On December 07 2015 22:16 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: The episodic announcements makes me really nervous. How far apart are the releases are they going to be split into the same disc switches as FF& original and more importantly will some of us have to buy new consoles if we choose to buy the game via the PS store seeing how the game is so big?
Yeah, we need more details. The game is so goddam huge, I don't blame them for wanting to make it episodic; I could easily seeing it take years for them to complete FF7.
And there are lots of parts of that game that are garbage and could be dropped. Snowboarding for instance. Or just confusing to the point of being silly. And the dialog would need to be completely redone, since the translation wasn’t good and Barret sounded like he walked out of 70s blackploitation film as viewed through the eyes of a Japanese viewer
Interested to see how it works out. Glad they are not just dumping out the same game with pretty graphics.
#are you fuckin nuts? suddenly jumping on a snowboard for a 2 minute nailbiting clusterfuck down a mountain out of nowhere was crazy. and you know the snowboarding game at the golden saucer has like 5 hours of gameplay behind it coz it has a bunch of bonus and secret levels
my only reservation is that by splitting it into series they will flesh out the random battles like they did with FF13 (which made FF13 literally unplayable for me, i quit it after 10 hours or whatever)
I don't think they should bring back the 5 hours of shitty snowboarding. Really, no more shitty JRPG mini-games. That is not the quality content I am looking for.
That soccer game in the waterbubble or whatever (was it FF10?) was actually quite good. I enjoyed it.
On December 08 2015 07:35 Faruko wrote: what exactly is a full fledge sized game ? that its so fucking vague
They probably aren't sure of exact size yet. I assume they mean ~10h. Since that is the normal thing for railroad shooter games such as Gears of War or Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine. If they mean RPG with turn/pause based combat it would be more like 25h.
On December 06 2015 15:49 Psyonic_Reaver wrote: Is it just me or does the original soundtrack sound WAYYYY better?
Maybe I'm just nostalgic....
The original one (midi on disc) sounded awful, just the crafted concert pieces on several OST let you enjoy the scores
Eh, it's well-written so I don't need a full orchestra and huge movements to tell me "FEEL EPIC§1!!!1§" to appreciate it. Bombing Mission is a really solid theme and the way they used it in the game (only twice, making the throwback to the first raid when the party comes back to Midgar pretty impactful) does a lot more to its feel than whether its midi or orchestral for me.
On December 07 2015 22:16 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: The episodic announcements makes me really nervous. How far apart are the releases are they going to be split into the same disc switches as FF& original and more importantly will some of us have to buy new consoles if we choose to buy the game via the PS store seeing how the game is so big?
Yeah, we need more details. The game is so goddam huge, I don't blame them for wanting to make it episodic; I could easily seeing it take years for them to complete FF7.
And there are lots of parts of that game that are garbage and could be dropped. Snowboarding for instance. Or just confusing to the point of being silly. And the dialog would need to be completely redone, since the translation wasn’t good and Barret sounded like he walked out of 70s blackploitation film as viewed through the eyes of a Japanese viewer
Interested to see how it works out. Glad they are not just dumping out the same game with pretty graphics.
The French translation wasn't good (barebones sentences at times when we have a lengthy language) but if I'd been told it performed better than in English for once... We dodged that bullet, Barret talked pretty "normally."
On December 07 2015 23:14 Spaylz wrote: I think they will try to add more story and flesh out each segment of the plot a lot more.
So we'll have the original story with some modified bits, plus some more content. Probably side quests or backstory/character development.
There are a lot of plot points to FF7 which many players did not grasp due to the poor translation back then. For example, to this day, a fair amount of FF7 players/fans don't know that + Show Spoiler +
you only ever see the real Sephiroth once in the entire game, at the very end (not counting flashbacks). Any other time, the "Sephiroth" you encounter is Jenova shapeshifting to take his form. Sephiroth is using her and controlling her to do his bidding "as himself". So, technically, Sephiroth didn't kill Aerith; Jenova did. So there is a lot of potential in expanding on that particular segment.
I'm reserving judgement. I actually have a lot of faith in Square Enix lately, so I think they can do this right.
It depends really. What I expect is part "new" stuff, and part simply expending on the story from Before Crisis, Crisis Core and Dirge of Cerberus, the first being, uh, "superfluous" and the third being straight-up terrible "forget it ever existed." I dislike almost everything of Crisis Core (the ending and the way it rewrites part of FF VII being the worst for me) but I know that's not a popular opinion to hold. There's also all the "Lifestream" and afterlife and "Aerith being the good samaritan" stuff from the books and other additions, but I don't know if it's cannon. Seemed like superfluous "sometimes it deters from things if you go into too much detail about them" territory from what summaries I've read of them.
When I first finished the game I'd understood it as Jenova being the one who broke free, and was manipulating Cloud and others all this time to smash the crust, absorb energy (the Lifestream?) from the Planet to heal itself then depart somewhere else through space as it used to do. Sephiroth was dead all those years ago, but Jenova was using their connection and his fame to manipulate all the clones that had cells of it, turn them into the image of Sephiroth, and abusing people over the world to further its plan. With the cult following he had (amongst players, not the ingame one) and how bland of a character he is, I thought that was clever but also ironic in an amusing way. Then I read in a interview that what the actual plot was on that front. I was disappointed and FF VII dropped a bit in my regard.
And I spent so much time on the motorcycle game, trying to get the highest score possible. D: Didn't play the snowboard one much (plus I sucked at it).
Also Starcraft II was split into 3 episodes back in 2008 or whatever and a lot of people on TL and similar sites bought all 3 at release, I'd imagine Final Fantasy fans will react the same way to this, just wanting to play it immediately instead of getting the best deal.
On December 07 2015 22:16 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: The episodic announcements makes me really nervous. How far apart are the releases are they going to be split into the same disc switches as FF& original and more importantly will some of us have to buy new consoles if we choose to buy the game via the PS store seeing how the game is so big?
Yeah, we need more details. The game is so goddam huge, I don't blame them for wanting to make it episodic; I could easily seeing it take years for them to complete FF7.
And there are lots of parts of that game that are garbage and could be dropped. Snowboarding for instance. Or just confusing to the point of being silly. And the dialog would need to be completely redone, since the translation wasn’t good and Barret sounded like he walked out of 70s blackploitation film as viewed through the eyes of a Japanese viewer
Interested to see how it works out. Glad they are not just dumping out the same game with pretty graphics.
#are you fuckin nuts? suddenly jumping on a snowboard for a 2 minute nailbiting clusterfuck down a mountain out of nowhere was crazy. and you know the snowboarding game at the golden saucer has like 5 hours of gameplay behind it coz it has a bunch of bonus and secret levels
my only reservation is that by splitting it into series they will flesh out the random battles like they did with FF13 (which made FF13 literally unplayable for me, i quit it after 10 hours or whatever)
I don't think they should bring back the 5 hours of shitty snowboarding. Really, no more shitty JRPG mini-games. That is not the quality content I am looking for.
That soccer game in the waterbubble or whatever (was it FF10?) was actually quite good. I enjoyed it.
Blitzball was actually amazing and very in deep and fun if you spent the time doing it. Probably the best mini-game ever.
On the side note, the problem with episode is that there won't be any backtrack and the game won't be open world. It just simply not possible with chapter system. That is what I dislike about why they are doing this.
Aerith is her real name but the original game had a translation error and they had her named as Aeris. I used them both really, everyone understands who you're talking about anyway.
I actually liked Crisis Core as a story, and this new combat system looks like the CC one which I'm ok with (it got a little dull, but I guess the turn based one did so too).
On December 08 2015 11:58 jalstar wrote: Aeris but some japanophiles say Aerith.
Also Starcraft II was split into 3 episodes back in 2008 or whatever and a lot of people on TL and similar sites bought all 3 at release, I'd imagine Final Fantasy fans will react the same way to this, just wanting to play it immediately instead of getting the best deal.
Aerith's name in Japanese is Aerisu, and "su" can translate to both "s" or "th". For example, Sephiroth's name is "Sefirosu", and they put "th" at the end in English.
I think lately, SE is going with Aerith over Aeris. Not sure though.
On December 07 2015 22:16 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: The episodic announcements makes me really nervous. How far apart are the releases are they going to be split into the same disc switches as FF& original and more importantly will some of us have to buy new consoles if we choose to buy the game via the PS store seeing how the game is so big?
Yeah, we need more details. The game is so goddam huge, I don't blame them for wanting to make it episodic; I could easily seeing it take years for them to complete FF7.
And there are lots of parts of that game that are garbage and could be dropped. Snowboarding for instance. Or just confusing to the point of being silly. And the dialog would need to be completely redone, since the translation wasn’t good and Barret sounded like he walked out of 70s blackploitation film as viewed through the eyes of a Japanese viewer
Interested to see how it works out. Glad they are not just dumping out the same game with pretty graphics.
#are you fuckin nuts? suddenly jumping on a snowboard for a 2 minute nailbiting clusterfuck down a mountain out of nowhere was crazy. and you know the snowboarding game at the golden saucer has like 5 hours of gameplay behind it coz it has a bunch of bonus and secret levels
my only reservation is that by splitting it into series they will flesh out the random battles like they did with FF13 (which made FF13 literally unplayable for me, i quit it after 10 hours or whatever)
I don't think they should bring back the 5 hours of shitty snowboarding. Really, no more shitty JRPG mini-games. That is not the quality content I am looking for.
That soccer game in the waterbubble or whatever (was it FF10?) was actually quite good. I enjoyed it.
Blitzball was actually amazing and very in deep and fun if you spent the time doing it. Probably the best mini-game ever.
On the side note, the problem with episode is that there won't be any backtrack and the game won't be open world. It just simply not possible with chapter system. That is what I dislike about why they are doing this.
So basically it'll be like every other PSX era Final Fantasy with disc changes?
On December 08 2015 11:58 jalstar wrote: Aeris but some japanophiles say Aerith.
Also Starcraft II was split into 3 episodes back in 2008 or whatever and a lot of people on TL and similar sites bought all 3 at release, I'd imagine Final Fantasy fans will react the same way to this, just wanting to play it immediately instead of getting the best deal.
Aerith's name in Japanese is Aerisu, and "su" can translate to both "s" or "th". For example, Sephiroth's name is "Sefirosu", and they put "th" at the end in English.
I think lately, SE is going with Aerith over Aeris. Not sure though.
This conversation might be relevant in 2001 before Kingdom Hearts came out...
On December 07 2015 22:16 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: The episodic announcements makes me really nervous. How far apart are the releases are they going to be split into the same disc switches as FF& original and more importantly will some of us have to buy new consoles if we choose to buy the game via the PS store seeing how the game is so big?
Yeah, we need more details. The game is so goddam huge, I don't blame them for wanting to make it episodic; I could easily seeing it take years for them to complete FF7.
And there are lots of parts of that game that are garbage and could be dropped. Snowboarding for instance. Or just confusing to the point of being silly. And the dialog would need to be completely redone, since the translation wasn’t good and Barret sounded like he walked out of 70s blackploitation film as viewed through the eyes of a Japanese viewer
Interested to see how it works out. Glad they are not just dumping out the same game with pretty graphics.
#are you fuckin nuts? suddenly jumping on a snowboard for a 2 minute nailbiting clusterfuck down a mountain out of nowhere was crazy. and you know the snowboarding game at the golden saucer has like 5 hours of gameplay behind it coz it has a bunch of bonus and secret levels
my only reservation is that by splitting it into series they will flesh out the random battles like they did with FF13 (which made FF13 literally unplayable for me, i quit it after 10 hours or whatever)
I don't think they should bring back the 5 hours of shitty snowboarding. Really, no more shitty JRPG mini-games. That is not the quality content I am looking for.
That soccer game in the waterbubble or whatever (was it FF10?) was actually quite good. I enjoyed it.
Blitzball was actually amazing and very in deep and fun if you spent the time doing it. Probably the best mini-game ever.
On the side note, the problem with episode is that there won't be any backtrack and the game won't be open world. It just simply not possible with chapter system. That is what I dislike about why they are doing this.
So basically it'll be like every other PSX era Final Fantasy with disc changes?
On December 08 2015 11:58 jalstar wrote: Aeris but some japanophiles say Aerith.
Also Starcraft II was split into 3 episodes back in 2008 or whatever and a lot of people on TL and similar sites bought all 3 at release, I'd imagine Final Fantasy fans will react the same way to this, just wanting to play it immediately instead of getting the best deal.
Aerith's name in Japanese is Aerisu, and "su" can translate to both "s" or "th". For example, Sephiroth's name is "Sefirosu", and they put "th" at the end in English.
I think lately, SE is going with Aerith over Aeris. Not sure though.
This conversation might be relevant in 2001 before Kingdom Hearts came out...
Not necessarily because disc system is generally divided to at max 4 generally. So you have large increment of the game where you can back track and roam and stuff. When a game is broken into chapter it generally around 10-20 chapter. With each chapter that pass, you won't have the luxury to be able to roam and explore back. Compare the amount of free you have in FF7, 8 and 9 to some thing like the chapter system in FF13 where there was basically no back track.
On December 07 2015 22:16 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: The episodic announcements makes me really nervous. How far apart are the releases are they going to be split into the same disc switches as FF& original and more importantly will some of us have to buy new consoles if we choose to buy the game via the PS store seeing how the game is so big?
Yeah, we need more details. The game is so goddam huge, I don't blame them for wanting to make it episodic; I could easily seeing it take years for them to complete FF7.
And there are lots of parts of that game that are garbage and could be dropped. Snowboarding for instance. Or just confusing to the point of being silly. And the dialog would need to be completely redone, since the translation wasn’t good and Barret sounded like he walked out of 70s blackploitation film as viewed through the eyes of a Japanese viewer
Interested to see how it works out. Glad they are not just dumping out the same game with pretty graphics.
#are you fuckin nuts? suddenly jumping on a snowboard for a 2 minute nailbiting clusterfuck down a mountain out of nowhere was crazy. and you know the snowboarding game at the golden saucer has like 5 hours of gameplay behind it coz it has a bunch of bonus and secret levels
my only reservation is that by splitting it into series they will flesh out the random battles like they did with FF13 (which made FF13 literally unplayable for me, i quit it after 10 hours or whatever)
I don't think they should bring back the 5 hours of shitty snowboarding. Really, no more shitty JRPG mini-games. That is not the quality content I am looking for.
That soccer game in the waterbubble or whatever (was it FF10?) was actually quite good. I enjoyed it.
Blitzball was actually amazing and very in deep and fun if you spent the time doing it. Probably the best mini-game ever.
On the side note, the problem with episode is that there won't be any backtrack and the game won't be open world. It just simply not possible with chapter system. That is what I dislike about why they are doing this.
So basically it'll be like every other PSX era Final Fantasy with disc changes?
Also Triple Triad is the only FF minigame ever.
On December 08 2015 13:19 Spaylz wrote:
On December 08 2015 11:58 jalstar wrote: Aeris but some japanophiles say Aerith.
Also Starcraft II was split into 3 episodes back in 2008 or whatever and a lot of people on TL and similar sites bought all 3 at release, I'd imagine Final Fantasy fans will react the same way to this, just wanting to play it immediately instead of getting the best deal.
Aerith's name in Japanese is Aerisu, and "su" can translate to both "s" or "th". For example, Sephiroth's name is "Sefirosu", and they put "th" at the end in English.
I think lately, SE is going with Aerith over Aeris. Not sure though.
This conversation might be relevant in 2001 before Kingdom Hearts came out...
Not necessarily because disc system is generally divided to at max 4 generally. So you have large increment of the game where you can back track and roam and stuff. When a game is broken into chapter it generally around 10-20 chapter. With each chapter that pass, you won't have the luxury to be able to roam and explore back. Compare the amount of free you have in FF7, 8 and 9 to some thing like the chapter system in FF13 where there was basically no back track.
They didn't say anything about Chapters though...?
They're releasing the full game in Episodic content. Which generally amounts to 3-5 releases total, AKA just like separate discs.
Blitzball could have been a stand alone game, that shit was legendary. And I spent countless hours in FF7 casino and with the FF8/9 card games. But I was young then and now I would spend maybe like 1/10 of that time with mini-games.
Games after 10 had like no mini-games that I can remember.
actually jst in followup to my post that sed cloud is like bilbo + frodo combined, actually it was zack that went thru all the shit in the other games wasnt it, cloud only got introduced as a random solider assigned to zack at some point (i'm guessing). then got kidnapped with zack by ghast and ended up as one of the (3) mako successes, which made him much stronger, then by chance he met aerisu. but basically all the fuckton of story before ff7 was about zack not cloud right
i was just thinking this coz things like clouds past, who zack is, etc, are all things they could flesh out in the new game, but imo part of what made 7 great was the mystery , the part-knowing: it all lends to the process of storytelling. if they go and add a buttfuckton of detail and backstory it could damage the process of storytelling (e.g. like FF13 where you press menu button and read XXX wiki entries instead of learning about the world naturally. not saying that damaged FF13 but maybe it did)
On December 08 2015 16:55 FFGenerations wrote: (spoilers ahead)
actually jst in followup to my post that sed cloud is like bilbo + frodo combined, actually it was zack that went thru all the shit in the other games wasnt it, cloud only got introduced as a random solider assigned to zack at some point (i'm guessing). then got kidnapped with zack by ghast and ended up as one of the (3) mako successes, which made him much stronger, then by chance he met aerisu. but basically all the fuckton of story before ff7 was about zack not cloud right
i was just thinking this coz things like clouds past, who zack is, etc, are all things they could flesh out in the new game, but imo part of what made 7 great was the mystery , the part-knowing: it all lends to the process of storytelling. if they go and add a buttfuckton of detail and backstory it could damage the process of storytelling (e.g. like FF13 where you press menu button and read XXX wiki entries instead of learning about the world naturally. not saying that damaged FF13 but maybe it did)
The majority of that info is actually in FF7. You just have to go looking for some of it. There are a number of scenes available in the game that are absolutely unnecessary to complete the game, but flesh out the history/story of the characters and world. So they really wouldn't be adding a whole lot tbh.. they might simply be changing the presentation of this information (which can affect the pacing and flow of the story, without actually changing it, so it may be interesting to see).
On December 08 2015 16:55 FFGenerations wrote: (spoilers ahead)
actually jst in followup to my post that sed cloud is like bilbo + frodo combined, actually it was zack that went thru all the shit in the other games wasnt it, cloud only got introduced as a random solider assigned to zack at some point (i'm guessing). then got kidnapped with zack by ghast and ended up as one of the (3) mako successes, which made him much stronger, then by chance he met aerisu. but basically all the fuckton of story before ff7 was about zack not cloud right
i was just thinking this coz things like clouds past, who zack is, etc, are all things they could flesh out in the new game, but imo part of what made 7 great was the mystery , the part-knowing: it all lends to the process of storytelling. if they go and add a buttfuckton of detail and backstory it could damage the process of storytelling (e.g. like FF13 where you press menu button and read XXX wiki entries instead of learning about the world naturally. not saying that damaged FF13 but maybe it did)
The majority of that info is actually in FF7. You just have to go looking for some of it. There are a number of scenes available in the game that are absolutely unnecessary to complete the game, but flesh out the history/story of the characters and world. So they really wouldn't be adding a whole lot tbh.. they might simply be changing the presentation of this information (which can affect the pacing and flow of the story, without actually changing it, so it may be interesting to see).
Hell, it was basically spelled out during Cloud's memory-trek sequence, not to mention all of Aerith and Tifa's hints whenever Cloud talks about his SOLDIER days (or when you visit Zack's home).
It's also amusing how many fans of the game think Cloud's like the cool hero archetype or something, when throughout the entire game he's this big wannabe hero dork (and gets called out on being a dork constantly). Though, I guess it's something that's easy to miss amongst all the other humour.
On December 08 2015 17:00 iFU.pauline wrote: Fucking hate it, this is no turn based system rpg.
Final Fantasy hasn't been turn based since...5, or something.
Kinda surprising that people seem to not know as much about Zack and that Cloud basically lied his ass off/memories messed up. I get that some backstory could have been missed but pretty sure all the major stuff was shown when you were trying to recover cloud's self.
On December 07 2015 23:14 Spaylz wrote: I think they will try to add more story and flesh out each segment of the plot a lot more.
So we'll have the original story with some modified bits, plus some more content. Probably side quests or backstory/character development.
There are a lot of plot points to FF7 which many players did not grasp due to the poor translation back then. For example, to this day, a fair amount of FF7 players/fans don't know that + Show Spoiler +
you only ever see the real Sephiroth once in the entire game, at the very end (not counting flashbacks). Any other time, the "Sephiroth" you encounter is Jenova shapeshifting to take his form. Sephiroth is using her and controlling her to do his bidding "as himself". So, technically, Sephiroth didn't kill Aerith; Jenova did. So there is a lot of potential in expanding on that particular segment.
I'm reserving judgement. I actually have a lot of faith in Square Enix lately, so I think they can do this right.
Actually, the first time (and only time outside of the one-winged angel fight) you see the real Sephiroth, is at the Northern crater, before Meteor is called and the Weapons are activated. He's encased in materia and is soaking the life stream after having drifted there due to the incident in the Nibelheim reactor.
He seems unconcious at this point however, leading me to believe that Jenova is the main antagonist of FF7. Anyhow, that debate's for another time.
Yeah, I'm not sure its confusing, that's the whole Cloud mind control + men in black were, basically if it has JENOVA cells, which a lot of people do because of SOLDIER, Sephiroth can control/manipulate it.
Only Hojo's research experiments on regular people were the black-clad people (with the odd exeption, I suppose). Those joining SOLDIER, while also exposed to Mako and being infused with Jenova cells, were chosen for their exceptional mental fortitude in addition to their strength (which is why Cloud, while physically like those of SOLDIER, succumbed to Jenova influence). There's a lot of SOLDIER running around Shin-ra territory throughout the game, even when Rejunion is getting closer.
I'm pretty sure it's only those of weak will (Cloud, regular people having been experimented upon) that are under the sway of Jenova.
As for the game being episodic - I hate it. Sure, it means we'll get to play eariler, but we'll also get constantly blue-balled by "TO BE CONTINUED" pauses, which I absolutely detest. I understand the need to generate revenue, of course, and hopefully they are using a lot of resources to make this remake a good one, but episodic content has, to my experience, just a tendency to drag the content out far past interest - see all TellTale-games, the Banner Saga etc.
I was really looking forward to this being released in its entirety for FF7s 20th year anniversary, but now it seems it won't happen. Pretty shitty.
The only way I'd accept episodic releases, was if it'd be with a maximum of a month break between each. That won't happen, however, and thus this announcement is pretty dissapointing to me.
On December 08 2015 16:55 FFGenerations wrote: (spoilers ahead)
actually jst in followup to my post that sed cloud is like bilbo + frodo combined, actually it was zack that went thru all the shit in the other games wasnt it, cloud only got introduced as a random solider assigned to zack at some point (i'm guessing). then got kidnapped with zack by ghast and ended up as one of the (3) mako successes, which made him much stronger, then by chance he met aerisu. but basically all the fuckton of story before ff7 was about zack not cloud right
i was just thinking this coz things like clouds past, who zack is, etc, are all things they could flesh out in the new game, but imo part of what made 7 great was the mystery , the part-knowing: it all lends to the process of storytelling. if they go and add a buttfuckton of detail and backstory it could damage the process of storytelling (e.g. like FF13 where you press menu button and read XXX wiki entries instead of learning about the world naturally. not saying that damaged FF13 but maybe it did)
The majority of that info is actually in FF7. You just have to go looking for some of it. There are a number of scenes available in the game that are absolutely unnecessary to complete the game, but flesh out the history/story of the characters and world. So they really wouldn't be adding a whole lot tbh.. they might simply be changing the presentation of this information (which can affect the pacing and flow of the story, without actually changing it, so it may be interesting to see).
There's also stuff like Before Crisis inventing an AVALANCHE ruthless terrorist group acting in Corel a few years prior, leading to Barret's accident, for example. It's not contradicting anything shown in FF VII but is still "superfluous" fleshing out and has that sense of "everything is connected/such coincidences" which detracts from stories when it reaches conspiracy theory levels (also Hojo having now somehow turned Vincent into the real Ultimate Weapon in Dirge of Cerberus).
Crisis Core on the other hand was a straight-up retcon and is certain to be included in the game; while Zack falling to literally 50+ soldiers instead of a single firing squad is a pet peeve of mine, the whole "Zack was still alive when Cloud crawled to him, and what mixed with Cloud's PTSD to make him appropriate Zack's memories wasn't his own insecurities but Zack's will that he inherit his legacy" is retconning Cloud as a "better" person (he's not a loser with a fantasy, his PTSD just messed with how he upheld his best friend's wish!), which felt like catering to people's view of him.
As someone posted above, I actually prefer Cloud being a dork/loser who doesn't magically gets a pass (leave that to Naruto) because that's not something you often saw in your protagonist, especially not at the time.