My favorites by game's end are Barret and Aerith, they benefited the most from the Remake IMO. Aerith got to show off a lot of her character divorced from the perspective of a relationship with Cloud, and we get to see so much more of Barret's personality this time around. SE did Cloud good nailing the awkward tryhard angle facade that he puts up for the first half of FF7, and Tifa has a lot more character this time than just being the childhood love interest that she was in FF7's early game. I'm excited to see how the others are handled in the next installment, particularly Yuffie and Vincent who didn't get a very good focus since they were optional. I haven't even mentioned Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie yet. I really liked that the game lets Cloud interact and get to know the crew, I think this really gave weight to events later on and showed us that he does actually start to care about them.
I also like the changes they made to each main character compared to their OG counterparts. Cloud is more of an aloof asshole in the original game, and while his jerk tendencies are still present, they're more of a mask for his vulnerabilities and a facade for his introversion and emotional/mental struggle against the mako poisoning than just being an ass for the sake of it. Aerith and Tifa are both established members of their local communities and are meaningful to them to boot. Barret is an impassioned leader and scholar. Dude is the first to respond when the Ancients come up in the story, he knows their lore and history. I would say 7R's characters are the definitive versions of themselves. It's actually gotten me questioning what I consider to be the heart of the game and the original, and it might be the characters themselves more than even the story. I mean, besides the OST.
I also like the changes they made to each main character compared to their OG counterparts. Cloud is more of an aloof asshole in the original game, and while his jerk tendencies are still present, they're more of a mask for his vulnerabilities and a facade for his introversion and emotional/mental struggle against the mako poisoning than just being an ass for the sake of it. Aerith and Tifa are both established members of their local communities and are meaningful to them to boot. Barret is an impassioned leader and scholar. Dude is the first to respond when the Ancients come up in the story, he knows their lore and history. I would say 7R's characters are the definitive versions of themselves. It's actually gotten me questioning what I consider to be the heart of the game and the original, and it might be the characters themselves more than even the story. I mean, besides the OST.
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