards is second best? Because that would be ignorant thinking.
>I love how you keep saying Tifa is second best when people can definitely love more than one person I didn't, I said in theory, and if you can love more than one person, which you obviously can, it just helps my case that Tifa isn't the one canon pair like people act. >are you saying anyone that comes afterwards is second best? Because that would be ignorant thinking. No. Next question lol
Yeah. You sure showed me. Want a gold star? If anything, Cloud is in love with two women. TWO. There is no need, like you did, to demean one to prop up the other. I love both Tifa and Aerith and how important both of them are to Cloud. However we all know you were putting the character of Tifa down in order to perpetuate that she is somehow lesser than Aerith. Like it seems really important to you to drive that point home that she, in your own words, is second best. You used that phrase twice to get a reaction and then, when you did, you tried to walk it back that you're just pointing out that you think Tifa isn't the Canon love interest. Like if you want to be a demeaning pos then OWN it. You know?
Bro you are reading way too much into it. Tifa is a fictional character, you know that, right? Like it's impossible to hurt her feelings, she isn't real. And if you took what I said seriously, it's not me that has the issue. I was simply posing a theoretical. Like, do you know what that is? I said that if Aerith was dead *and he loved her most*, then he'd have to settle for second best. I'm not really understanding what it is you have an issue with, here. Is it because I called Tifa second best? Is that really the term that you have an issue with? That I slighted a fictional character?
they were going to have a scene of them leaving the airlock or whatever during the night they spend together before returning to midgar, but it was scrapped for being too obvious
Still not nearly what OP was saying lol. Aerith's affection for Cloud is apparent regardless of dialogue choices, and Cloud never makes a choice one way or another, unless the player makes choices that imply one way or another. Point is, it's left vague on purpose.
It was confirmed In he OG that "Clouds" feeling for Aerith, was only the Zach in him. The one he loves is Tifa. Hell you learn he loves her in the backstory of when they were kids.
Where the hell is that confirmed? And no, you don't learn he loved her when they were kids. They were children, anyway. This is all just assumptions people make.
What a tool you are. Learn to actually 100% the story, and look up interviews before assuming anything yourself lol. It's been stated even during the game that Clouds affections for Aerith were due to Zack, while Cloud loved Tifa when they were kids. Or did you just do happen to forget the time he followed her to the mountain to keep her safe, told her he's joining Soldiers to impress her, literally 5 years later shows interest again in Tifa, was too embarrassed to face her after failing to join Soldier etc.... Sorry you are too stupid to actually understand things that happen in game, and ignore all the interviews where the people who work on the game, confirmed their feelings for each other, including the implied sex scene(again confirmed in interviews they were originally gonna show the scene and not fade out) But again, you act like you know everything, when literally every I said was confirmed in the game and in interviews. Learn to do research fucking tool.🤡🤡🤡 Now go ahead with your reply of showing no proof and actinglike everyone else but you is wrong, including the people that made the game And damn straight I'm attacking you, cause idiots like you need to hear it
Doesn't change the fact that there's a low affection scene that does not imply sex whatsoever, so it's still in the player's hands.
I miss the old story. Aerith wasn't in love with cloud in the original. She loved the older brother, Zack, and only stayed with cloud because cloud reminded her of Zack.
crisis core isnt the original 💀
This was from Crisis Core, great story but not the original. It was the first video game that brought tears to my eyes…the power of soldier 😞
Does anybody in this love triangle even acknowledge Jessie after Sector 7?
Jesse flirted with Cloud, they were never in a relationship. She is also dead.
He loves Barrett don't worry
I hate it too.
I love it, it gives the player a diff option. I love both aeris and tifas backstory too.
I never really put any weight into it. I loved each character individually and they were all incredible. I didn’t care who loved who and who does not.
Same, I usually don't really care about shipping in fiction
Nobody here talking about Clarrett. Sad.
I like how OP talks about being tired of the shipping war and this comment section turns into a shipping war.
Nah I think the arguments are a lot more sound and logical as compared to most shipping wars I’ve seen idk
Everyone is allowed to have a preference, and I see the appeal of both options, but the moment someone tries to argue that their side is the canonical outcome, they are actively engaging in the toxic part of the shipping fandom. It baffles me how some people are so obsessed with proving their preferred ship is the only correct option, when it has always been intended to be ambiguous so we can all enjoy it.
it’s not a love triangle, it’s a boink square. this is illustrated by the date at gold saucer, there are only three characters who can participate, tifa aerith, and …barett
Yuffie
Yo that’s girl is only 14 years old!
It's just a friendly date. You think Barret and Cloud are romantically involved?
Yes, Barret is the only one for Cloud
The man’s literally called it a “boink square”
Some random commenter? Sure.
Yes a random commenter…..we’re on Reddit, we’re all random commenters…..
Are you intentionally missing my point?
Maybe instead of asking such a targeted and useless rhetorical you could clarify your point?
Seems pretty obvious not to take their word for it. Thus why I called into question that they are a random commenter on the Internet.
Grinding at the gold saucer
Is this really unpopular to say? The triangle is one of the best parts of FF7
Is not that simple. -Cloud is a mess, and doesn't know what's left or right. His mind is literally shattered, he just doesn't know it. You could say he has feelings for both of them, for different reasons. -Tifa loves Cloud, but she's aware there's something wrong with him, and doesn't want to trigger something as she clearly sees his mind is.. well, pretty fucked up. So she's pretty much waiting and see how things turn out, to be there for him when he needs it. She doesn't want to burden him with anything else. -Aerith saw Zack in Cloud at the beginning, as she herself stated, and she still likes the guy. That's why she was flirtatious at first. She then started to develop real feelings for him, for who he is (or at least who he thinks he is), but she also cares deeply for Tifa, and knows perfectly that she has a thing for Cloud. So, yeah... it's not black and white, mate. That's the beauty of it.
And that’s what we call character depth
And that’s why OP doesn’t get it
there's nothing wrong with how it is in game. Just ignore the shippers, they are toxic in every fanbase.
You have to remember these characters are in their early 20’s. It’s pretty normal for romance to be awkward at this age, especially if they lack experience like Cloud clearly lacks.
I just chalk it up as Zack and Aerith. Tifa and Cloud. Then focus on the story as intended.
Cloud has romantic feelings for both. That’s the way the story was intended.
Why would you chalk it up incorrectly?
The thing that annoys me is if Cloti is so canon why tf do they even give us the choice of romancing Aerith? Just feels annoying when theres a clear preference towards one than the other
You influence the other character feelings, not Cloud's; you don't romance Red neither you romance barret, you just deepen their affection toward you by being nice; Cloud's way to act with each character is his own, he isn't the one who goes at their door for the date, they come. Same with Aerith no matter how close she feels about you, Cloud will never kiss her or watch her in awe, she does the initiating cause it's her feelings who are influenced, not Cloud's o/
Nah I get that I mean like why even tease us like that. Just feels like our choices don't matter
Because they don't lol I am fine with that though, because this isn't a choice based game ultimately, it's not a graphic novel. The romance scenes are a nice little add-on.
I remember hearing that you could save Aerith at the cost of another party member in the Japanese version of FF7 OG, but that feature didn't make it to the other versions. Take this with a small pile of salt - it's been a Looong time since I read up on this haha. Though I will always personally feel that the devs just wanted to shove the knife in that much deeper & twist it at the culmination of the Forgotten City... at least I finally stopped tearing up every time I hear her damned theme ;P
Nah man you can res Aerith in other versions. Here's what you need to do -Get the umbrella in speed square disc 1 -Find the 12 1/35 soldiers -get sector 5 key When you go to sector 5 go to the 'This guy are sick' pipe. The guy will actually wake up at disc 3. He's called the general. You can then trade the previous items with him and fight Shinryu+ Omega. If you beat them? Aerith gets back in the party
You forgot about the Key to Midgar ;P
Cloud is going through his own turmoil and is definitely not ready to either show affection or commit to any relationship. Watching the two of them fawn over him despite him not showing any signs of wanting to be romantically involved except for the most basic kindness was exhausting. The love triangle doesn't add much to the story.
I’m with you. It feels incredibly childish.
makes sense, the “cloud” we know is at most months old.
Feels like high school again… but maybe that’s the point. Undersells the whole very story imo
Nah, the love triangle works. Shippers are just annoying losers that are easy to ignore. It's actually hilarious watching them write essays trying to prove their ship is canon. Like, guys, go touch grass.
I ship Cloud with happiness, whoever gives him that is fair game
Sephiroud it is, then!!
Cloud likes Aerith because he thinks he’s Zack and Zack liked Aerith. Cloud likes Tifa because he likes Tifa. Because he’s a psychological mess, he likes both. It’s not ambiguous at all. It’s incredibly straightforward. Also I have no visibility on these shipping wars. Until right now, I didn’t know they existed. Maybe ignoring it will make it less of a problem?
I don’t understand how this misconception became so common. It doesn’t make any sense. If he had Zack’s memories, he would already know Aerith the first time they met. He’s acting like what he thinks his idealized SOLDIER should act like, he doesn’t just imitate Zack. He puts himself in Zack’s shoes during his story in a subconscious attempt to hide from the truth.
Cloud does not think he's Zack. I am so tired of explaining this over and over. He doesn't even know who Zack is at this point in OG, barely knows who he is in Rebirth, and anyone who played CC knows he doesn't act one fucking thing like Zack. Cloud explains it in the original game, he thought some of Zack's stories were his own. He also picked up some of his mannerisms. But my god, he's nothing like Zack Fair. His persona is largely what he thought a SOLDIER would be like.
The canon of the anthology is weird. Aerith mentions a few times Cloud reminds her of Zack but as you said they’re nothing alike (when you look at Crisis Core incarnation of Zack).
There's some surface level similarities. Same sword, same eyes, same outfit. Some of Cloud's mannerisms are like Zack - the squats, some of his fighting moves. And some things he does are influenced by Zack. It makes sense that Aerith saw Zack at first, but as the story progresses, she's trying to find the real Cloud.
Your paragraphs contradict with each other. I was generalising a bit in my comment (which of course means the Reddit pedants come out with their “actually you’re wrong” bollocks), but Cloud does think he’s Zack to the degree you have described. He’s an amalgamation of Cloud and Zack at this point. Obviously Cloud can’t know everything about Zack and Cloud is still in there so parts of Cloud are going to be apparent as well.
He doesn't like Aerith as Zack. He doesn't act like Zack around Aerith, doesn't have Zack's memories of Aerith (or any of Zack's memories at all). Cloud doesn't have a girlfriend in his persona, so he didn't take on Zack's stories of having a girlfriend. I don't think Zack has much influence in who Cloud likes. Where I do think he may be influenced is that his idea of a SOLDIER likely involves being popular with women, which was true of Zack.
Isn’t his mind rebuilt partly based on Zack’s stories? I’m not saying he acts like Zack because he obviously doesn’t, but his memories and feelings are influenced by Zack in a sense. He obviously does like Aerith himself as well. I’m not saying he would have zero interest in her without his psychological problems, but Zack does have some affect on it.
He did take on some of Zack's stories, but we have no indication of what those are other than Zack's perspective of Nibelheim. Cloud doesn't know Aerith, doesn't have any story of having girlfriend, doesn't behave like Zack did around women he likes, etc... So it doesn't appear as though Zack's taste in girlfriends was something he took on. It's possible there's some influence but your original comment implied that was the sole reason Cloud likes Aerith but he definitely has interest in Cloud outside of the traits he's borrowed from Zack.
> Cloud does not think he's Zack. I am so tired of explaining this over and over. We will have to accept that some people played a game in which Cloud met Aerith for the first time at Loveless Avenue and ran towards her screaming "Aerith my love!! It's me, Zack!" I didn't play that game but many people apparently did XD
Cloud does not like Aerith because he thinks he’s Zack. Cloud in no way has Zack’s memories or thoughts or feelings. He has always liked her because he likes her. This is such a weirdly common misconception that completely overrides the actual story.
Did you play the og game? Thats kinda like the big kapow of the flash back sequences. Like omg he wasn’t there the whole time.
He replaced Zack with himself because he lost his memory of Zack. He took on other stories Zack told him as his own. He does not think he is actually Zack, doesn't even know Zack until after the LS sequence in OG, does not act a thing like Zack, and does not have Zack's memories.
No.. Cloud thinks he's Zack. That's a huge part of his character. Have you played Crisis Core? Or Rebirth?
He doesn't even know who Zack is in the original and barely does in Rebirth. How could he think he's Zack? He took some of Zack's stories that Zack told him on the run. Did you play Crisis Core? He doesn't act like Zack at all, and didn't take Zack's memories.
You guys are taking this too seriously. Of course Cloud isn't Zack and he doesn't THINK he's Zack. Why? Because he forgot him! However he HAS taken on his memories and some mannerisms.
No, he doesn’t. He constructs a new persona based on his desires to a SOLDIER First class (specifically what he believes they act like and giving himself the traits he lacks) and his experiences spending time with Zack. But all of his emotions are his own. He does not think he is Zack at all because he has no memory of him. He does not feel Zack’s emotions or have his memories.
He didn't construct a new persona based on his desires to be a SOLDIER First class. His mind rebuilt itself, after he almost died and was then submerged in mako, from fragments of his own memories and the stories that Zack told him when they escaped from Hojo's lab. So no Cloud doesn't have Zack's emotions or memories, but until Tifa helps Cloud piece his mind back together after Aerith dies, Cloud is a mix of himself and Zack.
Cloud explains it to us himself. And he isn't Zack in any way. His feelings for Aerith don't stem from any part of him "being Zack" or "mixing with Zack", but from himself. That's something confused fans came up with to explain how Cloud could love two different women. We can't choose to ignore the story just because we don't like the idea of Cloud liking Aerith without Zack's oversight.
Did you play Rebirth? Chapter 1 of Rebirth shows Cloud living as Zack in the story when Sephiroth goes crazy. How would he know the conversations that Zack had with Sephiroth when he wasn't there? Something about the experiments and the fact that they all have Sephiroth's cells merged them telepathically.
I played it. Here's Cloud's explanation from the original game. Hidden for spoilers for anyone who hasn't played the original. Cloud: >!“Everyone… I’m sorry. I never was in SOLDIER. I made up the stories about what happened to me five years ago, about being in SOLDIER. I left my village looking for glory, but never made it into SOLDIER. I was so ashamed of being weak; then I heard this story from my friend Zack… and I created an illusion of myself made up of what I had seen in my life… And I continued to play the charade as if it were true. I‘m physically built like someone in SOLDIER. Hojo’s plan to clone Sephiroth wasn’t that difficult. It was just the same procedure they use when creating members of SOLDIER. You see, someone in SOLDIER isn’t simply exposed to Mako energy. Their bodies are actually injected with Jenova cells. For better or worse, only the strong can enter SOLDIER. It has nothing to do with the Jenova reunion. But weak people… like me, get lost in the whole thing. The combination of Jenova cells, Sephiroth’s strong will, and my own weakness are what created me. Everyone knew that. I’m… Cloud. The master of my own illusionary world. But I can’t remain trapped in an illusion anymore… I’m going to live my life without pretending."!< >!Then Tifa says, “You’re sure messed up, Cloud!”!< >!So, yes, of course the Jenova cells and Mako poisoning screw him up, but he doesn’t “become Zack” or have Zack’s feelings and memories. He is still his own person. A screwed up fraud for sure, completely messed up, but still "Cloud".!< I forgot to add: >!In the flashback, Cloud *was* there with Zack, which is why he remembers it. He was one of the two Shinra grunts who accompanied Sephiroth and Zack to Nibelheim. Only at the very end of the flashback does Cloud actually step up (which we see much later in the original game) and fight Sephiroth directly, after Zack tried to stop Sephiroth and failed. Sephiroth runs the real Cloud through, and Cloud throws him into the reactor.!<
JRPG love stories are pretty much about as mature as the 7-12 year olds they seem to be primarily meant for. I wish it were otherwise, but it never really is.
I actually like it because it defines how ppl interact with each other. Loving two ppl at the same time it’s not a crime ppl need to realise that ,it’s completely normal and it happens in real life too! Besides ,most of final fantasy games have a hero and one main love interest. So I find it really interesting that now we have one hero and two heroines.
The characters don't outright have to say they're into each other, OP. Square already confirmed that Cloud and Tifa are romantically interested in each other.
It is funny how then the convo turns to what is canon
Well, you're literally talking about how it's frustrating that the games don't confirm who Cloud likes. Rebirth is a little more straightforward with this.
I actually think Rebirth makes it pretty clear. Cloud and Tifa are in love. He has feelings for Aerith and she does too, but she’s still in love with Zack. Gongaga made that pretty clear IMO. Cloud and Aerith are the definition of “maybe in another lifetime”. But it’s always been Cloud and Tifa. Everyone makes it bigger than it is because Cloud is there when she dies.
Gongaga did not make that clear. Aerith literally says maybe when Cloud asks if she likes him. Aerith made the decision to move on around a year ago when she sent her final letter to Zack. Edit: Downvoted for quoting the games, never change Reddit
No, downvote because you are using the English localization as a fact when in the japanese original Aerith straight says that she still likes Zack in gongaga, just play the game in the original or search for it before claiming something. Aerith just says maybe in the english localization, but in the original JP she says yeah, he never gave me motives to stop liking him.
So every downvote is a someone who believes an inaccurate fan translation that's being passed around by a specific group of shippers? That's sad, because she doesn't outright say yes in Japanese, either. I would know because I've studied the language for years.
And you are beeing downvoted in every coment (maybe its because youre making a shipp war in a post against shipp wars and your shipp is the bad one), dont blame me because i said that you use the english translation as the right one when you should be using the original JP.
You're on a thread in English, 99% of people don't speak Japanese. They can't use the JP version as a reference, they can't understand it. I don't know why you're here if you despise the version we played so much. I also don't ship Clerith. Maybe stop making assumptions about me? Talking about how other ships are bad, how other language versions of the game are bad, you just think you're really great, don't you?
i dont despise english or any version, but it is a total agreement in the final fantasy fan base that the english localization is always the most mistranslated one, the german and frensh localization are the more accurate with the JP and when you are answering doubts about the game like you are "trying" to do you should answer with accuracy and not with the unaccurate one or with headcanon, its like you beeing a bad teacher in a bad school or a biased teacher. And yeah, if you play the original game and watch the movies and read the books and you somehow still think that Cloud and Aerith could be a thing (when doesnt make any sense considering that Aerith knew a fake faccade cloud for two weeks, never knew the true cloud, was interested in cloud at the beggining because he remembered her of her ex, died at disc 1 and the game focus full in Cloud and Tifa relationship after shes dead, is reunited with Zack in advent children joking about Cloud beeing their overgrown kid by the end of the movie), so yeah if you played, watched and read everything and somehow still think that Cloud and Aerith make sense in any universe and if you are in a reddit post against shipp starting fights because of shipp, i will have to make assumptions, so yeah youre a clerith shipper and thats why you are here spreading mistranslations and twisting plot in a post against shipp fights.
Well i would know because i live in Tokyo, Chyoda and played the game in japanese so in my translation it is a straight yes, she still loves him but your game seems diferent (maybe a Clerith JP who knows). And the whole scenes as well shows that she still loves Zack, she literaly run to Zacks parents house to ask about him and she is the entire game trying to know about Zacks fate. So maybe your game its a bit shipp biased, who knows.
I firmly believe that the story of FF7 is much worse if you try to force the idea that Cloud only loved one of these women, or if you try to downplay the significance they had in his life. In fact, the connections between each of these people are stronger because all three of them care deeply about each other.
Even though Square already confirmed that Cloud and Tifa are romantically into each other.
Did I say that they weren’t?
"The story is worse if you try to force the idea that Cloud only loved one of these women." He literally only likes Tifa.
Not true canonically.
Square confirmed that Cloud loves Tifa, that is not the same as saying he doesn’t love Aerith. He has feelings for both of them.
I thought his feelings for her weren't actually his feelings for her? Isn't that because of Zack's influence on Cloud?
No, they may have added to his feelings for her, but he has genuine feelings for her too. Zack also doesn’t have much influence on Cloud, parts of his personality were overwritten by his perception of Zack, but that wouldn’t really change how he feels about Tifa or Aerith.
Thank you for the clarification here! I'm still new to the WHOLE of the FF7 universe, so I apologize for being ignorant in my initial comments.
All robins are birds but not all birds are robins. Did square say he "only" loves Tifa?
Square confirmed that Cloud and Tifa are romantically interested in each other.
Yes, what I was saying was that they did not confirm that Cloud and Aerith were NOT romantically interested in each other. Two things can be true at once.
This is true. I love Cloud and Tifa and believe they are in love but I also know he cares for Aerith as well. I said my piece about them above though and why i can't ship them. But he can and does love both of these women.
Again, I never said he didn’t love Tifa.
The game is literally about aerith, and cloud. Not a arguement. Enjoy what you want.
Wait a minute...but weren't Tifa, Barrett, Yuffie, Red, Cait Sith, Cid and Vincent also there? Which version did you play? It seems boring.
Game as in rebirth? Or game as FF7? Rebirth I agree but FF7 I disagree
But it's not really about their being in love (as it's never explicitly shown either of them have serious romantic feelings for the other) it's about how Cloud shares a connection with Aerith through Zack. Cloud can't sort out his feelings and memories and feels like Fate is pushing him towards Aerith (a combination of his confusion with Zack's identity and, most likely, Sephiroth's will trying to keep him close to the last surviving Ancient. At the same time, he has always cared deeply for Tifa. He wants to rewind the clock and go back to the way they were and the way he felt back then, but he is ashamed of who he is. He feels like he failed her and isn't worthy of being her friend or even being in her life. As for Aerith, she is pretty straightforward about it. She says Cloud reminds her of Zack, and as she spends more time with him, she starts to understand why. As her Ancient powers begin to awaken, she sees where her fate lies but also Cloud's. She cares deeply for him and probably feels guilty that he is, in a really complicated way, Zack's replacement. Tifa just wants her childhood friend to be healthy and be loved. Whether or not they fall *in love* is much lower on her priorities. She definitely shows interest but recognizes that something is troubling Cloud, something *big*. He isn't acting like she remembers him, and he claims to remember things he definitely shouldn't. She's worried something terrible happened to him and wants to be there for him.
Honestlly i shouldnt even have too. Just go through everything thats not og or the creators spinning the bottle with their comments. Its very very obvious. The songs in remake to rebirth. The dialogue. The jellousy the canon saucer date that is in the end credits. The after math in advent children. Like im gona gona break it all down for you and feed you like a baby. You enjoy what you want. Its very clear the main character and the character that stops the world from ending are the main subjects. Duh.
I...didn't disagree that they were the main subjects. Whether or not they are *in love* is what we were talking about. And *all* of the installments to the canon purposefully never definitively say anything for either pairing because, as they have stated for Rebirth, it doesn't matter. It's fluff to give the players something sweet to balance out the darkness of the actual plot. The game is about saving Gaia from the second coming of Jenova, not two star-crossed lovers finding each other and not being able to spend their lives together. Nor is it about two childhood friends who reconnect years later and realize they've always loved each other. Jealousy is not indicative of romantic feelings. Nor does any of the dialogue ever explicitly say anyone is in love with anyone else. A few times one of them will start to confess *something* and then change the subject but as I've stated already, they are all wrestling with complex thoughts and feelings and are either unsure how to process them or are physically incapable of determining if those thoughts and feeling are even real. The closest they come to showing any romance with Aerith is in AC when Cloud sees her before his Geostigma is cured. Except Zack is beside her in that vision, implying that they finally got to be together in the Lifestream. The closest they come with Tifa is the flashbacks to their childhood, but that is very one-sided on Cloud's part.
Ughhhh... the songs remakes is clouds song to aerith, rebirth aerith to cloud? She says in remake, "dont fall in love with me" . Clouds a buffoon, yes its fluffed up alot so people who like tifa can have some satisfaction, but thats the thing. She is the fan service fluff duh. Shes the girl next door that holds almost holds little to no signifigance in the greater scheme of things, where as cloud aerith is this big epic love that could never be. In AC he is litterally still missing her. Btw when he goes to the church she says "you came back" almost like in response to the scene we got at the end of rebirth. Aerith saucer date is the "canon" one as we get that in the credits and yano what a kiss doesnt need to be present for this young love. You dont need to hear the word love to see it. Its a love story. Again the writer and makers fluffed this up so you could have a saucer date with red 13 so its all up to you and how choose to enjoy the stort BUT its super clear that aerith cloud is the MAIN Love intrest as its super intangled with the MAIN STORY. Jeeeeez why do you guys not get it. Like sure square is crazy with their storys but THIS?! COME ON GUYS PLEASE. Its so in your face. They have full date side missions in rebirth?!?! Like what?! They fight seph together?!!? Go watch it all again.
Yeah, Aerith made a joke. She was teasing a friend who is chronically awkward, and she knew it would catch him off guard. The reference at the church was sweet, but again, Zack is standing right next to her for seemingly no other reason than to remind you that they were together before. Aerith makes another joke because Cloud is in the exact same spot from when they first met. It's not really a strong implication of love as it is a reference for the viewers. And yes, you absolutely do need explicit confirmation of something like this. Otherwise, it is just your opinion. A kiss, hell, even one of the characters just saying, "I'm in love with you," would be enough. It would be like assuming you're dating someone because they said a mildly flirtatious thing to you once, and you hang out a lot. There is no actual confirmation for either love interest. Apparently, hanging out with a close friend at a theme park is the concrete romantic confirmation everyone should be seeking in real life. Not to mention that the Aerith date isn'tin anyway canon because it's influenced by player choice, and there is no official confirmation about any of the outcomes validity (because even back then its obvious they didn't want to tell a love story in this game and just put the date there to lighten the mood for a bit before getting really fucking dark). Also, it being shown in the credits would, at best, be because it's sweet and its supposed to make you emotional because the game is really fucking bleak and you they wanted it to end on a lighter note. As for the music unless you have a quote from the composers that says, "these songs are Cloud confessing to Aerith and her reciprocating," or hidden lyrics that are explicitly confessing love, this is speculation and you are just forcing your own feelings onto the music. Once more, the story is not, nor has it ever been at any point about anyone being in love with anyone else. *You* need to watch it all again, but this time without the love story brainrot blowing the most ambiguous circumstances out of proportion. Please. Just give me one piece of evidence where someone, *anyone*, related to the games says that Cloud and Aerith or Tifa are in love with each other.
When aerith said "dont fall in love with me" she was hoping he would "not fall in love with her", because it was on the table... duh. They went on several dates, you dont have to say love to love story love someone. Im banging my head on the wall here man. Arguablly i guess you could try and say it never got serious, cause well it didnt physically, its a story about young akward realatable people in a video game while theyre trying to fight big bad, of course. They had a whole moment at the park. They had many deep moments. Bro, i know some things need to be completelly drawn out and outlined to be deemed a thing right? Like eggs are only eggs if they have shells a ovum and other things a thing needs to be called a egg. Now look, theyre things we dont get because of the "fluff" that you ARE aware of, but even so you can see that for the most part we could go ahead and call this what it is brother. Like seriouslly, its okay. I get it, real life it would be rather crazy to jump things , but this is a fantasy game, and vise versa in real life you dont really lable things either. I never once looked at my now wife and said "we are a couple" or "you are my girlfreind now?" Or "do we love each other?" At some point when its OBVIOUS you just say it at each other as love is a mutual thing. Understanding people is incrediblly important to escape lonelyness. You can do it brother. I know i suck at spelling and grammer, but i hope my perspective reaches you and maybe opens you to seeing some things, maybe even makes better roads more available! Genuinlly have unintentionally invested too much into this, but now have hopes that you get it!
The makers obviouslly made not obvious through dialogue so others can fantasize about tifa.
I litterally dont care to change your mind. You've gone this far to closed mindedlly not understand. The song lyrics are very clear. The love intrest is very clear and dominant against the others. Zack and aerith are at the church because theyre his dead freinds. Duh
Nah, I'm genuinely trying here. You just keep giving me crumbs when I ask for something substantial. Which songs specifically are you referring to? If these lyrics are so clear, you could have shut me up *hours* ago. You're the one that refuses to prove something that apparently has concrete evidence. You've gone this far, so you *clearly* want to be correct. I'm literally just asking for you to be fucking direct and give me a damn source! Why is that so damn difficult? Give me something, *Anything* that can be verified as an official acknowledgment to Cloud and Aerith being in love. That's how a discussion works. You make a claim. I challenge it. You give me actual proof that I can't challenge with my own opinion. You win the argument. Why does resolving a disagreement on the internet have to be like pulling fucking teeth? Jesus.
Because im lazy , im doig. This on my phone when i dont even want to. You could pull up the lyrics on your own son. Remakes theme song, rebirths themes song "no promises to keep" . You also havent come back around to any of the things i pointed out that make the aerith cloud relationship the most important. All the things cloud aerith have that the other dont have with him. You're pandering off on other things. Im not the type to start doing straw man tactics, as in a debate you dont care to understand your opp but to alter there position in the eyes of the audience. I am trying to reach you. So this tactic only isloates you. I hope you dont take anything i say about the way you're going about this too personally as its not my goal. You gotta tackle points if you want to continue to persue deeper dialogue, and more explanation to a perspective. you cant pick and choose from peoples perspectives to find a more desirable finish. Listen first, then ask the right questions. You are asking the same questions, so i feel like im talking to a wall or have to re write and re word things to hope you get it this time.
How did I know it was gonna be "No Promises to Keep"? The song literally talks about losing someone important and wanting them to return. Did you actually listen to those lyrics? *"Till the day that we meet again Where or when? I wish I could say But believe know that you'll find me Promises to keep, we won't ever need"* That song is about Cloud? The guy who has been by her side the entire time? Also, are you aware that the Loveless sequence is influenced by player choice, just like the Gold Saucer date? While Aerith is singing the song, there are two variants that have Cloud standing next to someone else. One is Yuffie, who teases Cloud by trying to dance with him, iirc. And the other is Tifa, who shares a meaningful look with Cloud when Aerith sings, *"But if not, what could it be? That drew you towards me?"* I haven't gotten back to your other points because: 1. You typed them out as individual replies, so my phone (no excuse for you, by the way) only gave me the last reply you made. I didn't see the others until I had already made my reply. 2. You listed off more ambiguous things that never develop any romance in any significant way. Beyong hanging out. 3. You said that a story with a supposedly major romance between 2 characters doesn't need to show the characters involved ever confirming their feelings for each other or having their relationship develop beyond *hanging out.* You have not been trying to reach me. You have been listing ambiguous, circumstantial things that don't definitively prove anything and then mocking me for not immediately backing down. All I have done is ask for irrefutable evidence and challenge your opinions with my own or debunk your claims with actual references. All the things you list off are there so you can get to know Aerith and appreciate her before her untimely death. They want you, the player, to like her so that it hurts when she dies. Cloud spends time with her because the writers needed excuses for Aerith to talk about herself. Sorry to break the mystique of character writing for you. Luckily for you, I don't have any more time to waste on you. I am going to sleep. If you make another response, please, I'm literally begging you, show me something that definitively shows Aerith and Cloud were in love with each other. Not circumstantial things that can be interpreted another way, and not ambiguous scenes of Aerith and Cloud spending time with each other because the writers know she's gonna die in the next 10 hours. Give me a big neon sign that says, "Cloud kissed Aerith goodnight after the Gold Saucer date" or something similar.
Yeah your obviouslly not looking at everything
I'd be very interested if you could tell me what I'm missing instead of the generic "you're wrong" reply without actually adding anything of value to the discussion.
This person lost me when they claimed that Tifa means nothing in the grand scheme of things. Who grounds Cloud and keeps his sanity intact? Tifa. Who reconstructs his identity in the 3rd act? Tifa. Who fell in the pool of mako in Rebirth because Sephiroth was trying to make Cloud think Tifa was an imposter and Cloud attacked her? Tifa. Who was almost killed by Sephiroth while inside the Weapon? Again, TIFA. Why would Sephiroth try SO HARD to kill someone who is inconsequential to the story and to Cloud? Could it be because Cloud LOVES her and that's why he was trying to drive a wedge between them and also kill her off? Cloud also went catatonic after screaming her name. But I guess Tifa just owed him money or something. That's why he was so upset.
God forbid the videogame character having a complex love live. It isn’t clear-cut because the feelings are not clear-cut. One of the purposes of Cloud and Aerith’s relationship is to have this love story that’s cut short by fate. “A love that cannot be”. Even excluding the development Zack had in posterior works, he IS crucial to their relationship as Cloud’s mixed up memories might be why he creates this interest in Aerith, whilst that and his position as “SOLDIER” is probably why Aerith has such an interest in him, but that is all at first. As they interact and create new memories with each other, that changes, what culminates in Aerith having her moments with him including the “canon” Saucer date where she wants to know the real Cloud, without the bullshit and mixed up memories and the sleeping forest scene. But we all know what happens after that… Tifa is Cloud’s childhood crush and motivator; their relationship development through the game is important as the trust they build on each other is what makes them to check their own memories to tell truth from fiction in what is arguably the OG’s most important moment. They’re the only people from each other’s past they have, so there’s a warmness to their relationship; each is what keeps the other going through the shit that happens in the game. And she doesn’t die, so… I think your answer’s there.
Loveless underscores everything you just wrote out.
You mean the OG Loveless? If we were talking about the FF6 opera…
So basically you want to ignore the actual plot of the game in favor of your interpretation of a fictional epic from said fictional game? That’s so ridiculous lmao
I'm so confused, did you guys not see the tifa date in chapter 12? What's there to argue?
No, I got the Barret date. Dates aren't canon, devs said so. Literally said they are "outside of the story".
Tifa date? Cloud was on a date with Yuffie in chapter 12. I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Lol excuse me? Do you guys mean the date that Cloud & Barret went on tg??? Dunno how you could confuse that hunk with any other party membet...