# Talk:Cloud Strife

There seems to be a conflict in character articles, especially Smash guests, in regards to their image infobox. For now both Nomura's and the Smash's render of VII Cloud seem to be acceptable, leading to their changes. Avoid any edit war and suggest the discussion in the talk page. A fellow user once also tried uploading Cloud's appearance from the remake but I reverted since it failed to described Cloud accurately, most notably his lack of the Buster Sword. This is why I changed the Advent Children image since the old one lacked a proper shot of the body and weapon which the Smash one instead showed well. Cheers.Tintor2 (talk) 16:08, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

BTW, the Dissidia NT render of Cloud's VII look seems to be good cgi.Tintor2 (talk) 22:28, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
User:Tintor2 are you the one who updated cloud image?, pls update also Tifa, Barrett and Aerith image. Thank you. Gotta love the game during quarantine.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 182.53.44.13 (talk) 06:54, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
Why change it from the original artwork? The NT design departs from the original in various, minor ways, and isn't representative of the Compilation's or Remake's designs, either. Nomura's original concept art is helpful because it's how Cloud appears in Final Fantasy VII (see, e.g., his battle or render models), while also serving as a reference point for how future redesigns altered Cloud's look (for example, Nomura has spoken about how the Remake design has attempted to hew closer to the original's, https://www.siliconera.com/final-fantasy-vii-remake-changed-clouds-design-nomura-says-closest-original/: "Tetsuya Nomura went as far as acknowledging it as “the closest one to the original [Cloud design] up until now]"). From an information standpoint, then, the NT design, itself a reinterpretation, is less useful. Additionally, the description in the "concept and creation" section relates directly to Nomura's concept art, which otherwise would be missing on the page. I would vote to revert to Nomura's concept art. FeEd7 (talk) 21:24, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
This is a poor, blurry lead image. Better to stick with a promotional image for the lead image. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 04:28, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
I also think that FeEd7 has made a strong point about sticking with the original artwork for the lead image, for all of these characters. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 04:34, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
I don't think that CGI render for Cloud in Remake (or from the advertisement of the Deluxe Edition?) works as well. It's cropped, somewhat low resolution, and again, I think the original Nomura up top works better still for the reasons above. FeEd7 (talk) 01:48, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
Isn't the Smash spirit version lower quality to begin with than other copies of the same image, like the one available on the FF7 wiki? Even if the bot reduces its file size, I think a higher quality original to begin with would look better. Anafyral (talk) 04:21, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Tintor2, recently, you've been expanding the reception material. Currently, the section looks like this. I don't think that the article needs that much reception material. That stated, this isn't a dispute for me. I'm just offering my opinion. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 07:50, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
@Flyer22 Frozen: Is it really that bad? I mean, Wikipedia is supposed to cover every major aspect of the character. Cloud's biggest appearances are 

1. His role in the original game with large focus on personality handling.
2. His role in Advent Children.
3. His inclusion in Smash
4. His role in the remake.
Take for example the FA Lightning (Final Fantasy) which is long but focuses on her three games from the XIII trilogy. What I do see as bad reception material is "Popularity and other influences in the media" where the media just lists him in multiple lists that say almost nothing about him in a total of five paragraphs. That, for me, seems more pointless. The last GA articles I made were Jin Kazama and Takayuki Yagami where I had trim a lot of "top 10" material. Maybe the critical reception could be trimmed to have generalizations though.Tintor2 (talk) 14:58, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

I went bold and removed some stuff from the popularity section that felt too trivial. Feel free to revert.Tintor2 (talk) 20:08, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
Tintor, I don't feel that this long-standing material in the "Popularity and other influences in the media" section needed to be cut. I'm specifically speaking of the Reception section. With the Reception section, it just seemed to me that you were adding more and more reception material that you came across. And I thought of WP:NOTEVERYTHING. Per WP:NOTEVERYTHING, we don't include every possible thing about a subject. So, in this case, we should summarize the reception and make sure that we are not being unnecessarily redundant. Having a paragraph focused on a specific topic, where commentators are agreeing or relaying similar feelings is fine, of course. If you are addressing important facets, that's fine. It's just a matter of not adding unnecessary redundancy and unnecessary quoting, and making sure that the matters are summarized instead of going into extensive detail. Readers can read the references for extensive detail.
I think that the current setup is a little muddled. In the Reception section, there are things like "Cloud and Aerith's relationship ranked third in GamesRadar's 2008 list of top Square Enix couples, who called it 'a classic love story', while IGN ranked it ninth in their 2006 list of best video game couples overall." and "Cloud's popularity and addition to the Super Smash Bros. series generated multiple response, most notably in Twitter's trends." From what I see, if we are to have a "Popularity and other influences in the media" section", then text like this should go there. The "Popularity and other influences in the media" section already deals a lot with rankings; we don't need rankings in both sections. I also think we should get rid of the "Cultural impact" heading and just have a "Reception" heading, with "General", "Popularity" and "Merchandise" subsections within it. This is because it's all reception. If one wants to state that the "Merchandise" section isn't really reception, it could be its own section instead of a subsection. If you'd rather keep the "Cultural impact" heading, I still think that that a bit of material should be moved out of the Reception and into the section immediately beneath that instead. Something like "Cloud's popularity and addition to the Super Smash Bros. series generated multiple response, most notably in Twitter's trends." also gives the "Popularity and other influences in the media" section more depth.
On a side note: There's no need to ping me to this talk page, Tintor. I prefer not to be pinged to talk pages I'm watching. I didn't ping you above because I know you are watching and are responsive on talk pages. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 04:47, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Well, this is a bit mixed considering I didn't make all the reception. The character's handling in regards to his unreliable narrator among other stuff was not done by me. I think my biggest contributions to the reception was how Smash took care of him, material about Advent Children and Steve Burton as well as the remake with comments about the new English actor. By your mention of quotes, then maybe the articles needs paraphrasing which is perfectly reasonable. Feel free to be bold and edit the article.
However, remember the the WP:Coverage guideline highly focuses on the reception section. For example, I got once a reply from an editor that the article Vergil (Devil May Cry) could no longer be a GA since there was no coverage about his handling in Devil May Cry 5 and thus had to search for out of universe information about his role in that game.Tintor2 (talk) 18:02, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm sorry, Tintor2, but that is waaay too in-depth for Wikipedia. I know you put a lot of work into this, but it feels like a summary from everyone who has ever written about the reception of Cloud Strife. That's fine if our article is a summary from everyone who has ever written about Cloud Strife, period, but we can't do that. It should be condensed to include the highlights that multiple sources mention, and maybe we could include a few quotes if they tend to get re-quoted by other sources. That's my $0.02. Woodroar (talk) 21:10, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
I personally feel that some trimming is in order. For starters, some of that listicle fluff like being the “xth best couple of year y”. That’s trivial in any capacity, let alone for such a popular, mainstream character that has so much commentary available (and likely much more coming, in being in a major game release this year. Sergecross73 msg me 01:48, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
I have no problem with trimming but I have no idea what is exactly what people want to trim and how still. I am against "those list of year" which is why when cleaning up Jin Kazama among other Tekken characters I simply put stuff like "recognized as a popular fighting game character" backed up and I managed to reduce a lot of weight. That's why I recently removed about 15 sources from the popularity. When I added the remake comments I tried combining most sources that said the similar area. At least Christian's work should be mentioned considering he is now voicing the character.Tintor2 (talk) 02:59, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
You’re not required to do anything. If people want things trimmed, then you can just leave it to them to do it themselves. Sergecross73 msg me 11:58, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
I highly approve of the trimming you made, Tintor2. After a brief review of some of the sources, one thing that struck me is that "The History of the Kiss" seems like it should be cut. Unless I'm missing something, all it does is briefly mention Cloud and Aerith as an example of star-crossed lovers, which hardly qualifies as significant commentary.--Martin IIIa (talk) 14:38, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
Okay. After the recent trim, I think the first paragraphs are the ones that use more quotes though. I'm not sure if his Advent Children coverage needs more trimming. Be bold.Tintor2 (talk) 14:45, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
I think it's best to retain a little bit about Cloud's romances/sort of romances with Aerith and Tifa since that is part of Cloud's popularity and legacy. Following your trim, I see that the critical reception section includes, for example, "Cloud and Aerith's tragic relationship was also popular with writers." So that's fine. As for the gaming lists he's appeared on, we can simply summarize that with something like "Cloud has appeared on numerous [so and so] lists, with commentators stating [so and so]." And, of course, including a few examples of the lists he's appeared on is fine. Regarding the setup redesign I suggested, that's taken care of by you having removed material and the fact that I retitled "Reception" to "Critical reception." Anyway, the section is improved. Thanks. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 20:58, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

So Cloud has his classic victory pose remade in FFVII Remake. Maybe it would be the best to use in the infobox but I wonder if anybody has it in better quality by taking a shot from their PS4. You guys think it's possible?Tintor2 (talk) 14:50, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Like I stated in the #Main image section above, that is a poor lead image. I also don't see that it's needed elsewhere in the article. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 04:31, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
If you find a better pic, feel free to replace it. I guess it really looks bad.Tintor2 (talk) 20:05, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
@Flyer22 Frozen: Sorry for the ping, but my wifi rarely works in weekends. I thought that the infobox images had to be updated or to be easier to distinguish. If possible choose any image you want and revert it. I can't even make edits from my computer.Tintor2 (talk) 20:35, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Tintor, for the lead image, I think it's best to stick to the original imagery, per what FeEd7 argued in the "Main image" section above. I don't see why one would think that the Final Fantasy images need to be updated. The original imagery, like the lead image we currently see in the Aerith Gainsborough article, is the iconic imagery for these characters. Why should redesign imagery seen in other media or remake imagery take precedent over the original imagery? The latter imagery is based on the original imagery. Like FeEd7 stated, "Why change it from the original artwork? The NT design departs from the original in various, minor ways, and isn't representative of the Compilation's or Remake's designs, either. Nomura's original concept art is helpful because it's how Cloud appears in Final Fantasy VII (see, e.g., his battle or render models), while also serving as a reference point for how future redesigns altered Cloud's look (for example, Nomura has spoken about how the Remake design has attempted to hew closer to the original's [..]  From an information standpoint, then, the NT design, itself a reinterpretation, is less useful. Additionally, the description in the 'concept and creation' section relates directly to Nomura's concept art, which otherwise would be missing on the page." It's also best for the lead image to clearly depict the character (including his sword), not be blurry/hardly show what he looks like even when clicking on the image. And regarding the image you have there now, this version is at least clearer. It would be better to revert to that, at least for now.
As for pinging, the reason I ask not to be pinged is because this article is on my watchlist and I will see the post. Not sure how your wifi plays into that. It's no big deal that you pinged me, though. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 03:57, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
I meant to state that redesign imagery can obviously be included lower in the article, like File:Cloudac1.jpg being included in the "Further development" section. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 04:05, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
I see that you left a note at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games about this. We'll see if others from there weigh in. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 06:55, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
I would pick the original concept art or the Remake cg render. The current image is way too blurry. Axem Titanium (talk) 07:58, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
I have never understood the tradition of updating infobox images. The whole purpose of infobox images is reader recognition, so unless the newer image has become more well-known than the older image, and is so drastically different from the older image that it would be unrecognizable to readers familiar only with the newer image, then what's the point?--Martin IIIa (talk) 15:37, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm kinda blocked too. From what I get the current image is ingame model while this comparison shows every CGI scene. Also, I already asked IIIa yesterday but I wonder if there could be information about Cloud's Hardy Daytona bike as it seems like a direct reference to Harley-Davidson that might have got lost in translation. You think we should ask for a third opinion or simply return the infobox image to the 90s art by Nomura?Tintor2 (talk) 17:23, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
Update: Considering Lightning's article (I mean it's FA), wouldn't Nomura concept art of the character fit better in the creation section? We do have two versions though. The beta Cloud who had a different design or the art that would be used as a model.Tintor2 (talk) 21:04, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

I still think it's best to have the infobox image be an image from the original artwork and to then have this contrasted by imagery lower in the article with the text speaking on the redesigns. That stated, regarding this image you added, it's fine. But I would prefer if it was an image of him with his Buster sword. Any changes to the sword are also seen by looking at the original artwork and then later imagery. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 08:28, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
For the reasons outlined above, I'd still stick with Nomura's art. Lightning's article does use her CG render, but that's also just how she looks in the game, advertisements for XIII, etc. So the reasons for using Nomura's art for Cloud are inapplicable. Also, somewhat unrelated, but with respect to adding an "origins" subsection, isn't that redundant with "creation"? FeEd7 (talk) 10:00, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
Since there are two images about Nomura's style I gave it a test and reorganized it. I'm not that confident about it guys so revert it if you think the infobox article doesn't fit.Tintor2 (talk) 02:21, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
Tintor, regarding this and this, I don't feel strongly about your change. My only objections are that I prefer that we go with the original artwork for the lead image per what is stated above about that and for consistency with the other main character articles having the original artwork for their lead images. But we can see what others who weighed in above think of this test you made. And I just looked at Sephiroth (Final Fantasy), and the lead image there is not the original artwork. I see you in the edit history there as well. I take it that you changed the lead image there to its current state? Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 21:36, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
Also, your changes present the original artwork lower; so it takes care of any concern about the original artwork not being included. So, FeEd7, what do you think? Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 21:42, 14 May 2020 (UTC)  Tweaked post. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 21:53, 14 May 2020 (UTC) 
On a side note: To reiterate what I stated here, I very rarely play video games now. Most of what I know about Cloud comes from Final Fantasy 7. And I didn't follow details about the character in gaming books the way many did. I'd also need to refresh my memory on a lot of aspects concerning him. I watchlisted this article years ago. So you all no doubt know more about the character than I do. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 21:53, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
I don't have a strong opinion about whether it's a render of Cloud from the remake vs. Nomura's artwork from the original game. I think the latter is preferable for the reasons discussed above (in addition to "if it ain't broke ..."), but if there's a case for the former, I'm open to it. That said, if an image from the remake is used, I think it should be a clear, full-body shot of Cloud, preferably with his sword, not unlike the render used for the Sephiroth article. FeEd7 (talk) 05:25, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Users seem interested in placing either Aerith or Tifa in the infobox when Cloud's relationship with these characters depend on the player preference. The movie left it ambiguous while the novel cites a complicated relationship between Cloud and Tifa as it acted like a prologue to Advent Children. It comes across as biased content in the infobox instead of a neutral point of view.Tintor2 (talk) 21:25, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
The ship war should take place somewhere else than wikipedia.