StarDestroyer.Net BBS

sorry, the whole thing particularly about cloud, anoyed and confused me....

so what really was the story about the funky spiky haired kid, I even beat the game and I am still confused....

Er...which specific thing are you confused about?

Okay massive spoilers below naturally:

Cloud was never in SOLDIER. He tried and was denied, so he enlisted in the regular Shinra Army core. He returned to Nibelheim with Sephiroth just like we saw in the first flashback except Cloud was one of the soldiers; the person in Cloud's place was Zack (Aeris' first boyfriend). Tifa was unaware of Cloud being with the group which is why she was so confused about Cloud's rendition of the story.

After Sephiroth went nuts and tried to awaken Genova in the Nibelheim reactor, Zack and Tifa were crippled by Sephiroth's attacks and Cloud stepped in taking Zack's sword and killing Sephiroth but tossing him down into the Lifestream.

Afterwards, Zack and Cloud were both captured by Shinra soldiers and put in the basement of the Shinra mansion while Professor Hojo tortured them by injecting them with Jenova particles (this is why Cloud was suseptible to Sephiroth's call). Eventually Cloud and Zack awoke and successfully escaped, but Cloud was almost incoherent at this point and his mind merged the actions of Zack and himself into a blur.

While on route to Midgar, Zack was killed and Cloud took his blade and continued the journey home. He finally made it but was extremely disjointed when he was discovered by Tifa at the Midgar train station.

Does that answer your questions?

I *think* he's referring to the story of what happened at Nibelheim.

The "real story" is the one that you discover as Tifa inside Cloud's head when you talk to the multiple versions of Cloud. Basically, Cloud is really Cloud, and he was at Nibelheim, but he wasn't a member of SOLDIER, that was Zack. Cloud was one of the faceless Shinra guards. He was captured and experimented upon with Jenova, and got his memory messed up. That's why Sephiroph was able to control him.

Really, just go to gamefaqs and download the FF7 story guide, it explains everything.

Edit: Heh, beat me to it.

Several of the events prior to the game have been over-ridden by the prequel game "Final Fantasy 7 - Before Crisis" (Only available for play over iMode compatible mobile phones here in Japan), though I'm afraid I don't have any real details on the changes ATM.