Written by BigPete7978 
This is another article that is in celebration of our 1 million hits. This is also one of my very early articles here at PSLS. It is a character comparison between two of my all time favorite characters, Cloud Strife and Squall Leonhart. As done previously I am going to post the article here as is. Let me know what you guys think. Keep in mind that there are spoilers following.
Now it is time to compare my two favorite characters from my two favorite games of all time. This is a very tough decision for me. They are both characters that grew dramatically as the game progressed. Both had engrossing storylines that drew the gamer in. While I feel that FF VIII was more of a love story than FF VII by far. I mean for crying out loud Squall jumped into space for Rinoa.
And when it came to FF VII I was more interested in the connection between Cloud and Tifa. But the developers didn’t seem to go there and let the gamers see what happened between them. The reason being that most gamers sided with different girls. I know several that loved Aeris, and I know several that loved Tifa, me being one of them. It all depends on your preferences really. Yes I was very sad and shocked when Aeris was killed by Sephiroth, but I would have been completely devastated if that had happened to Tifa. I can’t even imagine the game without her. I wasn’t even hurt that badly when it happened to Aeris because I barely used her, not that I’m cold hearted or anything. My main party was Cloud, Barret, and Tifa. But I was still definitely shocked and saddened. I had never experienced something like that occur in a videogame, especially to that magnitude.
But when it came to FF VIII it focused on the connection between Squall and Rinoa the entire game. There wasn’t another female character that could make the gamer choose between the two. It focused on the relationship alone between them. I honestly remember when they were on the Ragnarok after Squall had saved her from space and that was the first time Squall completely let his entire guard down. That was when I truly related to Squall on a whole. I knew it would eventually happen, I just didn’t know when.
Squall had a tough exterior much like Cloud. Both had this exterior because they felt if they let their guard down they would get hurt. Eventually the entire party of characters broke down Cloud’s tough exterior. And eventually Rinoa alone broke down Squall’s tough exterior. Thing is that I love both games almost equally. And after typing all of this out I realize the different reasons that they are my number 1 and number 2 favorite video games of all time. My favorite game of all time, FF VII, I loved for the storyline itself. I felt connected to all of the characters for different reasons. Except for Cait Sith, lol. But I wasn’t alone connected to just Cloud himself. He is still one of my favorite characters ever. But he isn’t my favorite. That title goes to Squall Leonhart. I was so engrossed in this game it is ridiculous. I spent countless hours. I can still recall so many details from this game. While it is the same for FF VII. I feel I was more engrossed on a character one on one basis in FF VIII. It is really weird that I like Squall more, can recall more, and probably played more in FF VIII. But FF VII is still my all time favorite game. I feel that FF VIII was overall the better game as well. But FF VII was the game that started it all for me. It was my first RPG ever. I got it for Christmas and I was in shock that it was multi disc lol.
So in conclusion I love FF VII because I felt connected to all the characters, not just Cloud. I wanted to see what happened to everyone. That is one reason I was probably so angry at FF VII Advent Children. There was not enough time spent on the other characters in my opinion. I felt angry at the end of the game. I wanted to know what they had been up to and what they had accomplished. Yet the entire movie was chosen to focus on Cloud the entire time. Now if they made a FF VIII movie I would be happier if it was built like FF VII Advent Children. So as weird as it is for me to come to this conclusion in this long post I like Squall Leonhart as an individual better than Cloud.
