Kazuma Kiryu
During anticipation for the remake of "Final Fantasy VII", Cloud's role in the trailers were the focus of multiple journalists. IGN highly praised the design and marketing involving his visual appearance. TechSpot noted fans were interested in Cloud's love interests but claimed that Cloud's relationship with Aerith was subtle in retrospective. CBR also looked forward to this love triangle. Despite noting his antisocial attitudes in the remake, IGN, Metro and GameSpot commented Cloud is the character who has through the most notable arc in the entire remake with Christian's performance helping to improve his appeal. In a feature article, "GameSpot" compared Cloud with Kazuma Kiryu from Sega's "Yakuza" video game series due to both sharing similar features and development across the narrative through Midgar.