History Characters / FinalFantasyVIIPlayableCharacters

* AscendedExtra: Probably one of the most known cases in gaming. In the original Japanese release of ''VII'', the only dialogue Zack had was related to the Nibelheim flashback and Cloud's disjointed memories of the past, and that's all he had. The [[RegionalBonus improved western release]] that got backported as ''International'' added some extra scenes in a well-hidden flashback sequence, better establishing his character and death. He was, at most, an influential bit player in Cloud's story. Come ''Crisis Core'', Zack was massively expanded into becoming one of the most important characters of the entire Compilation alongside Cloud, Aerith and Sephiroth, and a BreakoutCharacter like no other in the franchise.

* BreakoutCharacter: Arguably bigger than Vincent. Both got their own spinoff, but not only is Zack's better received, but Zack got the honor even though he only appeared in an optional flashback, as opposed to being a former playable character.

* ShaggyDogStory: Zack's dreams were to become a hero, pretty much entirely on principle with the reputation of becoming SOLDIER being a nice bonus, and be there for his comrades and friends if they needed him. In the end, he dies painfully with Cloud having a HeroicBSOD that screws up his mind hard, and was made an UnPerson by Shinra after giving his all to resist their control upon realizing he was fighting for the wrong side. Even worse, he wanted to meet with Aerith again in Midgar after being apart for several years -- and yet he tragically dies right outside the city, so close yet so far.

* TheRedMage: Red has decent attack and magic stats but not on the same level as the characters specifically designed for them.

* StrongAndSkilled: A combination of infantry training and super soldier experiments has given him super strength, agility and endurance. These attributes are coupled with his skills as a swordsman which develop as he gains more and more [[LimitBreak Limit Breaks]].

* UnknownRival: Hojo doesn't remember who he is when they have their last battle.

* CatsHaveNineLives: When it is discovered that the Temple of the Ancients is boobytrapped to kill whoever tries to obtain the Black Materia, Cait [[sacrifices himself, knowing that he is a disposable robot who will be quickly replaced by another model (which does happen minutes later).]]

* MisfortuneCookie: Cait made two fortunes that seemingly [[predicted Aerith's death (saying Cloud was going to lose what he cherished most) and claimed that Cloud and Aerith would have had a lovely future together as a couple, if she lived.]]

* SquishyWizard: He has high magic stats, but his defenses and HP are poor.

* FiringOneHanded: All of his weapons work this way, even the rifles!

* DidntThinkThisThrough: On someone else's part, amusingly. Hojo cared so little for remembering or bothering with examining anyone closely that he and his researchers gathered up survivors of Nibelheim in the ruins of Sephiroth's murder spree, to turn them into Sephiroth-Clones for Hojo's Reunion Theory. This includes the critically wounded Zack left at the Nibelheim reactor a room away from a similarly-injured Cloud. ''Cloud'' gets Mako Sickness from the treatments, but Zack is already a SOLDIER and just getting an extra dose of what he's already been through -- meaning once he's recovered enough, he breaks Cloud and himself out of their tubes, kills the Shinra researchers and escapes as the most wanted living man on the Planet.

* CuteBruiser: Possibly the cutest member of the team, and rivals Cloud as the physically strongest.

* InterspeciesAdoption: The very anima-like Nanaki was raised by the very human Bugenhagen.

* WelcomeBackTraitor: When they initially find out what he really is, they initially keep him around because Reeve is holding Marlene hostage. Shortly after he performs a HeroicSacrifice at the Temple of the Ancients to get them the Black Materia, earning their trust for real.
* WhatTheHellHero: Calls out Barret for his bombing missions from earlier in the game. It comes off as somewhat hypocritical, however, since he's... y'know, with the Shinra, but Reeve was never crazy about the killing of innocents to begin with.

* GatlingGood: His default weapon is a gatling gun mounted to his right arm. Because it's used frequently in cutscenes, it's one of two weapons in the game that cannot be sold, the other being Cloud's Buster Sword.

* MoralMyopia: Initially, he doesn't care about the lives of many people besides his loved ones (e.g. his daughter Marlene, his Avalanche colleauges who died early on except Tifa, and his Corel community). He fights Shinra primarily out of revenge, and his self-righteous SavingTheWorld claims are just his self-justification. Later on, Cait Sith [[WhatTheHellHero calls him out for it]], and Barret eventually acknowledges that he was wrong.

* SpikeBallsOfDoom: He could be attached with one called Cannon Ball. It could be bought from Kalm and Junon weapon shops.

* ActionGirlfriend: After Tifa consummated her feelings for Cloud ''[[PreClimaxClimax "Beneath the Highwind"]]'', they officially became a BattleCouple. While in [[Anime/FinalFantasyVIIAdventChildren the cgi film sequel]], she becomes a full-fledged [[ActionMom action]] '''''[[MamaBear mom]]''''', [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k70IWHiXl18 by fighting Loz to defend Marleen]], and later, protects Denzel from a group of Shadow Creepers.

* FirstGirlWins: You see Aerith first at the start of the game, but Cloud knew Tifa long before this. Tifa also joins your team first. Tifa and Cloud can confess their feelings to one another if the affection level is high before the fight with Sephiroth. By AC, the two are an OfficialCouple.

* SingleWomanSeeksGoodMan: She was in love with Zach Fair in ''Crisis Core'' for his bravery and selflessness. The two were in a relationship for a while until his death.

* TogetherInDeath: By Advent Children, Aerith is reunited with Zach in the lifestream together at last.

* {{Angst}}: Boatloads of it. Most of it's {{justified|Trope}} too -- if you came to the realization that the life you thought you had lived was a lie and you had spent the last four-five years comatose due to lab experiments after your hero and idol burned your hometown to the ground and left you for dead and your best friend died to save your sorry hide, you'd probably have some issues to work through too.

* AntiHero: His [[spoiler:Jenova cell-induced]] false persona is a PragmaticHero variant. His real persona however, is a ClassicalAntiHero plagued by insecurity and self-doubt.

* BadassNormal: Even before Hojo's experiments. As an inexperienced 16-year old, he managed to defeat even Sephiroth when they clashed.

* BeneathTheMask: Cloud spends most of the original game posing as the cold, aloof and confident mercenary he believed Zack to be. After Tifa restores his true personality during their time in his consciousness in the Lifestream, he admits that the combination of the Jenova cells, Sephiroth's will, and his fragile ego are behind the construction of his fake persona.

* BrainwashedAndCrazy: As one of the Sephiroth-clones due to Hojo's experiments which involved injecting him with Jenova cells, Sephiroth (who has Jenova as ''his'' puppet) can directly take control of his body if he wants, notably when he controls him to beat up Aerith.
* BreakTheHaughty: As a child, Cloud avoided the other village children because he thought of himself as superior to them and like most boys his age, tried to become a hero like his idol Sephiroth by joining SOLDIER and was promptly rejected. However, it seemed like his claims of superiority was more a case of him trying to justify his own loneliness.

* BrokenHero: Cloud has self-esteem issues, stemming from being an outcast as a child and the desire to prove himself. The reason he wanted to join SOLDIER in the first place was to impress Tifa, and things went FromBadToWorse from here once he enlisted...

* CharacterDevelopment: He goes from [[spoiler:an ostracized kid who picked fights with other kids due to InferioritySuperiorityComplex, to someone who still has insecurities and self-loathing but acts nice, dorky, and awkward to others, and after processing the game's events while being reduced as a spectator in his own body, he faces himself and finally accepts who he is after his JourneyToTheCenterOfTheMind, becoming a capable and confident leader]]. This is especially reflected right before heading for the VeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon: [[spoiler:after blowing off and ignoring everyone's interests or plights unless it was for his own self-interest or JerkWithAHeartOfGold moments for much of the game's first act, Cloud had managed to [[TookALevelInKindness develop so much]] that he understands everyone has their own reasons for what they do and is ready to dismiss them if they want to leave at the final hour -- but ultimately they all come back both because [[IveComeTooFar of the journey]] and because they respect Cloud enough to take the charge compared to his begrudging leader position by happenstance before]].

* ClassicalAntiHero: Crippling self-doubt and insecurity, tons of angst and guilt, and as a kid he was a loser and a failure. A [[DeconstructedTrope deconstruction]] as his crippling lack of self-worth ends up making him mentally fragile thus he failed to achieve his dream of becoming a SOLDIER, [[FromBadToWorse and]] [[spoiler:is susceptible to Mako poisoning, in contrast to Zack, an actual SOLDIER who is immune to its effects, leaving him an EmptyShell that has to be taken over by the Jenova cells or Sephiroth to be mobile]], but [[ReconstructedTrope reconstructed]] that by the end of the first game he learns to accept who he is, growing to be a capable leader and can resist Sephiroth's influence as shown in the [[ZeroEffortBoss Zero Effort]] PostFinalBoss.

* ADarkerMe: His SOLDIER persona came about as a result of the Jenova cells messing with Cloud's mind, based on Cloud's desires and what he sees as an ideal version of himself. He idolizes [[SugarAndIcePersonality Sephiroth]] (pre-madness), thinks Tifa [[WomenPreferStrongMen only wants SOLDIER]], as well as views Zack as a BigBrotherMentor, but he considers himself to be a failure who ended up only as a Shinra {{Mook}} (even though ironically, Tifa never wanted a SOLDIER in the first place) and thinks of himself as weak and boring, though he remained quite friendly and sweet (if awkward and self-flagellating) as seen in ''VideoGame/CrisisCore''. Convinced that he really did live up to that ideal image, Cloud acts like a rude, aloof, cooler-than-cool, violent jerk under the SOLDIER persona, which are the traits his boyhood self viewed as "cool", "manly", and how an IdealHero acts due to his admiration of Sephiroth, while he tries to copy Zack's mannerisms and body language.

** In ''Advent Children'', he feels this way towards his entire family, which causes problems as his track record of success isn't very impressive.
* DecoyBackstory: A flashback narrated by Cloud near the beginning [[spoiler:actually turns out to have involved his friend Zack. Cloud ended up confusing himself with Zack and absorbed some of his memories of the Nibelheim incident thanks to a combination of trauma and [[MadScientist Hojo's]] experiments. This is why Cloud's narration tends to trail off and get murky throughout the flashback like he has trouble remembering much beyond a few incidental scenes. That is because he really didn't have much to recall besides all of the scenes he shared with Zack as a grunt, the few bits of info that Zack shared with him, and others that he made up in his own head]].

* EmptyShell: Due to losing his sense of self caused by Mako poisoning, normally he's in a vegetative state, not only shown not only in the aftermath of his HeroicBSOD in Mideel, but also previously in the train station when Tifa found him. This is one of the reasons why his false persona is created by the Jenova cells, who needs a functional puppet for Reunion thus it has to make Cloud mobile, which is accomplished by [[spoiler:altering his memories to be replaced with Zack's own, as well as blocking his true memories that could've due to their traumatic nature, causing his headaches, as Jenova has to protect and keep Cloud's mind from collapsing to keep his ego.]]
* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Subverted. Cloud’s first appearance has him stylishly jumping from a train and acting like a cold and uncaring jerk. Yet, this entire personality displayed turns out to be a fabrication [[spoiler:done by the Jenova cells]].

* TookALevelInKindness: As a child, Cloud and his mother were ostracized by most of Nibelheim's population, causing him to wallow in self-loathing, which in turn led to him developing an InferioritySuperiorityComplex and got into fights with other boys. After an accident in Mt. Nibel that resulted in him getting blamed for Tifa's injury, he became more withdrawn, but also kinder, braver, and more supportive as shown in ''Crisis Core''. Following the traumatic events of the Nibelheim massacre and the injection of Jenova cells into his body, Cloud's fractured mental state gives birth to a false persona where he thinks he's supposed to be an arrogant, reckless, obsessive, and deliberately antagonistic person, but his inner goodness still shines through when it really counts, and he becomes a full NiceGuy after the lifestream reminds him who he really is and he finally accepts himself as a person.

* YourDaysAreNumbered: In ''Advent Children'' where he has contracted the fatal Geostigma. He does live on to appear in ''Dirge of Cerberus'', however.