Who was the superior protagonist?

[Skyblade]

How did you get through Crisis Core then? Because Zack's moodiness gets WAY worse than Cloud's. That's why I couldn't finish. Happy and bubbly protagonist became eternally depressed and it was terrible.

Zack only gets depressed once you fight with Genesis for the first time and lose Angeal. After the time skip, he's actually back to being his cheerful self up until the ending. It helps that Gloom Cloud overshadows whatever moodiness Zack can have, and I was honestly more disturbed by Aerith being uncharacteristically gloomy in the game.

I got right past the time skip, and it seemed like he was depressed the whole time and he was certainly still depressed immediately after it. In fact, the entire time skip seemed to be just "Zack's too busy sulking, so nothing happens".

I don't think I played a single mission past that.