Sephiroth holds FFVII back

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Sephiroth is born to two humans but was told that a “Jenova” is his mother > he’s injected with Jenova cells so he becomes a great warrior in the employ of Shinra > angrily discovers that he was made for war and learns about his origins and more from Prof. Gast’s work including the latter’s mistaken conclusion that Jenova was a Cetra > “but he was incompetent” because he wrongly believes himself to be a Cetra via Jenova “and then he goes mad!” by concocting a plan to drag a meteor towards the planet to generate enough lifestream in one spot to empower him to the status of a god as some sort of revenge for the Cetra over the humans

The jump from mentally stable soldier to someone with a god complex is almost entirely because of 1 and 2 – it just isn’t interesting and as a villain he is carried almost entirely by dramatic appearance alone. FFIX’s Kuja was much more interesting:

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Kuja is created by Garland to function as an Angel of Death to speed up the genocide of Gaia > but not without going through a childhood first so his emotional development is stunted which repeatedly impacts the story later on > he is unable to understand why Garland deems him a failure and has a second pop with Zidane so Kuja successfully exiles his replacement but is banished to Gaia by Garland as punishment > still a stickler for purpose he is wired to do as Garland intended by creating Black Mages to provide Queen Brahne with the manpower for wars over other kingdoms therefore ramping up the elaborate genocide of Gaia > originally intends to get revenge on Garland by using Gaia’s eidolons but is bitchslapped by his creator who informs him that he has a sell-by-date just like anyone else > Kuja reacts like any undeveloped child would – unable to accept that just because he has all the powers he has it doesn’t mean he can evade death forever (which is a central theme of the game) and decides that existence cannot be allowed to outlive him > Such is the all-powerful Kuja’s will for complete destruction, Necron assumes that existence is no longer wanted and arrives fulfil his intended purpose after the right conditions are met (but is stopped by Zidane and co.’s even more powerful will for continued existence)

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The only flaw there is that Garland is incompetent but he was put in charge by a race of people (Terra’s inhabitants) who completely refuse to accept death (again, the game’s central theme) so maybe it makes sense. Kuja is already a god to some extent, like Garland, having been bestowed the ability to create living beings that can become sentient (but most are deliberately imposed with limits on consciousness as well as lifespan) and he certainly has the motivation to do the things he does because that was what he was created to do, and his stunted mental development is the reason why he refuses to accept dying alone. But nobody wants to be Kuja like they want to be Sephiroth because Square was willing to ‘undignify’ Kuja by making him a precocious brat stuck in an adult body (having the appearance and demeanour of a feminine male probably doesn’t help endear him to potential fans either – the ‘Gorgeous George’ of JRPGs).

Sephiroth could’ve at least been more interesting if Square was willing to ‘undignify’ their fanfiction-tier male model by having scenes where other characters brusquely tell Sephiroth that he’s a moron for not understanding that Jenova isn’t a Cetra and that Meteor would only, at best, make him ruler of a dead planet with no civilisation. Furthermore Square should’ve given a Jenova a bigger role by stressing that Jenova was manipulating the village idiot Sephiroth into inadvertently completing it’s 2000 year old purpose to destroy life on the planet via Meteor – but they don’t really make this clear and Jenova – other than some off-the-bench appearances – never really gets the playing time proportionate to its importance to the plot.

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FFVII starts out as a fascinating comment on an important issue (take your pick: globalisation, environmentalism, self-esteem) but ends up with a run-of-the-mill insane fantasy villain (Sephiroth), whereas FFIX is the opposite by starting out with a run-of-the-mill insane fantasy villain (Queen Brahne) but ends up with a fascinating comment on an important issue (accepting mortality and enjoying your time on this earth).

fin

>>3920904
... and FF8 just fucks around i guess?
I think people take the importance of storyline too seriously in most JRPGs.

Sephiroth is dope

Considering that almost all of Sephiroth's appearances are actually just Jenova creatures, I found Sephiroth's motivation really hard to understand.

You see him at the end and you see him in flashbacks, and those flashbacks belong to an unreliable narrator.

But I agree with you, he does hold it back. 7 has a strong plot until Sephiroth takes it over. I'd even throw Cloud's backstory into the mix - it worked better when it was Shin-Ra vs Avalanche not Cloud vs Sephiroth.

>>3920958

Well FFs in particular because the PS1 FFs are more narrative than gameplay in my imo. The materia system in FF7 for example has a large role to play in the plot, but otherwise simply does a job gameplay-wise. FF8 at least changes the gameplay a lot but still has a long story and a plot tweest to tell.

Sephiroth was just an overleveled dickhead with a superiority and Oedipus complex that went maximum edgelord when he felt felt he was finally justified in abandoning any personal responsibility due to his mad-science origin. That he dominates Jenova's lingering will only to fall prey to her biological instincts is especially hilarious due to being twice upended by the awkward, country bumpkin that once idolized him.

>>3920960
I find his "absence" is a good thing.

When I played it for the first time, it really motivated me to explore the whole world, talk to everybody etc. because you had no clue where the guy went or what he is planning to do. It felt like one giant adventure with your best friends.

>>3920958
That orphanage plot twist ruined the story for me, particularly because it ruined Squall's character. After finding out he had the exact same backstory as everyone else I just found it impossible to relate to him or his "muh feelings" bullshit for the rest of the game.

I never actually played this game. I even bought it on Steam but ended up not tolerating the cloud save thing, it was slow as shit.

Do I give it another try? People tell me it's overrated

>>3921049

Well as I say in the OP I think its overhyped due to fandom of Sephiroth but its still underrated by others due to ignoring the other aspects of the plot such as Shinra which is a great snapshot of how megacorporations were beginning to be understood in the 1990s.

Gameplay-wise its not a major challenge and if you have the time to do the sidequests the rewards from that will make the final bosses a complete joke (I don't recall other JRPGs whose sidequest rewards do that.) Despite that I still recommend the game because of the interesting setting (minus Sephiroth.)

>>3920896
Sephiroth is such a terrible fucking villain. He has maybe 5 minutes of development before shifting into generic Madman Destroying the World mode. And he's absent for well over half the game. Which is a shame because the rest of the game is fantastic.

Wow. That is quite a wall of text. My advice is next time to try and focus on Jenova herself and her motivations. See how her cells subtly manipulate those actors exposed to them (Hojo included) to further her grand agenda. Had there been a proper VII-2 not effected by fan service it would have been about Jenova taking a second crack at the aged heroes or their offspring through a new proxy (not that sephiroth lite dude from advent children)

>>3921084

kek, originally I was just gonna find some website that publishes this kind of thing and email it to them but the ones I had in mind are no longer active so I just broke it down and posted it on /vr/.

The game would've been far more interesting if they made Jenova's role more obvious but they don't do that and I even suspect that maybe they DID intend for Jenova to be just a minor antagonist under Sephiroth's command instead of the main one. They also don't go enough into Shinra IMO but there is still enough for the patient observer to pick up on.

Sephiroth is a personification and ultimately the end result of The Planet's post-industrial disaffection, which was primarily caused by Shinra. He is an unfeeling monster displaced from reality by the very society he was a part of. He ultimately wants to destroy nature and make it subservient to him, mirroring how humanity had enslaved the planet with technology. Cloud looks up to Sephiroth because Sephiroth symbolizes the industrial values of Midgar and the time: strength at the cost of humanity and nature. When Cloud gets over his pathological problems, he is able to shed those wants and defeat Sephiroth.

And honestly, Sephiroth is a much more interesting antagonist than the two-dimensional Shinra board of executives. You may look and see a pretty bishonen, but he's really some haunted ghost thing from beyond the stars, a character without a personality, more a force than a character. If you say he's boring, that's like saying any other villain in a JRPG is boring because he doesn't have a complex backstory. Kefka has almost no backstory, he mainly carries the game through his demeanor. Sephiroth is similar, instead of the sardonic humor of Kefka, he is a specter of alienation. And the Shinra act like cartoon characters. Are you telling me President Shinra was a good villain because he was a fat businessman? Well, if you put a crown on him and made Shinra HQ into a castle than he'd be the same as any stereotypical evil feudal warlord villain. Just because it looks cool and the concept seems interesting doesn't mean that's what the crux of the game is at all based on.

You probably think Aeris was Cloud's main love interest in the game also if you judge the game based on everything it immediately shows you.

My advice: just play the game again and try to understand what the story is about instead of judging it solely on appearances and base concepts.

>>3920897
Right here proves you didn't really pay attention to the game. Sephiroth wasn't incompetent for thinking he was a Cetra, those were the notes of Gast and Hojo, the two most brilliant minds alive who had wrongly identified Jenova. Him "going mad!" was as much a result of discovering that he was a test-tube puppet bred by Shinra to be their bloody killer while his mother was a perpetual lab experiment locked in a tube and constantly being siphoned and preyed upon, all by creatures that were historically known for genociding his people. That's when he wiped out the Shinra town of Nibelheim.

Now, after Cloud throws him into the reactor and on entering the Lifestream he obtains the correct information. And it's not insanity or "revenge for the Cetra" that prompts him to use the Black Materia, it's the knowledge of the Lifestream. Sephiroth knows now that Jenova isn't an Ancient, but is a calamity from the skies that preys on world after world. If the Planet takes enough damage or is under enough threat, all the Lifestream will accumulate in one spot (like it ultimately did do in the credits), and he is uniquely situated to take it all and ascend to Godhood. From there he can follow Jenova's true legacy and go from world to world feeding himself.

Kuja is nothing more than Genesis 2.0. The failed Sephiroth with a chip on his shoulder.

>>3921217

>Are you telling me President Shinra was a good villain because he was a fat businessman?

If you have to make up things that the other person didn't said, don't bother attempting to debate - it's not a good line of argumentation.

I would go into why Shinra is a great antagonist but this (short) article does it better: https://bigtallwords.com/2012/07/03/displacement-in-final-fantasy-vii/

>>3921307
Thanks, man.

That link highlights all of my points. I was actually going to put it in my post but I felt like it wasn't necessary.

This article is also good: http://socksmakepeoplesexy.net/index.php?a=ff07

Anyway thanks for helping further my points.

(Also, there's a difference between Shinra's influence on the world and Shinra itself as an entity. Shinra is a poor villain but a good bit of world-building. I did state earlier that Shinra were the ones who created Sephiroth anyway. So if you're going to be condescending use some form of discussion instead of posting links to things that I based my own arguments on that you're refuting.)

>>3921396

um, ok... you're welcome I guess.

>>3920896
>FFVII starts out as a fascinating comment on an important issue (take your pick: globalisation, environmentalism, self-esteem) but ends up with a run-of-the-mill insane fantasy villain (Sephiroth), whereas FFIX is the opposite by starting out with a run-of-the-mill insane fantasy villain (Queen Brahne) but ends up with a fascinating comment on an important issue (accepting mortality and enjoying your time on this earth).
>fascinating comment
You mean vivi moments placed throughout the game? I hope not the moment suddenly game was like "ok we are serious and akward now, becouse fuck you, we have 1 hour left of gameplay"...
>Kuja great
He had like what, 10 minutes total in the whole game? What was the last time you played those games, anon?

>Sephiroth cheapens the whole thing.
> function he serves in the plot is as one of the two role models for Cloud’s self-illusions to revolve around
So he does not cheapen the whole product. Without him it would be incomplete. Not every character in the game needs to be interesting. Consider the following: some of the greatest books haven't any villains: Dostojevsky, Camus etc. He's just needed for particular purposes, and the narration focuses on Cloud team and common people.

The theme of FF7 is life. Not Shinra, Sephiroth, or aliens from outer space. It's more about feelings that the medium of video can ofer in this case(better than books).

>>3921786
>Kuja great
> He had like what, 10 minutes total in the whole game? What was the last time you played those games, anon?

You should be the one replaying the game. Kuja has way more than 10 minutes of screentime and more appearances than Sephiroth (even considering Jenova counting for him) or a few other FF villains.

>>3921084
Jenova has no agenda, unless you're talking about when she first landed and began deceiving the Cetra before the events of the game. In the main story, Jenova is just Sephiroth's pawn.

And that's really where FF7 dropped the ball. It's actually a very interesting dynamic if you look at it through the lens of Sephiroth being deceived by his predecessors and then controlled by Jenova, but no, they actually went out of their way in the Compilation of FF7 to say, "No, Sephiroth is the villain, he's the one in control. His unending hatred gives him the power to control this powerful alien creature and project his image wherever he wants!"

>>3920896
I don't really mind Sephiroth himself it's the game totally dropping the environmental terrorist plot in a cyberpunk world in favor of just going on a wild goose chase over him that pisses me off.

>>3921049
If you like JRPG's it is a good game. It progresses well in Midgard, there are a decent amount of materia to equip to your guys without everyone being the same due to only having so many slots to equip materia to on every character, and the bosses are entertaining due to most having a gimmick even if they aren't the hardest things ever.

It does drag on a bit once you go out of Midgard and it takes forever to level up materia, especially certain ones. I got steal the instant you could get it and I didn't get its second level which is mug until I got to the final dungeon. That is a bit of a problem because gaining some materia skills can easily over level the player and even more so tip the balance in making the game much easier than it already is.

Personally with the story I found myself losing interest when it went from an eco-terrorist group to people going after this legendary warrior.

>>3921915
>Personally with the story I found myself losing interest when it went from an eco-terrorist group to people going after this legendary warrior.
As a kid, the game didn't make it clear to me that I wasn't chasing actual sephiroth, but a shapeshifting alien that was bent on manipulating humans to allow it to genocide the entire planet so it could move on (which it almost succeeds in doing, over the course of 2 millenia [though really just the past few decades]). If they had, it would fit the beginning of the game much better.

>analyzing a RPG story as if it's a fucking Shakespeare novel
It's a tool to get you from point A to point B, I didn't even know the story for half the games I loved as a kid. If you're not judging the game based on what you actually do in the game then you've missed the point completely.

>>3921810
Sorry my head canon was firmly established long before Compilation.

>>3922230
Believe me, I wish it wasn't that way.

>>3921810
>And that's really where FF7 dropped the ball. It's actually a very interesting dynamic if you look at it through the lens of Sephiroth being deceived by his predecessors and then controlled by Jenova, but no, they actually went out of their way in the Compilation of FF7 to say, "No, Sephiroth is the villain, he's the one in control. His unending hatred gives him the power to control this powerful alien creature and project his image wherever he wants!"

Yes, why would a human-Jenova hybrid, refined through several trial and error attempts until the perfect fusion of both through the highest form of science and the world's most brilliant scientists possibly be stronger than one of its parents?

>>3921810
>And that's really where FF7 dropped the ball. It's actually a very interesting dynamic if you look at it through the lens of Sephiroth being deceived by his predecessors and then controlled by Jenova,
There's really nothing within the game itself that contradicts this interpretation though. Yes, compilation does "debunk" it, but compilation shit was written in different times by different people and probably was not a part of the grand vision of what FF7 was supposed to be while it was actually being made.

Jenova's instincts (basically being a planet energy parasite) as expressed through the human rationalizations of Sephiroth is what has always made the most sense.

>>3921804
And you should polish your reading comprehension skills. Nowhere did I defend Sephiroth or any FF villain for that matter.

Xbox, Jim Carrey, Steal a Bear, Run and Pee.

>>3922480
I disagree. Sephiroth being the perfect genetically engineered entity as both the inheritor of humanity and Jenova makes more sense. Jenova works better as an instinctual virus-esque monster while Sephiroth is the prime mover and manipulator.

Who wore it better: Jenova or Lavos?

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>>3923139
Lavos became lamer and lamer as the game progressed. Glad Cross stuck with the space bug thingy instead of using the core garbage.

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>>3923139
Deus

>>3920960

A lot.of it boils down to the debate on whether Sephiroth really was able to develop the ability to control Jenova cells, or if Jenova was really in control the entire time, since Sephiroth's conception and contamination in the womb.

Jenova's aggressive influence to make Sephiroth mentally deteriorate in such a wake with a little real-world push of motivarion made sense to me.

They illustrate it in a way that Sephiroth is in charge, but I think his character improves if Jenova/Lavos was in control and planned this setup all along and bided her time for Sephiroth. She would probably need to push Sephiroth to be curious enough to physically walk and read in the library and to the reactor to do all these things, so I picture her.like that creepy parasite that infects ants and grasshoppers to.arrive at a certain point so she can spread.

>>3921849
This. THIS. THIIIIIS.

I still see Shinra as the true main villains of FF7. I don't even know why the main characters decide to go after Sephiroth when they do. It makes sense later when you learn about Meteor, but they prioritize him before that which makes no sense. I can get Cloud wanting revenge, but Shinra should have remained their top priority.

I would say the best thing Sephiroth brings to FF7 is that he is probably the most intimidating force in the entire game. When you see that trail of blood and corpses in Shinra HQ, that giant snake that got completely fucked up, and everything else that he does, it makes it clear that he's really fucking dangerous. That he can disappear and reappear anywhere at will in addition to all that makes him pretty damn threatening, and frankly kind of scary.

But that's basically all he really has going for him. I don't mind him being the final boss at all, by the end it makes sense that he's the final villain, but he hijacks the plot and becomes the main antagonist way before it's appropriate.

>>3924047
It is weird how Sephiroth's name isn't even mentioned until you leave Midgar.

It might have been better with the Nibelheim Reactor as a Prologue. I mean, Cloud has a flashback to it when you blow up the reactors, but you don't get any context for that until way later in the game. And my first time playing it I had no idea how to interpret the Duality of Cloud's inner thoughts. One white, one grey. I thought he was just talking to himself, maybe repressing something. There was nothing really indicating that it was another person. Playing it again after having played the other games and media, it's like "Oh, now I get it now." But I don't think that's a sign of good writing.

>>3924047
>I don't even know why the main characters decide to go after Sephiroth when they do. It makes sense later when you learn about Meteor, but they prioritize him before that which makes no sense
THIS so fucking hard.
All they know is he wants to get to the "promised land" and now they have to find him. Because reasons?
Up until the Temple of the Ancients they've no idea of his plan to the destroy the Planet and become God, or that he even wanted to harm anyone for that matter. I guess they were scared an insane guy was around looking for infinite power in the "promised land" but 1. Shin-Ra was doing the same thing 2. They don't even know if the promised land exists. They should have kept Shin-Ra the priority and gone after him later.
>>3924149
It is mentioned in Midgar. Hell, he is built up as the most powerful dude ever in Midgar There's the flashback where Cloud says he wants to be as strong as "the great Sephiroth!" and president Shin-Ra tells of Sephiroth, saying he was good, "perhaps too good." So they set up this Sephiroth as a great dude. Also he fucking kills the president and you see his sword in his dead body over his desk, then one of the Shin-Ra employess says he saw Sephiroth, tells you he "heard his voice!" and that the guy's going to the Promised Land. Then Rufus says he's gonna get to Sephiroth first and you can't beat him to it and the party goes nuh-uh and their race for Sephy starts.

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After watching some of Ashens "terrible old games" videos, I finally cracked the code of Final Fantasy. A joke that's older than the universe is that a series called "Final" Fantasy has shitloads of sequels. The secret lies in the disconnect between them. For example, there's a game series called "Last Ninja". In the different installments, you play as the same last ninja. In Final Fantasy 7, the main villain Jenova is a cosmic disease that destroys worlds and rides the shriveled husks as meteors to other worlds. All of these worlds exist in the same universe, the universe of the Final Fantasy. It's always the same "Final" Fantasy, just (almost) entirely different worlds. Some of them have the same elements and entities, Shiva, Ifrit, Yojimbo, Chaos etc. It's the same last realm where this sort of "fantasy" exists. All the installments in the series just take place in different worlds in it.

inb4 blog post

>>3920960
The fanbase kind of ruined FF7, mainly when the devs started catering to them.

All the material produced after FF7 makes the Cloud vs Sephiroth "Rivalry" central to the characters and story.

It doesn't work because in FF7 the 'rivalry' is entirely one-sided. Only Cloud cares; Sephiroth barely remembers him and (as Jenova) is just using him anyway.

I think Sephiroth is fine as a villain. He works very well in the story to capture the player's attention and to motivate them. He has as much depth as he needs.

It's the players who wound up obsessing over the wrong thing.

>>3925280
This. Sephiroth is a lot more simple than people like, but I personally think that's okay. It could have dropped him destroying nibelhiem and just killing people who stood in his way of going to jenova since that's the only logic leap you have to make sense of.

>>3924576
>THIS so fucking hard.
>All they know is he wants to get to the "promised land" and now they have to find him. Because reasons?


Well isn't it Cloud driving that precisely because he has Jenova cells and all of them are gathering at North crater to rejoin with Jenova?

Cloud is not in control.

Speaking of supplemental material...

I was always bothered by that game that focused on Zack, and ended with his death. Mainly because they took one of the best little sub-stories in FF7 and ruined it by over-doing it. They turned it into some epic last stand for Zack in an attempt to make it more dramatic and have more meaning. However in the process I think they ruined something that was already a little more nuanced and conveyed a more powerful message.


As a child Cloud idolized Sephiroth as this great warrior and hero and strove to be like him. However reality was much different. Not only did Cloud fail to live up to his dream, but his image of Sephiroth is ruined as well. He's awkward at best, cold-hearted, and later a murderer of innocents a madman. He kills Cloud's mother, all his neighbor's, and grievously wounds Cloud himself, his comrade Zack, and his friend and child-hood crush, Tifa. In reality Sephiroth turns out to be nothing like the image that Cloud had of him. He is not a hero, just a merciless killer.

Contrast that with Zack. He's friendlier, he's strong, and he is actually heroic. He does his best to save Nibelheim and the others from Sephiroth and after he and Cloud are captured he refuses to escape without Cloud. Mind you at this point Cloud is nearly comatose and a total burden on him, unable to help himself, but Zack insists on dragging Cloud out of that lab anyway rather than leaving him behind.

This burden is probably the reason he gets killed because it slows him down and Shinra is able to catch up with him.

In the end, the noble Zack is shot dead like a sick dog, his heroics and name almost entirely forgotten. He dies a ignoble death without ceremony.

It's supposed to be undignified and depressing.

>>3921217
Kefkas backstory is that he was a failed experiment. They tried to infuse him with the espers magic and it drove him insane. With his newly gained power he craved more and more until he successfully had the power to take over the world making him a "God". Celes was also part of this experiment but she could handle the powers and it didnt drive her insane.

Sephiroth knew he was stronger than anyone else and assumed it was due to the Mako infusion all members of SOLDIER recieve and he just believed he was naturally stronger until he discovered he was part of an experiment involving Jenova none of the records listed Lucrecia as his Mother or being infused with Jenova cells in the womb. He went insane learning Jenova was a monster driven to destroy planets.

>>3925314
That kind of stuff always happens with side stories but minor subplots that play a big role into a story. It's why I hope to god Konami never makes a Castlevania game set during 1999 because there's no way in hell they'd be able to live that up.

>>3920959
He's pretty cool.

>>3922480
You and I are on the same page and frankly it surprises me that we're in the minority

>>3922935
>>3922262
Sephiroth is trying to accomplish the exact same thing Jenova was he's just taking advantage of his remaining humanity to accomplish it. You might see it as a child attempting to outdo the parent or as parasitic cells invading and manipulating a host

>>3920896
I feel that in terms of delivering the plot that Cloud is an unreliable narrator, as well as stirring questions and prolonging the crisis of Identity that surrounds the protagonist, Sephiroth has a firm place in the story.

However, you could have had, like, an ACTUAL organization of SOLDIERs be in the damn game and have them gradually take over Shin-Ra's attempts to destroy AVALANCHE (and maybe Shin-Ra themselves) and have someone portrayed as an actual military figure be the one to undermine Cloud's personal beliefs in who he is.

Basically Sephiroth and Tifa are the primary characters who can go "Hey, wait, YOU weren't there in Nibelhiem when any of this shit went down."

However, as a primary villain past this, Sephiroth is a one dimensional cypher strung around a decent concept that people have touched upon, and a particularly bad-ass music theme. Why you may ask? It's all in the (pardon the pun) execution. Grander scheme aside, Sephiroth set a terrible precedent of just showing up whenever he pleased and un-doing anything the player or the characters were trying to do. He just flies in, snatches the Black Materia and soars off. He falls down out of nowhere and stabs Aerith before flying away again. He has apparently omnipotent illusory and mind control powers that once again get the BM in his hands. Apart from the fact *that* he killed Aeith, and not how, there's no actual story in it beyond him taunting Cloud.

Did a group of SOLIDIERs or dissidents from Shin-Ra's army come into play, people that Sephiroth tricked into following him or did he still have their loyalty from the war? No. Did he have access to Shin-Ra resources as a general that he exploited, much like how Shin-Ra exploits people and ruin lives? No, because the hooded cloaked figures and their Reunion part was crude and didn't work well. Was the transition from cyberpunk anything more than the writers finding it stale and moving on to a more generic wild goose chase? No.

>>3925314
I always liked Zack and it would have been great if Cloud's Sephiroth idolization was played up more, if only for Cloud to eventually give props to how great Zack really was.

...Ah well. I at least feel that Advent Children, for all its flaws, did okay by Zack in this context.

>>3920896
He would be far more interesting as a rebel Soldier genius that goes too far in his revange against Shinra but he just some guy that discovered about his past, got mad and:

"Ah btw I am god now because aliens and stuff lmao *burn everything without any reason*"

He dosent even have a last name, or a personality before the "become insane" thing.

BUT... back on that time cold, stoic and silvered hair villains were not exactly a thing.. Sephiroth is indeed a Mary Sue but he pushed the Mary Sue thing to another level.

Was it ever explained why Tifa never had a huge ass scar on her chest?

'cause that would have been hot to me. Like...one big scar running between her boobs.

Cloud's was fucked from the get go due to "friends" that poor fucker, Tifa is a piece of shit, Aeris is a bigger piece of shit, and Zack had a hard life.

Sephiroth's big problem is he literally doesn't do anything in the game himself. Its stupid random mooks that basically do everything because mind control. The only things he does himself is kill almost everything in Nibelheim and job to Cloud, Twice.

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>>3925280
If anyone's to blame it's Nomura. He's the one responsible for all the stupid shit regarding FF7, including that superficial DBZ wankfest Advent Children, as well as all the characters' flanderized appearances in Kingdom Hearts etc. With him in charge of the remake I have very little hope that it will be good. He's like George Lucas and Hideo Kojima, he works best when he has other people to keep his faggotry in check.

>>3928242
>Zack had a hard life

How? If anything he had the best life of everyone on the planet. He even went out like a champ.

>The only things he does himself is kill almost everything in Nibelheim and job to Cloud, Twice.

Well there was that time he killed Aeris and, uh...

>>3928314
Zack is the one character in the entire series who doesn't have an identity crisis. He knows who he is, and what he's gotta do to carry his weight in the world.

Admittedly I wouldn't call his life great, since he's still a soldier where all his superiors and piers are freaking out, going insane and turning into monsters and/or are pawns in a grander scheme.