Update: Here at Push Square, we're more than happy to admit when we got something wrong. This is one of those rare occasions. It has become clear that Cloud was instead trying to spur the old man on to do something with his life, so let's discuss how I, a newcomer to the game, didn't pick up on that. Does Final Fantasy VII Remake do a good enough job of developing Cloud Strife throughout the experience to the point where motivations such as this become obvious? Or am I not alone in this, and you too failed to pick up on the subtext? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Original article: While I wouldn't consider myself nostalgic for Final Fantasy VII in the slightest, I did at least manage to leave Midgar when I first gave the Square Enix classic a shot upon its PlayStation 4 rerelease. Final Fantasy VII Remake won't take me that far, with this first instalment signing off as the team plans to leave the Mako-infested city. However, at the grand age of 25, I'd like to consider this reimagining to be my first proper taste of the Japanese franchise's seventh entry. The character of Cloud Strife hasn't eluded me quite as much as the 1997 masterpiece though. The selfish ex-solider only ever takes on a job in exchange for money, but nothing could prepare me for his actions during one certain side quest.
Taking place in chapter eight, Paying Respects is the optional task I'm talking about. An elderly gentleman has asked Cloud and Aerith to clear out a nearby graveyard of monsters so that someone can visit his wife's grave on the anniversary of her death. It's not a problem whatsoever as the duo speeds over to the site and quickly slaughters the beasts with ease before paying their respects to the lady in question. It's when Cloud returns to the old man to inform him that the job has been completed that things take a turn for the worse, however.
Upon breaking the good news and receiving payment, Cloud learns that the widower was prepared to die trying to see his wife's burial site one more time despite his bad back and legs. Luckily, the ex-solider in question came along at just the right time. In response to that, Cloud tells the ageing fellow to return the graveyard key to the seller we purchased it off. That's not going to happen, however, due to the gentleman's tiring legs, so Cloud says that he'll do it in in exchange for 5000 Gil. For those who haven't played Final Fantasy VII Remake just yet, that's quite a lot of money.
I was truly taken aback by this retort. Not only can Cloud quite clearly not read the room, but his request for cash also doesn't make any sense in the first place. Why does the graveyard key need to be returned? Didn't we buy it fair and square with Moogle Medals? It belongs to us now, but if anything, it should be given to the old man anyway so that he can visit his wife's grave as and when he feels up to it.
Look, I get it. As I've already mentioned, Cloud will only ever do anything for someone else if there's some sort of reward for him at the end of it. He does actually receive a new piece of equipment from the quest giver, but to then go on and demand more money in exchange for doing something as simple as returning a key is borderline insulting. It also feels like it flies in the face of any character development he received up to that point.
I could understand if this side quest took place back in chapter three when Cloud was attempting to build up his reputation and accrue some of the money that Tifa and Barret had promised him. However, in the time since then, Mr Strife has proved that he can open up to the likes of Jessie, Tifa, and Aerith. He's a very tough nut to crack, but there is something in that egotistical skull of his.
As such, this interaction felt supremely out of place. There is absolutely a time and place to barter for extra payment, but this most certainly was not one of them. You've just made an old man's day by ensuring his wife isn't forgotten about on the day of her death so many years later -- isn't that enough Cloud? To be clear, I've thoroughly enjoyed Final Fantasy VII Remake up to now, but the conclusion to this particular side quest doesn't sit well with me. The gentleman's friend sums it up best in the aftermath: "You're a real dick, you know that?" Yes, I most certainly do.
Have you encountered the Paying Respects side quest in Final Fantasy VII Remake? Did you have the same reaction as Liam? Don't demand further payment in the comments below.
Comments 66
Man you really misread this quest. He's trying to encourage the old man to be independent again. He makes the charge really high so he'll have to do it himself. He's not actually asking for that much seriously, he's trying to stop him from giving up.
@Matroska I can't say I agree. Absolutely nothing about Cloud's delivery would suggest he actually cares about the old man. Again, why does the graveyard key need to be returned? We bought it.
@Matroska Good to know that there are people who actually realize what those characters are about.
Liam, if I could post a "The point. You." meme gif here, I would.
On another note, does Square intend to do ANYTHING about the messed-up textures?
I'm starting to worry this isn't a bug, but a feature.
That whole bit confused me. I did consider Cloud was trying to motivate the guy to keep going, maybe it’s just a problem with dodgy writing but it was a really confusing exchange. His friend went from loving you to literally calling you a real dick, too. I dunno. I quickly put that quest in the misfire drawer and forgot about it until now.
@LiamCroft I agree with @Arugula that maybe it could be been made clearer - and I have seen other people miss the point of it - but it does come across clearly enough to most. I just checked the quest log in case it references that Cloud was trying to motivate the old man, and it says this:
Remember, in the same area Cloud pretends to a group of kids that he only works when paid but that he has a "special offer on finding lost friends today", or something like that, and charges them 3 gil. It's just his deadpan way of being nice while pretending not to be.
@Matroska Fair enough, your post pretty much confirms it. I think this is an issue with how Square Enix wrote the scene then, as @Kyleforrester87 said. I didn't pick up on this needling whatsoever, and I don't think I'm the only one.
@Matroska it was just bad writing then tbh.
Unfortunately Cloud’s character development really shouldn’t take place in this game at all. He’s still the cold, aloof ex-SOLDIER right up until that death and his eventual mind reboot. I did feel a bit weird about this sidequest but having played the original, I could see why they included it. I seriously couldn’t imagine playing this one first, it relies far too heavily on prior knowledge.
@LiamCroft It might be a Japanese thing. For example, Luffy in One Piece does similar stuff. There's an arc where a princess called Vivi asks him and his crew to help her reclaim her country from a usurper named Crocodile. Someway into the arc, Luffy thinks her motivation might be flagging. He pretends to doubt her and berates her for not caring about her country or people enough. She becomes enraged and after an emotional reaction, she slaps him so hard he falls over. On the ground, he looks up at her and grins and says something like "Alright, let's go and kick Crocodile's ass!"
This whole thing of the hero acts like an assh*le to inspire someone or motivate them is done quite a lot in Japanese media so maybe that helped me see it. I think, though, that all the other stuff that shows Cloud opening up emotionally invites the player to try and reinterpret the scene beyond face value, though. Either way, it's still interesting to learn about other people's perspectives on the game.
@nessisonett Not really, Cloud softens up immensely once they leave Midgar in the original. He was awkward till the end of disc 1, but a lot of his cray-cray issues were caused by a certain lab specimen whose name starts with the letter J, Sephiroth, and his mako poisoning. He stopped being a d*ck long before the end of disc 1. Of course given the massive changes in Remake this could well pan out differently.
@nessisonett Not really. He's crossdressing in Wall Market, doing dolphin stunts to break into Junon, Chocobo racing to get out of prison etc way before that. It's shown to be an act early on with him helping Jessie in the reactor, potentially buying a flower and giving it to either Tifa or Marlene, and how Jessie and the others comment on him during the Sector 7 support pillar part. It's really only the first reactor where he's purely "It's just a job". Even right after that, he has his empathetic line on the train about how the people in the slums are "Like this train, they have no control over where they go next" or something like that.
@Matroska @TowaHerschel7 In the original, he definitely still clings to the ‘not interested’ until roughly Temple of the Ancients. I always read parts like the Corneo situation to be about rescuing Tifa as she’s the one who found him after his poisoning and got him to join Avalanche to keep an eye on him, so in a sense he clings to her as the only person who reaffirms his story. The remake hasn’t actually acknowledged the whole Tifa finding Cloud part where I am so I couldn’t tell you if they’ve rewritten it or not.
What a b*stard!!!
I really don't think you guys like this game do you? 😅😂
Thankfully I didn't read the quest this way and saw it in a similar way to @Matroska so props for my fellow PushSquarian for informing people and making them aware of the actual truth of this quest.
Cloud is such a great character, I'm nearing the end of Chapter 18 and his character development has been subtle yet substantial enough for it to have a lasting impact on me.
Cloud is a dick, however in this case it was intentional to get the old man to start doing things on his own again. As stated before this is a common reoccuring theme in Japanese games and anime. I thought it was rather obvious after seeing that scene myself what the intent was with how he presented himself to the old man. If that scene was to be rewritten so that people would understand it better, I think it would be worse off and lose the effect it has now. Much like having to explain jokes to people.
As mentioned before, with the Toad King quest, he states that he is not cheap, but makes a "special discount" of 3 gil to help out the kids. That in itself is also a lesson to tell them that things are not free.
I imagined the point was he wanted him to be independent and move on but the delivery was awkward. Cloud is socially awkward and has PTSD, not exactly lovable but for a reason
@Neolit @Nickolaidas I'm starting to think maybe some of these assets weren't designed for the PS4? I think once Square switched development in house, they started targeting a higher level, in anticipation of the PS5 being out whenever the game released and doing a cross gen launch, but that ended up not panning out so they had to downscale things? I dunno, it's just a thought I've had.
The bigger question is how is this 90GB? Not only because of the low end assets, but there aren't that many FMVs either. I thought the size was because it'd be packed with them, but I've only seen two so far in the first 14 chapters, and there's like 18 in total.
The man gave up living life and just abdicated all responsibility to others. By demanding that Cloud visit his wife's grave and requiring him to jump through hoops, it just continued that path. By virtually insulting him and demanding him to take care of matters himself, it gets him to live his life again, if just a little. Cloud is a dick, sure, but it was for a reason
I did think about the whole motivational reason behind the "deliver it yourself" comment but i wasnt too sure. It was defenately a bit of bad writing and could have been made clearer to all players with a quick "atleast hes taking responsibility and not giving up anymore" whispered the guy who called him a dick. Think that would have made his motives a tad clearer.
@Orpheus79V A lot of the space is likely due to the sheer amount of assets in this game, each area of Midgar has entirely unique assets which means that the team couldn't copy and paste and cut size corners in that respect.
Well this article was ridiculously stupid
@LiamCroft let's just say it is a translate/culture miscommunication 😉
I interpreted this moment quite differently. Earlier in the chapter when you first meet the kid dressed as a moogle Aerith mentions something along the lines of how moogle are able to spread cheer and make people feel better (at least this is the gist of it). Anyway I interpreted Cloud using this approach to not only keep his merc reputation but to also direct the man to something that could help him feel better.
The fact that Aerith didn't tell Cloud off for this only made me feel that this was the intended interpretation.
One kind of a stupid article is this?
So an angry article about a single side-quest you thought too hard about, but actually not hard enough. Sorry, but this article comes off as a bit well, pushing it, and dare I say, almost slow news dayish.
I don't want to sound rude and this isn't to the writer but to everyone asking for clearer writing. This is why our entertainment sucks these days. Why is it the younger folk can't be bothered with critical thinking? So we get movies spelled out for us and articles like this where some folk think the writing needs to be clearer. Again I'm not even bagging on younger folk heck I've had to teach my kid kindergarten. They want you guys to crawl,walk, and run at the same daggone time. No wonder your reading and writing suffers for it.
I haven't played yet FFVII Remake, but, in the case of FFXV, there were pretty serious translation problems from Japanese to English. For example: in Lestallum, Prompto said: "kono machi no onnna ga kirei", what means "girls of this city are pretty". But the translation was: "girls of this city are cool and act as they don't need a man". It is not a punctual problem, because it occurs throughout all game. In the Ignis DLC, when Ravus and Ignis cooperate in Altissia, Ravus thanks Ignis for the help, but the translation was "I don't need your help", that is, the absolute contrary of the original. If there are similar problems in FFVII translation, I would be very serious. A little disappointed with Square Enix team of localization.
I replayed that part for my 10 yr old daughter, and she understood what was going on without needing explanations. She even explained it to me when I asked her to. Funny how a young child was able to get it when it "wasn't spelled out to them".
@Jaz007 It's because they clearly don't like this game, haven't seen much positivity around it since around launch.
Dreams however 😏
But hey that's just a theory, a push theory.
@Neolit I'm not buying it. FFXV is a much larger game with much better quality in the textures of the backgrounds. Something doesn't gel.
Either they rushed it (which makes no sense, it is unacceptable to have an AAA game with PS4 character models walking around a dreamcast map with ENB lighting), or they intend to release a 'true' PS5 version in six months (you gave a 100$ for the PS4 version? Well f u, now pay a 100$ more to buy the version which actually LOOKS good).
Either way, unacceptable for a game of this magnitude and significance to the IP, the fanbase and gaming in general.
Well, that was embarrassing.
I really don't see the point of this article?
Ignoring the fact that the quest was utterly misread, a whole article attacking one side quest in Playstation's biggest (and to many, best) game of the year seems completely unnecessary.
@LocalPenguin gotta get those clicks somehow.
I mean, i'd just done the mission for the guy - killing some tough monsters in the process - then the dude would't do the simple task of returning the graveyard key to someone just around the corner - despite the fact id just trekked to and from the graveyard. If i were Cloud i'd tell him to get on his bike too 😂 He should have told that repoter looking for the angel of the slums to sling his hook too.
Agreed with the above that the presentation made it more opaque than intended - I also thought the old man’s buddy would have picked up on it, rather than saying “you’re a jerk” afterwards.
@Liamcroft hoping you haven’t gotten much angry internet hate over things like this. You missed the connotations of the quest, but the piece is well-written. My (unsolicited) comment would be to be extra careful, specifically on the verbiage. You used alluded instead of eluded, which is the kind of minor detail that could set the FF crazies off despite the good writing.
"The character of Cloud Strife hasn't alluded me quite as much as the 1997 masterpiece though."
What does the writer of this article mean by this? I can't make sense of it, since alluded means "hints at" or "suggests" or something like that?
@kyleforrester87 similar thing happened at the end of the side quests at Sector 5. I suspect it was just bad writing
@migwar I believe he intended to use 'eluded', meaning to have evaded or escaped.
I've updated the article with a quick paragraph at the top. Please have a read of it and be respectful with your comments. Thanks!
@LiamCroft Takes guts for someone to admit he was wrong in a place where most simply don't care to admit they were.
Good sport, Liam.
Shock. A Final Fantasy game has bad writing.
I don't have the game but I know (and I have noticed it thanks to the demo) that the italian text is way closer to the japanese script than the english one. Basically characters say a thing and I read a different one in the subtitles...
Well i eas going to comment but @Matroska pretty much covered everything i was going to say in various posts so no point going over old ground
I knew how he meant it right away. He acts like he does things just for money but he really doesn’t.
@Orpheus79V if you've noticed the so called fmv's are all done in the games engine, like there's no... Cut to a more cinematic engine it's all on game, to make the player think it could kick off at any second, it's that big because the game looks like one giant fmv, plus the music, the music is constant in this game, flowing seamlessly from theme to theme to theme from charecter to environment to battle back to environment, not to mention textures like natural rolling clouds god rays shadows sound effects the game is huge because its a living world, npcs are continously talking music is always playing clouds sword is always being kicked by his boots, these little facets add up to a big storage size, as beautifully annoying as that is
When are we going to discuss the key issue here - that the old man is actually Ron Swanson?
On the topic of bad writing I don't understand why everyone has to swear in this game, barret and cid withstanding, there's no real need for anyone else to swear, I've always believed it to be below clouds charecter but he pops a few f*cks and sh*ts here n there it's like square don't understand how to make adult charecters in script so they default to adults swear, he's an adult he swears, it's not just cloud either, everyone swears in this game, it's weird and off putting, I'm just waiting for sephiroth and arieth to drop an f bomb, though I'm sure if sephy did it, he'd sound a bit like geralt
@Nich0 and how about when he sits down on a bench he pulls his sword out the way or when you win a fight in the Colosseum they all do their classic FFVII victory poses or like when Cloud is in the dress and you try to run he does a dainty little run instead of a full on macho one or even that little cameo i won't spoil
they put a lot of little details into the game and i'm sure we still haven't caught them all
as for the swearing i think it's fine, it's not like they are all doing it every time they speak and the times Cloud has dropped a few expletives felt like they were in the right context such as saying "Everything's gone to s***" when at that point everything had gone to s***
it felt pretty natural to me honestly
Speakng of 180s, this article sure took one
@LiamCroft
People can explain it for you. We cant understand it for you. 😂🤦♂️
I understand that the delivery appears jarring but that's because A) cloud doesn't care if he's looked at like a bad person if he's doing the 'right' thing B) he needed to be unreasonable to encourage the older guy to look after himself.
Bare in mind this is the same Merc who risks his life to kill a "frog king" for some children for the exorbitant cost of 3 Gill in the same chapter.
He is making it so this older guy who "would risk his life to go to her grave" doesn't give up on being independent just because he needed someone's help once. Besides he doesn't want the graveyard key to go back to moggie he wants the old guy to have the key and pay his respects himself now that it is safe again.
@andreoni79 Same with FFXV!
Talking about translation, I've found this on an Italian blog.
In English, he says "this pump's sole purpose is to drain the planet dry while you sleep, while you eat, while you s***. it's here sucking up mako".
Source: https://www.rinoadiary.it/la-verita-sulla-traduzione-italiana-di-final-fantasy-vii-remake/
I laughed ny ass off at this part. Damn right I'm getting paid for your busywork, and spare me your life story dammit!
What?
He gave the extortionate price so that the old man wouldn't take him up on it and get some exercise himself
That's why most of great jRPG games with great characters have no main characters dialogue interaction. It may give a generic attribute for the character's personality, but It makes them some universal and common sense values (both for good or evil according to the character tendency).
@DonJorginho Not sure where you are coming from really saying that this site doesn't like the game, they reviewed the game and gave it an 8? That is a good score, no?
The update you posted could’ve done without the “This is one of those rare occasions.”...
I had a subtle jaw drop moment reading this... Thinking how is it actually possible to misinterpret such... And even more, to be written as an article... If this was a forum thread then maybe it's less surprising.
Good thing OP didn't include the moment when cloud charged the kids 3 Gil for killing the whatever frog king. Lol
@Nich0 Well, no.There definitely are pre-rendered cutscenes in the game, it's not all in game, though most of it is.
Just played it and it's quite obvious that Cloud isn't be rude.
He was trying to help the old man by forcing him to connect with the Moogle/ Boy, who’s goal is to make people happy. Think about it. The old man was lonely and depressed, And there’s a bunch of kids with no families playing in their club house there.
By that point Cloud has not only joked a bit with Jessie (provided you didn't totally fail at certain parts) but he's also seemingly gone out of his way to keep people safe. He's not just a merc with no morals and not a care for anyone else. He's gruff and has some severe issues as evidenced by his near constant wincing and bad reactions to random things. You'll find out why eventually. I could see this interaction being hard to understand if you're not really paying attention or if you assume that being gruff and getting paid are really all Cloud is about. I know others have clarified this enough for you, but you said it yourself at one point, why did the old man need to take the key back when you're the one that paid for it? It's easy, he didn't need to and I'm sure Cloud knows nobody could afford 5000 gil.
It's not apparent in the 1st play through...but the reason for this odd exchange is because the key needs to be returned to mog for the chapter select playthroughs.
If you're holding the key you can't buy it again and the dialog of the story requires it be purchased from the mogie... both to buy an item from mog for his quest and to have the dialog fit this quest with aerith make sense.
It might seem odd but it's a plot device to keep your game running smoothly...one old man's feelings are but a small sacrifice.
Lol you guys know nothing about clouds persona. He told the old man to keep the key. When he wouldn't he offered to return it for 5k Gil to make him keep it to see her later...how can that be so distorted to make cloud out to be the bad guy?
This is what happens when you pay no attention to the in-game dialog and interactions..He was trying to encourage the old man to pay respects and not to give up on the her, this is the chapter where clouds character grows so much and they nailed it in delivering that, they put so much effort to make things look obvious and people yet interpret things the wrong way..smh
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