Quote Originally Posted by Big D View Post
Not at all - in the original game, the party can encounter a number of third, second, and first class SOLDIERs at various points.
And these First Class SOLDIERs aren't particularly difficult to defeat. There are some SOLDIERs that are very powerful, such as Sephiroth & Zack, but these are rarities.
This works both ways. In VIII, Squall, Zell, Quistis etc. are exceptional SeeDs.

I think that it isn't very representative debating on the strength of a large group of people based on a small sample of them.

I also do not think that one can debate that SeeDs are only strong without GFs, and they're useless without them, hence SOLDIER is better. SeeDs are trained with GFs, they utilize them extensively, and they cannot be seperated. It is almost as innane as me saying that if you take away the Jenova cell's in SOLDIERs, they're useless.

And I just find that SeeDs have a greater purpose and seem to be better trained than SOLDIERs. Their training starts at a younger age. They are used to fighting in large-scale battles. First Class SOLDIERs tend to operate more as special-ops. Also, after the War with Wutai, they have not been tested in a large-scale war.

These two factors I believe are what makes SeeDs ever-so-slightly better than SOLDIER.