Favorite Character Arc?

Of the Side Character Variety.

So:
Barret at Corel/Corel Prison
Red XIII in Cosmo Canyon
Cid at Rocket Town
Yuffie in Wutai

I remember doing a similar topic a long, long time ago, about how a lot of these subplots were what made the game so good. And yet do you think anyone at Square remembers Dyne? Or Bugenhagen? Hell, does anyone at Square even remember Aerith had an adoptive mother?



Anyway...my favorite was Barret's. Some asshole told me that I could get Dyne in my party if I did the right thing when he was gonna suicide off the cliff. It's embarrassing how many times I tried...

Cid and Nanaki have fantastic character arcs. One of the reasons why FFVII is my favourite is because each main character has a unique, developed backstory and personal journey, with whole side-quests in which they're the lead. I've really missed that in every subsequent game, where there are "main characters" who scarcely even get mentioned outside a couple of cut scenes.

If FFVII ever gets remade with voice acting and lifelike HD visuals, then the scene with Nanaki and Seto is almost guaranteed to make me cry big manly tears.

Toss up between Barrett and Red XIII for me. I enjoyed visiting both their hometowns and seeing their story unfold.

Nanaki's has too many holes for my liking. It's one of those "conveniently petrified in a way we can't cure" kinds of things. I also don't understand why he had to believe Seto was a coward. I still cry like a bitch every time I see Seto cry that tear but yeah, the impact is diminished a little by those holes.

The upside to Dyne being crazy is that he can do something unthinkable like kill himself and have it make complete sense. It's just... yeah, that always hits me, and then Barret talks about his own hands not being any cleaner. Powerful stuff. Then I snigger like a moron because they only got one set of hands between the two of them.

I have to say, I do like Soup Dude's arc. It's subtle, but it's really powerful and aromatic.

Vincent trying to talk to Lucrecia is... okay. I don't think it quite gets where it needs to in the game, and then the compilation just turns him into even more of an emo. Now that I am older and a little better educated, I find his entire scenario a little preposterous, but having a former Turk vampire dude who can fly (?!) and turn into demons is pretty smurfing cool regardless of the other stuff.

EDIT: oh yeah, Cid. There's my winner. Just. Space, man. He had these dreams, and then Shinra screwed him. And he gets there, for the most fleeting second, and it means the world to him. You see how even Shera is just nonplussed by everything, and Cid is there with his face glued to the window, looking at earth from space. The dude needed that, craved it with every fibre in his being, and he thought for years that his dreams were over. I mean, he is "old" by video game standards; there was no way the tech to get him there was ever coming around again.

The Seto song smurfing gets me every single god damn time, but I think Cid's arc hit me even harder.

I won't repost all of it here, I'll just say you can read my thoughts on it (and the song) on this frontsite article.