No, I don't want his mopey ass in my party!

[Jessweeee♪]

I'd still keep Cloud. But if I had to boot him, I guess Cid is a good replacement!

[Bubba]

Hmmm... I'm gonna go with Cid, Red and Tifa.

I also would have Cloud if I had the choice though. Cid is simply awesome. One of the best characters in the entire series. I loved Red's back story and at the end of the day... he's a talking lion. Which is cool. Tifa is equally awesome.

[Wolf Kanno]

I wouldn't want to boot Cloud out of my party. He's not mopey; he is just a complete and utter asshole and it's hilarious. It's a shame KH, AC and other later versions of Cloud portrayed him as a self-pitying tool, but the original FFVII Cloud was a dick. Barret and Cid would complete the comedy trio.

The most memorable bit of character development Cloud gets is the shattering of his persona. His betrayal, descent into madness, and salvation (at the hands of Tifa) are probably one of the single most memorable bits of development for an individual character in gaming.

So, when the developers look back at Cloud and try to work from his personality, that's what they think of. Which is a shame, because while that was very important and very well executed, it really is not at all what Cloud's personality as a whole is about.

I have to admit, though, I do think they have realized their mistake. Lightning from XIII was based on Cloud, and they did seem to capture his dickishness really well.

I've begun to disagree with the idea that the developers don't know who Cloud is, I'm actually starting to feel it's the fans who have an obscued view of who the real Cloud is. I mean VII never actually tried to define the real Cloud, we spend most of the game in his "I'm Zack" state and the next biggest part in his "Who am I? Zenogias!?" state. The Cloud that emerges from all that is a stark contrast from both versions and in the last few playthroughs of the game in the Post-Compilation era, I found that Cloud's personality and outlook after he regains his true sense of self is actually quite similar to the mopey undecisive whiner that we see in the Compilation. I feel too many fans often mistake the Cloud you meet in the beginning as the "real" Cloud, when that couldn't be farther from the truth.

I feel fans forget how many times Cloud seriously begins to question himself about what he is doing, or how many times he gets berted by both Barret and Cid for being indecisive, or how often Tifa is there to cheer him up and make him feel confident in the original VII. None of this happens to Cloud in the mindsmurf state, but this persona is actually in-sync with the way we see him as a kid. Now, none of this is to say true Cloud isn't brave or heroic, I mean he did follow Tifa to Mt. Nibel and tried to save her when she fell, and you can't deny his confrontation with Sephy in the Nibelheim Reactor, but it's also true that Cloud only gets like this when he's backed into a corner. Yet I do feel that Cloud's true personality is that of a shy, indecisive, and sometimes whiny guy who does amazing things when the chips are down. Then again, Cloud really is meant to be a deconstruction of the RPG hero archetype. I mean he starts off cool, confident, and a total badass, and ends the game resembling more of a real human being who just happens to have exceptional ability but the point was that Cloud is suppose to represent the "everyman" and the "everyman" is a far cry from confident, smug, and dripping with testosterone like the Cloud we're introduced in the beginning of VII represents.

[Skyblade]

I don't know why people think the Scimitar is so good weapon for AP growth.
2 slots x 3 = 6 slots worth of AP
The Dragoon lance has 8 slots, so even at x1 you are still getting 33% more AP.
And if you take something like the Javelin:
5 slots x 2 = 10 slots worth of AP

If going for pure net AP growth, then yes. If you want to work on a particular, high cost materia, though, it's quite nice.

[ReloadPsi]

I wouldn't want to boot Cloud out of my party. He's not mopey; he is just a complete and utter asshole and it's hilarious. It's a shame KH, AC and other later versions of Cloud portrayed him as a self-pitying tool, but the original FFVII Cloud was a dick. Barret and Cid would complete the comedy trio.

Pretty much this. Besides, I was FAR more narked at being forced to stop using Aeris.

[Hollycat]

You know, it is really odd that he was trying to be zack, ut then zack is this really honorable nice guy who thinks nothing for himself, even if he does boast.
Cloud was just a badass

[Jiro]

dripping with testosterone

If Cloud ever had that much testosterone, his hair wouldn't be all smurfing fluffy (like in AC) and stick up like it does.

[Mercen-X]

I didn't like being stuck with Dart in my Legend of Dragoon party either.

[Spooniest]

Barret, Cid and Vincent, with Cid using Highwind as his limit break for moar dakka.

As far as Cloud goes...

I think it's more than a little obvious that Square tried to make Cloud into a symbol of the demographic they felt were the most numerous fans of Final Fantasy VII. Yes, I'm going to say it...Square needed to turn Cloud into an emo in order to appeal to the fans they thought were the most numerous players of their games at the time.

But that's not what Cloud is, if you go by the game itself.

In Final Fantasy VII, Cloud starts off as a prototypical "RPG Hero." He even gives the tutorial to the other characters. He's got it all: muscle, skill, knowledge, women with gigantic supple breasts fawning over him...

And then it all goes straight to smurfing hell. Cloud descends into utter madness, his super-mercenary identity broken over a rock.

This kind of thing happens to people...when you're young and full of energy, you're ready to go out there and take on the world, live it up, have adventures. Then your back starts hurting. You find that you spend a lot of time doing dishes and grocery shopping. The dull monotony of life steals in and breaks your teenage fantasies of adulthood over its knee.

To face this, that you are just a human being, with ordinary, everyday problems and solutions that aren't fancy or flashy, is the core statement of Cloud's story. It may be the most bizarre coming-of-age story known to the history of storytelling.

Cloud is just a normal person...there's really nothing remarkable about him, and he's pretty centered by the time the story wraps up.

All the whinging he does later on (in the Compilation) isn't teen angst...it's supposed to be post-adventure, very adult depression. That it was so poorly executed speaks volumes about the loss incurred when the creator(s) of the original game jumped ship, and how far computer-animated movies have to go in terms of creating an emotionally compelling and "human" performance.

[Jiro]

Did emos exist in '97?

[Jinx]

Did emos exist in '97?

I think back then they were called "goths."

[blackmage_nuke]

I wanted to boot cloud out of my party, I wouldve kept Cid as leader and had RedXIII tag along.

[Sylvie]

I don't know why people think the Scimitar is so good weapon for AP growth.
2 slots x 3 = 6 slots worth of AP
The Dragoon lance has 8 slots, so even at x1 you are still getting 33% more AP.
And if you take something like the Javelin:
5 slots x 2 = 10 slots worth of AP

If going for pure net AP growth, then yes. If you want to work on a particular, high cost materia, though, it's quite nice.

Yeah. Good luck mastering Knights of the Round with a single-growth weapon.

The whole point of the triple-growth weapons is that they sacrifice slots for super AP growth on those three particular materia. Using the triple-growth weapons, you can master most basic materia in a handful of fights with Magic Pots/Movers.

[Mercen-X]

I've been replaying VII lately and I have to say that everything about Cloud speaks naught but one single word to me: Mercenary. That's what he is. He's not an ex-SOLDIER, he's not a hero, he's not a team leader, Cloud is simply muscle by the time you cure him of his identity crisis. Suddenly, that posturing at the end of every battle can say nothing else about him other than that he tries to look good. He doesn't do that pose because it comes naturally to him or because it serves a purpose as a leader. He does it to look cool and that's not a leader. Cid's a leader. He's the captain of the damned Highwind. He refused the job when it was first offered to him by Barret, but he gave a hell of a department speech when the party crashed the Rocket into Meteor. Barret always says he's got to smack Cloud in the back of the head and Cid always claims he's gotta give him a kick in the ass. But no one's really willing to admit to Cloud's face that he can't lead them properly and should just step aside. Hell, even Vincent would make a better leader. Even if they were girls named Beretta, Valerie, and Sydney (as long as their basic personalities remained) they'd still be better leaders than Cloud (who would even be a pain in the ass as a chick). I mention that because I can't cast my vote for thieving Yuffie, hippie Aerish, or wannabe tomboy Tifa as leaders 'cause they couldn't have done a good job either. Neither could Cait Sith (who could take a talking cat seriously?) nor Red/Nanaki (he's roughly 14... he's technically younger than Yuffie, and he waxes way too philisophical about stuff he really doesn't understand.)

All that being said, I still like Cloud. He's useful. I just like him as a mercenary. Fine, call him a main character. Call him THE main character and map most of the story around him. But don't stick him on me like flypaper and then call him my leader because that ship's gonna sink like a stone.

If I wasn't allowed to have Cloud on my team, I wouldn't play the game. If Cloud didn't exist in the game, my party would consist of any trio minus Aeris and Cait Sith. I hate that useless cat... and Aeris dies at the end of the first disc instantly wasting any effort you put into building her up. There should have been some kind of reward to exerting effort on one of the most useless characters in the entire FF series.

By the way, as long as we're discussing how Square could have made VII perform better (i.e. allowing Cloud to be removed from the party), I'll add my two cents that the damage limit of 9999-restriction shouldn't have existed and if there's ever a remake (c'mon guys, you're not fooling anybody, you know it's just a matter of time... maybe three/four more years...) that's one thing that should be amended.

[Rodney]

You have no idea how much I wish we could've had the option to boot Cloud from the party.

My party has only to do with how much I personally like them. Don't care a bit about strength in weapons or attacks.

So knowing this, Barret, Red XIII, and Yuffie, my three personal favorites, would be my main party.