Let's discuss Cloud's main love interest: Aerith or Tifa

[silentenigma]

A few things come to mind that seemed to give Aeris an slight edge in the game... like the ending and the fact that Aeris starts out with 20 more love points than Tifa in the dating mechanics.

Which reflects on Aerith, not Cloud, since the AV decides who takes action.

Well she comes in later you know :P And the fact that they start her with so many really says something to me, and it's not "She's Cloud's true love"

I really don't think the reason that Square gave Aeris 20 extra points was because they were expecting most of their audience to prefer Tifa and were compensating for it. Rather, they probably did so because they wanted the player to most likely get Aeris for the gold saucer date. I'm not saying that this this alone would make Aeris the primary love interest of the game, because it's just one date, and we all know that there's another good 20 hours left in the game after the first disk.

The 'high' version only was listed an an important scene in the story of FF7 in the 20th Ani Ultimania Scenario book. It is canon.

Ah, I guess it most likely is then.. But it seems like you probably didn't read my first post... it's on page one and pretty much explains that I'm not going to try and argue that cloudxaeris is canon. After all, as I have also said, the newer interviews and Compilation installments give a ton of evidence in favor of a romantic cloudxtifa relationship of some sort. So yeah, I'm really not just spamming cloudxaeris.

Horribly overstated. There are a few retcons, but hardly as many as people keep whining about.

I really do believe that there are, and I do believe that the compilation has ruined the integrity of the original game. (But like I said, getting into specifics would be for a different discussion, though there's no way I'm going to start that thread.) Therefore when I judge pretty much anything about FFVII, I do so based solely on what we had in 1998 - the original game. This includes who I consider to be Cloud's main love interest, among other things. Now I know most people here disagree with this approach to FFVII...I remember how you guys tore some user named Charcoal to shreds a couple years ago for "living in the past" like I do. But I just would like to offer an alternative perspective on things.

And I say that in a general sense; there's not to my knowledge any retcons in the compilation that completely 'undo' the cloudxaeris moments of the game.

Which are?

It is undeniable that there are both cloudxaeris moments and cloudxtifa moments in FFVII. I just said that mostly because I didn't want to seem like I am against the compilation just because it specifically retcons the cloudxaeris moments in the game, which it does not.

By the way, is there anyone up for debating what the game's ending indicates about Cloud's feelings? I'm certainly not in the mood to, but I would like to see someone address it at some point.