Back in 1997 Square-Enix's hero was dressing up like a woman
By Alexandru Stanescu, Editor, Gaming Reviews (Consoles)
17th of April 2007, 19:02 GMT
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Yeah, I'm talking about the main character from the most famous Final Fantasy title in the series, Final Fantasy VII. His name is Cloud Strife and he has become an idol over the past years, as the original game received
tons of sequels and even a movie follow-up. He seemed the perfect tough guy in the Advent Children movie, with all that fancy swordplay and the kickass fighting sequence with Sephiroth in the end. However, many of you fans of the movie, might not know that back in 1997, in the Final Fantasy VII game, Cloud had to perform a rather unusual task.
He had to dress up like a woman to infiltrate a brothel and squeeze some information from its owner. I'm talking about a full dress-up with red lipstick, bikini thongs, a huge blonde wig and of course perfume and a beautiful dress. The funny thing is that Cloud had to go through some unorthodox challenges to get those items. One of them had our blond hero hitting on a couple of men and even bathing with them. If I'm not mistaking and my memory never fails me when I'm talking about Final Fantasy, those men even caressed Cloud. Still we can only suppose that there was some sort of physical interaction between them, but all I know is that Cloud woke up the next day, having fainted after the hot tub sequence.
Still, we wonder how can he be gay if he already gained the love of two beautiful women: Aeris and Tiffa. Well, one of them is dead and the other one is a bit too violent, so we can't really blame him. I bet that this piece of information will make you replay Final Fantasy VII or try its PSP version, perhaps even the remake for the PS3. Anyhow, here's how a famous gaming hero can ruin his reputation by dressing up as a woman, although he's the one that saves the planet in the end.
Here's a Cloud Strife tribute, done by a true fan of the hero:
First off, of course people that know Cloud know about the crossdressing thing. If they didnt play the game then they wouldnt know who Cloud is. Second, Cloud did not do anything in the HOT TUB with the men. Third he did not faint after the hot tub scene. He fainted in a whole different room genius. He was waiting for the chick and fainted. The chick then came in the room and saw him knocked out. She yelled for help and the guy woke him up. And the scene in the brothel is how YOU make it. So if it turned out gay, then that is the way that YOU wanted it. So who's gay?
I've always got the impression that Cloud was gay - the compilation titles only serve to enforce that idea. (He's pretty emotional, was quite gooey over zack and never showed any real interest towards women.)
Obviously it's open to interpretation, and that is how I've interpreted him. It doesn't make me like him any less as a character. In my view, a gay lead character would be a breath of fresh air in video games. Of course it won't happen anytime soon, though.
You people hide some truth and have too much fantasies about a fictive character from a game.
Tetsuya Nomura say one day in a interview that he never think about Sephiroth or Cloud's loves affairs because he doesn't care, that was not the story of FFVII. The only reason why Cloud doesn't show many feelings on girls (err if we forget that he wants to impress Tifa when he was young and becomes mister depressed at the Aerith's death) is because the creator did not care about it. Today for people if a guy doesn't jump on a girl, he's gay. Like Leon Kennedy on Resident Evil 4: he does't jump on a bed with Ada, so he's gay. Unfortunatly for you, that's often because the creator doesn't care about it and have other plan more interesting in his story. That's all. And girls or fanboys just oftenly imagine too much things but at the end of the day, that's wrong.
And for the article, don't forget that it's all about the player's choice. Cloud doesn't want to dress like a girl, he doesn't want to go in the bath (he said it to you, the player, when you have the choice to leave them now : I'm outta here!!). But you can order him to go tho, but he still says to you depressed : it's dangerous - seems like I will know only crisis in my life. You don't get it ? Cloud doesn't want it but follow the player's orders. So who's gay like John said ? Huh ? That's the player plain and simple. True dat John. If you act straight in the game, Cloud will be straight. If not Cloud will be unhappy lol.
Seems the developper like to mock some players choices.
But you know that's not mean. It's just a joke.
