How Powerful Is Cloud Strife? (According To Lore)

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Cloud Strife is one of the most famous video game protagonists of all time, but how strong actually is he? Throughout this video, we go through the lore with a fine toothcomb to understand more about Cloud Strife, including the source of his power.

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Credits
Writers: Darryl
Editors: Zhané

[keeganseck]

One of my favorite moments from Dissidia NT's story mode was how the heroes wouldn't let Squall go off on his own at the beginning of the game, but Cloud got to wander off no questions asked.

"He can handle himself, but we're not letting you get away with your brooding loner B.S."

[Killerkunert-do]

Clound in Rebirth Cutscenes: Can Jump several Meters in the sky.
Ingame: Cant get over this Fence. xD

[IN-tmmw]

16:30 This is why its thematic that all his best known skills and abilities are only available after achieving a "LIMIT BREAK". This shows that Not only is it a gameplay mechanic that apart of the combat system but also a narrative theme for the main character's arc.

[LordFoxxyFoxington]

To be fair to Cloud in Advent Children had had just fought several lengthy battles before getting to Sephiroth.

[brandondurbin]

Cloud Strife has been my favorite fictional character since I was 12 years old. After playing FFXVI, Clive may now be the protagonist I most identify with, but Remake and Rebirth did an amazing job of making Cloud relatable.

[OLDirty_Kungfu]

Dope! If I remeber correctly, didn't he save Tifa when they miraculously survived the fall in Mt. Nibel as kids? He came out relatively unharmed but she was stuck in bed for a while.

[LPcrazy_]

The title doesn't match what this video was actually about. All this was a brief retelling of the FF7 story focusing on Cloud. Wasn't a bad video but the title had me thinking there would actually be talking about Cloud's power in some sort of quantitative way. I'm kind of confused what the aim of this video was.

[ovenly]

@7:50 it was mentioned that Cloud is physically strong enough to wield the Buster Sword - being too heavy to wield for the average person. But there have been points in the Remake trilogy where it has seemingly retconned its supposed heaviness.

At certain points in Remake + Rebirth, cutscenes have shown Cloud placing down the Buster Sword akin to a large unbrella before resting in beds, benches, etc. Especially playing Queen's Blood matches, Cloud places his sword in an unbrella holder (lmao).

However, this point I made can be dismissed as it mainly pertains to non gameplay nor story-based elements.

And with that, there is also little direct comparison of strength of other people vs. Cloud or Zack when it comes to holding the Buster Sword, except for one sequence in Rebirth's Junon parade where a Shinra infantry trooper handed Cloud his sword with ONE HAND and completely horizontal - like holding a stick sideways. But he's only holding the sword, it can be argued that combat is more taxing and requires more-than-average trained muscles.

This has lead me to believe that the sword itself is not that terribly heavy (instead it's rather light and sturdy), or that Shinra troopers have amazing wrist strength.

[Beigemage]

Theory time: Cloud is strong because as a resident of Nibelheim he grew up best to a natural Materia Spring like how Zack grew up in Gongaga near a Mako heavy Jungle. Strength outside of Jenova cells. It's not Jenova that makes the soldiers strong. It's all the mako. Jenova quickly grants it's power to anyone infected that serves it's purpose. In those moments where Cloud fights Sephiroth where he is slicing buildings in half it's Cloud fighting for the Lion's Share of Jenova's power absorbed by the lifestream. Probably why Hojo put her between 8 reactors. What makes Cloud win is when he isn't relying on Jenova and Sephiroth's taunts but when he channels his own strength and by extension the planetwide mako/memories that were earned not stolen.

[zakirstocks]

I'm pretty sure Cloud Strife is Super Powerful and Tough.

[Gregoroth_Durai]

I loved this vid a lot. The lore vids were among my fav, and this feels like an evolution of them. Excellent stuff. Thank you!

[koreanelvis]

We must remember that the only materia that Cloud possessed was: Pre-Emptive. I believe this is the reason why Cloud was able to sneak up on Sephiroth; delivering that: “fatal stab wound” in: 8:30.

[xdelisiusx]

I mean, this is just the narrative explanation of "Limit Break".

[cloudvii]

What about the fall from reactor 5?
Crisis Core said the plates in Midgar are 300 meters high;
25m is fatal IRL, even if you acknowledge the flower bed; 60m makes water act like concrete.
Cloud just dusts himself off and does some parkour with barrow throwing.

[LiminalMan]

Id love to see a massive tier list slowly form with every FF character. I love you guys, keep up the amazing work.

[pandaeyez]

I enjoyed this video, but this video was more about his lore and less about how strong he is exactly.
Id like to see a video of you measuring how powerful characters are by there feats, stats, etc.
Of course in this case, we dont have a definitive answer for Cloud yet because the final remake game has not been made so he still may display something really incredible by the end of it.

[lordsnia]

more of a deep character lore than "How Powerful" but hey there isn't really a definitive answer without FF7R part 3

[RaidenKaiser]

What I love about cloud is he always had the potential to be bad ass but shinra never gave him a chance to realize that potential and it took a mental reconstruction of his identity for him to gain the confidence to show what he is capable of lol.

[ssjgohan]

I have a theory that the residents of Nibel have such power already in their blood because they were born on one of the world's greatest concentrations of mako before Shinra came and built there reactor so mako had been in their bloodstream in small quantities throughout their lives

[grapespace]

I’m not sure if anyone else has already mentioned this, but these videos are very well written. The vocabulary on display here is surprising, too. I can’t even remember the last time I heard the word “aplomb” lol.

Anyways, I appreciate the effort you lot put in to writing the scripts for these videos. It’s exceptional work!