Cloud or Zack: Who's Stronger?

[Bolivar]

If it destroys my suspension of belief and my ability to enjoy the story then yes, I can judge it that way. Sword mostly pointed out what I needed to say on the subject.

Ultimately, we have different criteria for what we consider to be good writing and VII just didn't measure up for me. Yet as I was explaining to Raistlin, this is only one of many logical errors in the game but big ones like this make me notice the smaller ones I was able to ignore up until this point.

If "suspension of belief" has anything to do with your evaluation of a story, then I find it incredibly challenging to believe that you like Xenogears, Final Fantasy Tactics, or FFVI as much as you claim you do.

When we actually get into rendered 3D models, I have a harder time adding in my imagination like I was able to with older games. Its one of the reasons why I have a difficult time enjoying modern games cause they sorta take the player out of the story since everything is acted out in a better and more realistic manner than their predecessors. Course this might be why I've enjoyed VII a bit more in recent years cause its not as bad as modern titles on account it has not graphically aged well.

But the fact that a game uses 3d models has no more to do with realism than 2d models. The original Mortal Kombat games were all 2d, yet they're infinitely more realistic than the best quality of games today - that's because they were real people!

Therefore, there's no intrinsic indicator of realism embedded in 2d and 3d games. FFVII's dumbell arms and calve hands are no more realistic than FFVI's worm arms and punctuation gloves.

Only your desire to undermine FFVII's legacy in its fans' eyes make it so.

Given your position in the Playstation thread that you were advocating 2D over 3D graphics at the time, I'm assuming this is something you've done wince the game was released.

[~*~Celes~*~]

wtf are you guys talking about with "realism"?? the clue is in the name of the game title "final FANTASY", its not supposed to be "realistic".

having said that, i would have to say both are around equal. Zack took on 2 1st Class Soliders and won, and damn near the whole of the Shin-ra army, and with that many holes in him after being shot to death, i doubt Cloud would have withstood the same damage tbh.

Besides, who says Cloud stuffed the Original Sephiroth with his own sword...Sephy was in North Crater from what i knew, until the nearer the end.
(Btw, i havent played the full game in over 5 years, my memory of the game is slightly faded, and i haven't played CC in over a year).

Infact, Zack was only infused with a standard amount of Mako...like all other SOLDIER members. Who knows how much Hojo gave to Cloud, along with the Jenova cells, which must have ramped his body to ridiculous amounts of power, rending the argument: "him killing Sephy in AC = he's more powerful", useless...

I like his argument the most.

Think of it this way. It's like an athlete that uses 'roids vs an athlete that doesn't use 'roids and instead relies on his natural talents and strength. Cloud was injected with a bunch of "roids" to make him more powerful, but Zack, who withstood all that damage before he finally died, relied more on his natural strength.

Thus, Zack is more powerful by nature. Cloud is more powerful with help.

[Wolf Kanno]

Sure, Sephy was created to be the ultimate machine, but he was created to be the ultimate machine by Hojo, whose idea of science was, let's face it, shiny buttons and bubbling potions, with no real logic or procedure behind it at all. Had Gast actually been the architect of Sehpiroth, I might be impressed by his "constructed to be the ultimate killing machine" background, but since he was created by Hojo, I'm just surprised that he even survived long enough to fight in the war. Hell, Dr. Nefarious is a better mad scientist than Hojo.

Ouch... tell me how you really feel about Hojo. I don't really feel you have an argument here as Hojo was quite on the ball about a few things and even the information he was wrong about (namely Jenova) was stuff Gast never learned about until after he met Ilfana.
Sephiroth is also shown throughout the game to basically be a bio-weapon gone mad and nearly unstoppable. I'd say Hojo succeeded in the long wrong.

Dude, did you miss the hair?

The facts remain as such: Zack's attack on Sephy failed. Zack was killed by Sephiroth (in the original, with a single swing of his sword). Cloud's attack on Sephy succeeded. Both Sephy and Dr. Insane Laughter are surprised by Cloud's strength, while neither one had seemed to notice anything really special about Zack (in the original game, anyway).

Zack's already a SOLDIER we know where his strength comes from and its incorrect about Sephy taking him down with one blow as we actually never see their duel until the Compilation. We hear swords clashing, meaning they actually fought and then Zack is thrown out of the chamber after getting the beating of his life. Cloud injures Sephy with a sneak attack and then later catches him off guard by knocking him into the the Reactor. Yet nowhere here does it state Cloud has some abnormal superhuman pre-destined strength. Adrenaline could easily accomplish Cloud overpowering a weakened Sephiroth.

As for Hojo taking interest in him, he takes both Cloud and Zack to experiment on so yes, he was interested in Zack. Yet it should also be noted that Hojo suffers from "Mad Scientist" syndrome and thus finds anything he can experiment on as fascinating. Considering Hojo's intended fate for Cloud was to be a mindless Sephiroth Clone like the rest of the Nibelhiem survivors doesn't tell me that Hojo thought for a second that Cloud was special.

Besides, who says Cloud stuffed the Original Sephiroth with his own sword...Sephy was in North Crater from what i knew, until the nearer the end.
(Btw, i havent played the full game in over 5 years, my memory of the game is slightly faded, and i haven't played CC in over a year).

Infact, Zack was only infused with a standard amount of Mako...like all other SOLDIER members. Who knows how much Hojo gave to Cloud, along with the Jenova cells, which must have ramped his body to ridiculous amounts of power, rending the argument: "him killing Sephy in AC = he's more powerful", useless...

Sephiroth only made it to the Northern Crater after Cloud knocked him into the Lifestream during the Nibelhiem incident so this would be the real Sephiroth.

As for the Mako/Jenova cells, The way the Ultimania details it is that a Sephiroth Clone could be thought of as a failed SOLDIER whose mind is shattered and decayed through the injection of Jenova cells and Mako infusion. This is why Zack is the failure in the experiment held in the Shin-Ra mansion; cause as a SOLDIER, he has already proven he is mentally strong enough to handle the procedure. This also consequently shows how Cloud was able to fool everyone into thinking he was a member of SOLDIER cause he did actually undergo the process and thus attained the super strength and marking of a SOLDIER but his mind was far from being able to handle it.

As for injecting him with more than normal, both Zack and Cloud were worked on together so chances are they both got radiated with the same amount of alien love but I doubt it would be too much more than a normal test subject as its shown time and again in the game that too much Mako and Jenova cells cause radical mutations. .

wtf are you guys talking about with "realism"?? the clue is in the name of the game title "final FANTASY", its not supposed to be "realistic".

If "suspension of belief" has anything to do with your evaluation of a story, then I find it incredibly challenging to believe that you like Xenogears, Final Fantasy Tactics, or FFVI as much as you claim you do.

By realism, I mean that things work in a logical fashion, his is the cornerstone of all sci-fi and fantasy writing as if you pull something out of your ass it destroys the illusion.

Sephiroth, holding a 180lbs. man up with one arm, skewered through a 7ft. tall katana is only made believable cause the game has established that Sephiroth is not human and thus was created to have super powers. Cloud, as a normal human defying simple body mechanics and physics doesn't work as well.

On the otherside though, a story can do something preposterous and silly and get away with it if you make them laugh. Sabin/Cyan/ and Gau somehow traveling down the Serpent Trench with a single old fashioned deep sea suit helmet only works cause it more funny than serious. Cloud having to dress up like a woman to infiltrate a sleazy crime lords mansion when we've watched him take down trained military guards and giant robots works cause the entire scenario is for comedic relief as opposed to this scene which is suppose to be taken straight and serious.

I'm just saying the whole thing looked awkward and didn't seem even plausible for a fantasy story to be able to pull this off cause its been established that Cloud is a simply "everyman". Hell, saying he's somehow mystical and special actual diminishes him as a character as the one charm he has is that he was a simple nobody who accomplished so much as opposed to a super soldier we were led to believe.

But the fact that a game uses 3d models has no more to do with realism than 2d models. The original Mortal Kombat games were all 2d, yet they're infinitely more realistic than the best quality of games today - that's because they were real people!

Therefore, there's no intrinsic indicator of realism embedded in 2d and 3d games. FFVII's dumbell arms and calve hands are no more realistic than FFVI's worm arms and punctuation gloves.

Realism brings in movement and body mechanics into the fold, it represents space. It adds an entire dimension that brings it closer to our own world but its actually the story itself that lends it to realism sometimes as the worlds themselves establish certain criteria that people can instantly pick up and understand. If your fantasy world is truly "everything goes" it would not look like anything we would recognize or probably even be able to appreciate. No matter how far fetched something is we can always gleam from it some intrinsic value which makes the whole fiction of a piece realistic to its audience

Realism, is far more than just a physical representation created by one of our senses. The Sound quality we have today has been around for decades but was unmarketable because Visual mediums were far behind and thy discovered that if the audio and the visuals don't match up that it distorts the suspension of belief cause our senses would tell us that something wasn't adding up. Animation is another interesting element about realism, no matter how realistic animation is, it will almost never actual be drawn in a realistic manner regardless of whether its 3D or 2D because actually watching something unreal move in a realistic manner looks creepy and completely unrealistic despite being verbatim of body movements.

In the case of the scene we are discussing, it still looks awkward and weird despite being in high quality animation, its just the very body mechanics themselves being off that makes it look unrealistic as opposed to the animation being bad. Realism is not so much what we see as it is how we logically view our own world.

Only your desire to undermine FFVII's legacy in its fans' eyes make it so.

I would say I am more ranting than undermining, you give me too much credit

Given your position in the Playstation thread that you were advocating 2D over 3D graphics at the time, I'm assuming this is something you've done wince the game was released.

I've spoken briefly about this scene before as simply that it looked awkward, its hardly what I would define as my "Pivotal reason for why VII isn't that great" as their are far more examples than simply this one and its the accumulation of these that cause my initial dislike of VII and my continual inability to rank it higher than its better crafted brethren.

In reality, you are partly taking my words a bit out of context but that's because I said it vaguely as I was avoiding another rant. My real issue with the 2d vs. 3d debate actual stems more from my first love which is fighting games. Some of the best 2D fighters came out around this time and were overshadowed by 3D fighters that are mostly terrible by today's standards and were frankly not that great even when they came out. It was the sheer love of the novelty of it all that bothered me and while VII is part of this argument, it is also partnered with Ocarina of Time and more recently with MGS1 for me as well so this is hardly some personal campaign to destroy VII's reputation, besides, what can I say that could possibly beat the Compilation from SE?

[G13]

I think Zack is stronger. He survived 3 fights with 1st class Soldiers, 2 Mako showers, and fought off an army long enough to kick their ass to save Cloud's. Cloud survived a stabbing, Mako poisoning, and an identity crisis. He's also stronger emotionally. Cloud saved the world and what, fell into a state of depression? Zack was cheery after being betrayed, beaten, tested upon, and shot. He did what he had to do and didn't doubt himself at all. I like Cloud, out of the two he's my favorite, but Zack just seems stronger to me.

[Bolivar]

I don't know man, I thought Virtua Fighter was pretty good when it came out

[Wolf Kanno]

I don't know man, I thought Virtua Fighter was pretty good when it came out

Well... I'll give you Virtua Fighter (fun memories of the Sega Saturn) but the original Tekken was nowhere near as polished and has aged poorly and god knows we don't even want to start on Battle Arena Toshiden.

[Unbreakable Will]

I think Zack is stronger. He survived 3 fights with 1st class Soldiers, 2 Mako showers, and fought off an army long enough to kick their ass to save Cloud's. Cloud survived a stabbing, Mako poisoning, and an identity crisis. He's also stronger emotionally. Cloud saved the world and what, fell into a state of depression? Zack was cheery after being betrayed, beaten, tested upon, and shot. He did what he had to do and didn't doubt himself at all. I like Cloud, out of the two he's my favorite, but Zack just seems stronger to me.

With all thse things brought into a new light I am changing my answer. Zack is better, I'd forgotten about Clouds wheelchair incident and his ridiculous emo-ness

[Skyblade]

Ouch... tell me how you really feel about Hojo. I don't really feel you have an argument here as Hojo was quite on the ball about a few things and even the information he was wrong about (namely Jenova) was stuff Gast never learned about until after he met Ilfana.
Sephiroth is also shown throughout the game to basically be a bio-weapon gone mad and nearly unstoppable. I'd say Hojo succeeded in the long wrong.

"On the ball"?! When?! His idea of crossbreeding two entirely different species in the hopes of getting the best traits of both? His idea of randomly injecting everything with Jenova cells just to see what happens? His idea of sticking people into Mako condensation tanks for no reason?

Nearly every idea he had is either completely screwy or simply a difference in degree from Gast's work. He takes Mako and Jenova infusions to higher levels, sure, but with no discernable refinement in technique.

The only thing he is remotely correct about is the reunion theory, and even that gets thrown upside down when nearly every JENOVA-infused body fails to complete the reunion, and the only one that survives being the "failure".