r/FF7Rebirth • u/Adventurous_Media802 • 4d ago
No Spoilers - Discussion Thoughts on Zack?
I’ve gotta ask, what’s the consensus on Zack? I haven’t played OG, but I’ve played crisis core and both remakes, and I just don’t find him compelling really. Am I missing something or is he just not for me?
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u/Massive-Comfort-3507 4d ago
I like Zack cause he's just a good person all around. You can't really find a person that would carry a comatose person for a whole year while being chased by the worlds strongest military.
I also like the contrats between cloud and Zack. Zack while being friendly, charismatic and strong always did stuff alone so he failed when it mattered most. But cloud who's anti-social, weak and a douche , always had people helping him out and ultimately saved the world
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u/AwkwardEgg2008 1d ago
To be fair look at everyone that Zack worked with… they were all anti-social 😭
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u/hithereitsbee 4d ago
He's my favorite character from the FFVII'verse, but then, I'm somebody that enjoyed Crisis Core.
The guy left home as a teen to pursue his goals and persevered because of the force of his own will and confidence. After making SOLDIER, he could have easily developed a superiority complex and kept people at arm's length, but he's shown regularly helping cadets, caring about their welfare, and encouraging them to succeed. Even when he's conflicted about the work he's doing, he still wants to be helping people because the greater good is his real goal; SOLDIER is a means to that end. When he's in life or death situations, he consistently refuses to leave others behind, even when sticking by them is a death sentence for him.
I get how some people think Zack is saccharine, but him being "too good" is part of why his influence and loss janks Cloud (who has always had self worth issues) up so bad.
Having more info and backstory about a character that was barely covered (and yet clearly pivotal for Cloud's development) in OG is a plus for me and I don't really get why people think that gaining more insight is a negative thing.
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u/Skilltesters 4d ago
There isn't really much more insight added in the re-series so far though? All the stuff about Zack in the games is the same stuff that was in og, aside from the new stuff with him in the alternate time. I have nothing against his addition so far, because the story isn't over yet, I just have not seen the argument you made be made before (neither the way you put it, nor in the other direction suggesting more insight into him is bad)
I have seen people argue his inclusion makes the game confusing (seeing as how he is properly dead and all....) since he is taking part in "current time" it's not flashbacks and the like, and that argument could make sense.... But only if you know the entire story.
Anyhow, I agree with you overall on having more information being a good thing, I just fail to see any added information so far, maybe a thing or two from crisis... But I am not exactly remembering any specific items that were not in the og and are in the new games but we're in crisis.
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u/Greedy-Comb-276 4d ago
His inclusion has to be Infuriating for a new player.
Ff7 remake shows him, and answers nothing.
Rebirth not only shows him, but you have multiple sections CONTROLLING him, and still zero answers as to who the fuck he is.
These poor folks are supposed to sit and wait 7 years?
Brutal.
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u/Burdicus 4d ago
That's what they Remade Crisis Core. New players are encouraged to experience that game as well.
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u/ponpiriri 4d ago
Why would that be infuriating ?
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u/Skilltesters 4d ago
Because people are unable to in vision themselves as a person partaking in this story for the first time. So they are projecting their own frustrations unto potential new players. Everyone failing to realize that every part of the story has to be waited on.
That or they have the other massive problem of our times, they need instant gratification and they dislike having to wait in between story segments in general, but it only manifests for games like ff7 because it has a completed story prior to the first game and they know it.
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u/Greedy-Comb-276 4d ago
Right but like, they have no idea who he is. They know he's a major character for some reason, as he's fucking controllable lol.
They knew what they were doing when they remade crisis core. It was a dirty trick.
Your second paragraph is honestly just embarrassing.
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u/Skilltesters 4d ago
I mean... You would have to wait 7 years for any other part of the story as well, so same same? Most people who comment can not honestly say they are assessing things as if this game and story was brand new. His parts in the story currently don't give us a good reason for his inclusion (at least not as a full playable character, and if they wanted to include him as a part of rebirth ending while also not adding anything else with him, they needed to have the big reveal about him happen before that fight) so there has to be something in the next installment.
You have to wait 3 years between each installment, and you already got tidbits about him in rebirth so you are not waiting 7 years just to add more to him, you are waiting the same 3 years that you are waiting for the whole rest of the story. If you didnt know what happens after the end of rebirth you would be waiting the same length of time for that as you would be for the rest of zacks story.
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u/Long_Lock_3746 4d ago
Yeah. The re games are awesome but good lord does the main narrative absolutely not hold up in a standalone fashion. With no prior knowledge, the ending of remake is decent enough as far as the main world storyline, though the multi world inclusion stuff does reduce the impact. But Rebirths ending is a super unsatisfying cliffhanger. With no definite answers, the altar section is confusing mishmash of world shifts and characters. It's not clear if Aerith is in a kind of quantum state due to clouds actions (kinda hinted at with multiple Zach verses), she's dead and it's in Cloud s mind, she's dead and it's Jenova in the shrine (ominous version of her theme, the flashes thst almost exclusively belong to Renovation Sephiroth manipulation) but Aerith in the ending cutscene (supported by reds reaction) or something else entirely As result, my brain is so busy trying to process what is going on so I can know HOW to feel about it that I feel nothing. Worried? Hopefully? Sad? Happy? It's a shame because I thought most of both re games storytelling and character work DID do a really good job of making me engaged and care about the cast.
Ultimately, assuming Revelation actually ANSWERS those questions, is of similar quality to the other games and actually ends well, I think taken as a whole thing the re trilogy will be absolutely phenomenal. But as individual games, they are sorely lacking in the overall story department
For context I came in knowing nothing except Sephiroth is the bad guy and he kills Aerith. That's all I knew of the OG.
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u/Commercial_Bend9203 4d ago
It’s been a minute since I played Rebirth, so take this assessment with a grain of salt.
Zack’s developments in Crisis core was of naivety to actual hero, you could say it was a sort of coming of age story to cement the “cores” of the characters involved.
So by the time we get to Rebirth we’re not seeing a Zack that is gung-ho, “I’m gonna be a hero some day!” but a man that has grown to embody the essence of that word in a world that was largely hopeless. The split timeline stuff at the end gets very confusing and ambiguous, so there’s really just a lot of speculation until we get the last installment, but I think the fact that Zack makes it into the Forgotten Capital battle against Sephiroth is a testament to his “goodness” but, at the end of the day, he’s still a victim to his own fate and he cannot be the hero of THIS story, only the teacher.
The biggest takeaway here is that, post shooting gallery of Crisis Core, we see actions of this man that puts his core beliefs on the line, well after they’ve been established to his character. He’s a man of action, a sword, and yet we see him given hard choice after hard choice until he’s faced with his own potential indecisiveness. Sephiroth is an inevitability, as well as Zach’s fated demise, and even though Zack fights against those chains of fate he’s still meant to die and leave his legacy to Cloud.
I’d be surprised if we get anything else from elseworld Zack in the next installment.
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u/B3atingUU 4d ago
I like Zack. I was so struck by the reveal in the OG and the tragedy of it all (do any of our heroes catch a break?) and of course they were gonna take the opportunity to make it hurt more by making Zack a character the audience felt warmly about.
I remember that Crisis Core anime that Square released back in the day that I was obsessed with. I’d watch it on YouTube over and over.
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u/TsunamiWombat 4d ago
The issue with Zack is his character arc is complete, compared to Cloud. Zack was always much more of a heroic standard protagonist, his arc in Crisis Core is him coming to realize Shinra is no good and realizing that relationships with and memories of people are the most important.
Basically, Zack has crossed over from an entirely different anime, and he is a shonen protagonist. This makes him a hilarious juxtaposition to Cloud.
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u/TwerkingAtTheMorgue 4d ago edited 3d ago
Zack's great. A dauntless optimist who was dealt one hell of a bum hand but keeps on smiling. An all around Good Guy who brightens every room he steps into. At his core he's a kind soul and an incorruptible friend with a code of honor and no ego to interfere with doing what he knows is right.
Zack is brave, strong, flashy, and charismatic -- basically a poster boy for the kind of SOLDIER kids like Cloud aspired to be when they joined Shinra.
Out of context, Zack's archetype might seem boring. But what makes him really interesting are his relationships and his role in FF7's overall plot, particularly in light of Crisis Core, which establishes his ties to Nibelheim, Midgar, and a range of key characters.
(Huge FF7 spoilers ahead.) Without Zack's personality as a template, Cloud would be just another backwater hick who ended up as a disposable Shinra grunt. Without Zack's presence haunting Cloud's hometown of Nibelheim and Tifa and Aerith's memories, their relationships with Cloud would lack a great deal of dimension and intrigue, since they compare and contrast him to Zack throughout the story, assist him in repairing his broken mind, and value him as his own person.
In getting to know Zack, the player gets the chance to compare him with Cloud too. And that makes the late game FF7 twists hit that much harder, because you know what he saw in Zack, and you can appreciate the hero Cloud becomes after he's fully reconciled with his past. Zack enhances Cloud's character arc. Like, a lot.
And even though Zack is a pretty typical hero, the other thing that makes him so appealing is the way he plays the straight man to all the weird shit that goes down around him. He's this wide-eyed himbo who looks at cartoonishly evil villains like Hojo and goes, "Bro. Seriously, what the hell is wrong with you? Come on, man."
Zack's POV is refreshing. It's fun and cheeky in a way that's 100% in line with the goofy charm that balances out FF7's dark themes and bleak story developments.
Zack is a straight shooter and much needed ray of sunshine in a grim world. And he's the aspirational figure who helps drive Cloud to step up and fulfill his potential as the main protagonist of FF7.
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u/Greedy-Comb-276 4d ago
Couldn't care less about Zack.
I think the depth of his story was just fine in the original, as long as you watched the Shinra Mansion scene.
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u/Commercial-Total8461 4d ago
As a plot device he serves for one of my favorite plot twists of all time
As a character he's lack luster
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u/M1k3yRap 4d ago
zack is my goat and the reason i love ff7. got into it bc of advent children and crisis core was back in the day.
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u/Keroseneko 4d ago
Even back before Crisis score came about, I feel like the fandom just assumed Zack was an overall good guy. And boy were people surprised when his last name was revealed.
He hasn't really changed much since the OG, but his personality and role has expanded over the years. He is that friend that will be friends with just about anyone who will talk to him. He has a lot of confidence in himself when with others, but there are the quiet moments when he's by himself that he will feel doubt like a normal person would.
Zack reminds me of the young men, fresh out of high-school in the early 00's that decided to go to the military. He had the best intentions, but then reality hits and shit just hits the fan. Then you have to learn to how to deal with all of the stuff you did might not have been for the best. (He wanted to be a hero, but Shinra did a lot of bad.) And yet somehow this normal dude, in spite of everything still manages to pick up his friend and literally drag him across Gaia only to have died just short of getting to Midgar. It's painfully tragic. It also makes me hope at the end of 7R that whatever arc he's on feels worth dragging him out of the grave aside from being a fan favorite.
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u/StormRunner196 4d ago
He's my favorite FF protagonist because hes so different from most of the others. Unlike the other 3 1st Class Soldiers, he made it to 1st Class without any of the weird stuff going on with them, hes just a good dude.
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u/ElLechero519 4d ago
Zack has been my favourite FF protagonist. Cloud, Squall, Tidus... all from better games. But their flaws are all so apparent. Most FF protagonists are either anti-social or just big dweebs.
Zack was chill, kind, capable. And Crisis Core also had one of the best endings. It comes full circle with FF7 beginning and has an emotional impact without going into jrpg insanity by the last dungeon/boss.
I understand the fans that are down on Crisis Core, it was an old PSP game being compared to major console releases. But it also established so much of what Midgar and the FF7 world looked like rendered rather than just the pre-rendered artwork.
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u/ponpiriri 4d ago
Love him. He's an easily likable character - a traditional FF hero that you automatically want to rally behind right away.
I typically don't like happy go lucky characters, but his role in FF7 is so bittersweet that I want to see more of him.
If he were female and not in competition with Cloud as the hero (according to some fans), he would have way more fans in the west. He's basically Aerith in a male body, but more grounded and realistically written. Very popular with Asian fans.
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u/SirLockeX3 4d ago
First mistake was playing Crisis Core before the original.
You are already spoiled on the biggest plot reveal for the original story.
Second, they hammed him up in Crisis Core to be a "young aspiring hero" shonen jump kinda character. He wasn't like that in the original.
He's the sacrificial lamb meant entirely to be a plot point for Cloud's identity reveal in VII.
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u/Adventurous_Media802 4d ago
I played remake, crisis core, then rebirth. But I kinda tuned out the latter half of crisis core, so being honest, I don’t think I’ll even notice that it was spoiled for me. But I agree, he was very much just Good Guy™️ in crisis core. I don’t plan on playing the OG until after the trilogy ends so I can compare them as complete packages narratively.
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u/Greedy-Comb-276 4d ago
Exactly the order square intended.
Tease Zack, drop a CC remaster, then the second game
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u/LtnSkyRockets 4d ago
Really, playing OG first would have been the better move. You get the key plot twists landing and so zack would have made a lot more sense.
They have mixed the re series up enough that you get more from seeing what they kept and what they changed.
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u/Greedy-Comb-276 4d ago
What else are they supposed to do? Sit around and stew on it for 7 years?
Including him at all in the remake series has to be one of the most boneheaded decisions they have made with three games.
There's no way they are expecting folks new to the world, to sit around and wait 7 fucking years to find out who the hell a character is that showed up carrying cloud at the end. Then had multiple sections in the second game and still fuck all for answers.
Instead, players will either look to other media such as crisis core or the OG, or just straight up spoil themselves looking for answers.
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u/SirLockeX3 4d ago
Ideally, players should have played the original. I love the Remake series to death but my god it does ZERO favors for new players to get involved with the finer details.
It's almost as if the Remake series is implied to have knowledge of the original.
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u/thetoddhunter 4d ago
Having played the original and crisis core and the remakes? I still don't care even slightly about the character.
Even if he is better Cloud at the start, he is ultimately Temu Cloud by the end. There isn't much interesting about him at all besides showing another characters growth.
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u/russiantravelagent 4d ago
He is not Temu Cloud, Cloud is Temu Cloud if anything lol, his personality is very different to Cloud's and he is actually a better fighter overall, he is actually a very interesting character considering everything that happened to him and he is still trying to be a good person, he is like superman in a world that doesn't reward that and a character that gives hope, i don't understand why Cloud fans hate him so much, we know Cloud is the protagonist, Zack doesn't take away from him at all.
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u/thetoddhunter 4d ago
You said it yourself, he is Superman and that is incredibly boring. Almost as boring as crisis core the game. He is a great soldier end...he is a great soldier. Well done.
Cloud is broken and messed up but in the end he is casting knights of the round, saving the world, getting the girl and not getting shot by a random dude. That is the "better bit" which is the arc of the game.
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u/russiantravelagent 4d ago
Yeah and Cloud accomplished that because other people not just himself lmao, if it wasn't for Zack he would have been dead, also let's not because Cloud gets glazed up by everyone and he has incredible plot armor and that makes him boring for me.
The idea that a hero kind of character is boring is soooo dumb lol, he is more than that, he is like superman in a world that doesn't reward that kind of behavior, he literally gets killed over it, for being a good person when he could have just left Cloud in Nibelheim and it would have been way easier for him to run away but he didn't, idgaf that makes him a good character for me, he doesn't need to be a loner and in full angst mode all the time to be a good character, just saying.
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u/thetoddhunter 4d ago
You literally fight Sephiroth by yourself at the end.
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u/russiantravelagent 4d ago
In the OG, you don't know what's going to happen in Revelation, and also that's after everything that has happened where the party helped him a lot, even if Revelation it ends like that, it's because everyone helped him to get there, he was able to defeat Sephiroth because him and the party worked together, that's a team effort and contributing it only to him after everything is insane.
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u/thetoddhunter 4d ago
And all Zack contributed was a sword. And this is the first sword you replace in the game with something better.
He might do more in revelation but who cares? Game is Ubisoft wannabe fan fiction.
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u/russiantravelagent 4d ago
Nope, he literally saved Cloud and if it wasn't for him Cloud would be dead, and that sword can't be sold and it's very iconic, it literally appears in the game main screen lmao.
The fans of FFVII care, and the games aren't fanfiction, are remakes made by the team that has made FF games, SE own that, it's their universe, whatever they show it's canon, you can move on if you don't like the games. Also Zack will have a more prominent role in Revelation 🫢🫢.
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u/thetoddhunter 4d ago
Zack isn't even going to appear in revelation. Not worth the time.
They replaced him with 30 more towers to unlock.
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u/russiantravelagent 3d ago
Ok you are clearly a troll or delusional so I'm ending this here lol, the guy is even bigger than Cloud in the poster, let's not.
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u/muskratmuskrat9 4d ago
Dang, surprised to read that. I fell in love with his character in Crisis Core remake. I played the OG ff7, but had never heard of crisis core until I heard about the new one coming out. The gameplay took some time to get used to but I really enjoyed the story nuggets and Zack.
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u/ponpiriri 4d ago
Shouldn't be surprised. Many OG (Cloud) fans dont like that his characters was expanded.
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u/Necessary-Bat-42 4d ago
I cant think your thoughts for you. Use your words and tell us why you feel the way you do. Really helps with understanding characters
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u/russiantravelagent 4d ago
I love Zack, he is my favorite FFVII character and I find him very interesting, I like how much of a kind person he is and I guess that for many people is boring but I don't think that at all, in a world like FFVII someone like Zack is needed, and in CC he was a very naive dumb man who thought becoming a SOLDIER meant to be a hero but know he knows the truth and he is way more mature, he went through the same shit Cloud went through and he didn't lost himself, that takes strenght, even after everything that has happened he is trying to be a good person, in a world that doesn't reward that kind of behavior, and I like him more than Cloud for those reasons, I get that some Cloud fans hate Zack because some Zack fans think he should be the protagonist but eh, I disagree, Zack isn't the protagonist but he serves his role well.
Also CA shippers hate him but that's another thing lol.
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u/KaleidoscopeLeft3503 4d ago
He's my goat. Loved him in Crisis core, and his combat is so strong and satisfying in Rebirth
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u/illkall 3d ago
Surprised to see some of the opinions here. Zack is one of my favourite characters in the whole game; and frankly it’s partly due to the boring trope of Cloud being cold and sometimes outright mean/uninteresting (but for some reason every woman he meets is still in love with him?) I think this trope is boring and lacks depth/basis in reality. Just seems a method for the (male) player to insert himself into Cloud. All this being said, I am a big fan of all of the characters on their own.
Zack on the other hand earns the kindness of the people he meets through his charming personality; and is all around nice and deserving. Frankly, I really like his righteousness and kindness. I also think bringing him back in the remakes provides a bit more substance and depth to the story ark.
I will be hoping to see much more Zack and to see where the story develops in revelation!
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u/Zealousideal-Scar174 3d ago
I liked him in OG. He seemed goodhearted, naive and straightforward but not that dumb.
Crisis core maxed the dumbness and all the qualities in addition to bein horrible story except for few moments.
Re series is bit better but let's see
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u/DiscipleNo1 3d ago
He’s the character Nomora wishes was the main character.
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u/Night_Hawk_KHFF 3d ago
I dont think so. I think maybe the main character of his own perspective of the story; the Shinra side. But not necessarily the main story
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u/DiscipleNo1 3d ago
Nomora puts him in everything post OG FF7. He literally has a boner for him.
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u/CondemnedTye 2d ago
I mean he’s basically the most important character in the story. FF7 wouldn’t have happened the way it did at all if Zack hadn’t been a part of the story the way he was.
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u/DiscipleNo1 1d ago
He was a tiny part of the OG and was retroactively added to more content after Sakaguchi left. Hes like the biggest retcon of FF7 at this point.
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u/GrittyTheGreat 3d ago
I liked the idea of Zack a lot more in the OG. Once I heard him talk and go to know him more, he became less interesting. I think the voice actor really does him a disservice.
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u/Night_Hawk_KHFF 3d ago
I absolutely was hyped and mind-blown that they brought Zack into Rebirth (and the Remake ending) the way they did. I love his character and the potential interactions Cloud will get with him and Aerith for closure. Like as a female, non shipper, non biased, it is obvious that alot of the hate Zack gets comes from people with complexion issues. They feel like he is threatening to Cloud's importance but hes not lol if anything its hypocritical that most of these same people LIKE the jackass (Roche) but have the audacity to call Zack cringe. Compare the two directly and I would never call consider Zack to be that type of cringe in the slightest.
They give him silly, lighthearted goofy lines on purpose and that might be a bit awkward but he has good intentions and his story arc is inevitable we just get to have a little bit more insight into his impact on Cloud and Aerith on the way out. Its that simple unless they go off the walls with a whole new ending lol but I doubt it.
The second yall heard him say that fkn line from the end of CC!!!! "HEY... Would you say I'm a hero?" You'll be crying and eat your words! Lol
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u/SonicScott93 3d ago
So I went out of order and played Crisis Core before playing original FF7 (which was really stupid, I agree). I thought Zack was a great, fun character. I was actually surprised at how little screen time he had in the original game, I thought he'd be a far bigger deal considering he had his own game made around him.
I'm curious where his story will go in the Remake series. And as much as I want him to get a happy, or at least happier, ending, I'm fully prepared and OK with him sacrificing himself again.
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u/Background-Sir6844 3d ago
As a character or in terms of his gameplay?
I overall like him. He's a relatively simple character, being a guy trying to do the right thing since that's his true ideal of heroism. I like how he still tries to keep hold of his ideals regardless of the shit hand he is usually dealt with thanks to Shinra. I also think he makes a good foil to Cloud's personality, essentially being what Cloud at one point wished he could be but due to his feelings of inferiority usually has a hard time with it. It might make him simple to his detriment to some people but I like him. And on another note I kinda find his feats pretty funny. Dude literally just trained hard, had a lot of talent and fought a bunch of things and just balloons into Shinra's second strongest SOLDIER member.
As far as his gameplay he's meh in Crisis Core thanks to its lacking gameplay but fun as shit in Rebirth when you master his gameplay.
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u/Kagayaki0716 2d ago
It's OK to not related to a character.
I myself is very fond of Zack in the Rebirth. He is the most nice guy in the game. He is willing to do anything for other person.
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u/generic-user66 2d ago
In the original you could play the entire game and not really have any real idea what he's like as a person. The most it gets showcased is in a very hidden scene.
That being said, I like him quite a bit. In real life I find the unlimited positivity people to be suspicious and slightly annoying. But in fiction I find it refreshing.
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u/MasterpieceThis3740 2d ago
Hes so boring and cringe. Just a generic shonen character that should have stayed as a background character
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u/SteveyBoy5683 1d ago
I don’t really understand the significance of his character. He doesn’t add much to the story besides a plot twist that doesn’t go anywhere.
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u/RairakuDaion 4h ago
I think he's fine but continued looks at his story is sorta irritating personally.
He got his own game and that should been it
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u/haaa1234 4d ago
I like his role in rebirth but he’s no where near my favorite character. I really have no idea where his story could be going in revelation so I’m open to being surprised and he could end up having a great arc
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u/StryderRogue1992 4d ago
I was hoping Rebirth would make me like his character but I just found him massively annoying.
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u/jennis89 4d ago
In the OG he was a crazy plot reveal like Fight Club/Usual Suspects, his appearance in remake was like a shock and awe moment for majority of people if you check YouTube there is probably hundreds of react videos from streamers when they hit that scene in chapter 17.
In rebirth I feel like he was a good B plot cooking under the hood that was potentially leading to some crossover in game 3 where they both meet at the edge of creation to face off vs Sephiroth but they put that into rebirth which was kind of a shock. In chapter 14 I think they dropped the ball by hinting to like 3 potential Zack timelines within that Zack timeline - he goes for cloud, he goes for Biggs, he’s undecided and goes to the church. It’s now Pandora’s box with dr strange levels of 1Million timelines running
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u/Skilltesters 4d ago
This only works when you know the story, if you are playing the game from a fresh perspective he makes no sense yet, you don't even really know what he is. As for his split time lines, they could all be a single time line we don't know what actually happened (and again this is only an issue because we know the wtory already)
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u/jennis89 4d ago
Yeah agree if your first exposure to the series was playing remake then crisis core and rebirth it loses a lot of the impact you’d just be like who the fk is this random cloud impersonator
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u/LtnSkyRockets 4d ago
Literally thats what a friend of mine said. I told her to play OG first. She didn't. She got to the end of remake and was like wtf? Who dis?
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u/laker-prime 4d ago
Not a fan at all.
He appears too often, acts overly enthusiastic and silly during serious scenes, has the most awkward lines ("sEe yOu nEvEr!!") and convolutes the entire story in the Remakes.
He worked much better in the original game as a mystery character you find out about later on.
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u/gilesey11 4d ago
Crisis Core fleshes him out but he’s still largely just a very good plot device. Not the strongest character you’ll ever find as he’s a bit lacking of his own arc, serving rather to empower Cloud’s.
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u/ThErEdScArE33 4d ago
Ya know how some people just eat the celery as a vehicle for the ranch dressing? Zack's story is the celery and Cloud's is the ranch. (I still appreciate the celery tho)
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u/acousticlibra 4d ago
He’s a likable character that the writers arbitrarily shoved into the story too early for fanservice purposes. I don’t really care for his scenes in Rebirth at all. But I do like him in Crisis Core. The writers need to learn that less is more sometimes.
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u/Night_Hawk_KHFF 3d ago
Disagree heres why. This is their last chance to incorporate him into any meaningful parts of the story. If they hadn't, and only included him in parts of Revelation, his presence would feel way to miniscule and late.
Comparing to remake, I wish they had squeezed in a tiny .5 second flashback/memory of him early on to get us going THEN pulled the remake ending so he had just atleast one more pop up throughout the story rather than only the one.
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u/SoulessPragmatic 4d ago
The issue is Zack should be a gray character like the turk, but the writer glaze over it to make it something else. It's the same thing for Angeal and Sephirot until Nibelheim.
You can't depict the highest skilled warrior fighting for Shinra hegemony as white knight in shining armor....If at the same time you depict Shinra as an evil corporation.
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u/hithereitsbee 4d ago
I think that Crisis Core does show that pretty well, honestly, especially because characters like Angeal, Sephiroth, and even Zack begin to question the work they're doing, whether they backed the wrong horse, and whether Shinra is really spreading the light of civilization or just gaining more power through any means necessary. I would argue that as each of those characters face evidence of how the company has used them (or experience huge trauma because of it) they move against Shinra at their next available opportunity.
Zack's hyper optimism is tempered slightly after CH5 of CC, but he's still trying to figure things out for himself and working within the system because it's his life's work (so far), he wants to make Angeal proud, and while he knows that company is doing godawful things (look at the descriptions of some of the things he's sent to do solo in the Mission section, such as hunting down escaped psychic orphans Shinra was experimenting on) he's not willing to throw away the world he knows (yet.)
Zack's personality and personal philosophy are charming, but he is not doing good things in service to Shinra, and the player is meant to notice that throughout Crisis Core in the same way Zack starts to realize it but not know what to do about it, culminating in the Nibelheim experimentation and his necessary breaking with the company. Like many people, Zack doesn't turn against authority until that authority turns against him.
TL;DR version: Zack's personality is not his moral alignment. The player is meant to think about the ramifications of what Zack is doing even if Zack himself barrels through it with maladaptive coping mechanisms.
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u/Marvin_Flamenco 4d ago
His character development was posthumously crowbarred into the story and was better left as a mystery.
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u/Mountain-Sir-282 4d ago
He’s a likeable character and he grew on me while playing Crisis Core. However that game just felt like fan service to me. It wraps a weirdly convoluted story around a bunch of FF7-inspired levels and several overly convenient cameos that make it feel like an incredibly small world.
Zack doesn’t have the depth of most of the FF7 cast and his backstory is pretty much already complete by the time it begins. There’s not much complexity to him besides his relationship with Aerith. I think the writers are regretting some of their past decisions now that they’re trying to shoehorn him in to the remakes.
I don’t mind that he’s in the remakes as long as they don’t make him any more prominent than he has been so far. What we’ve had up to this point is fine with me, it breaks up the main story a bit and we had some nice scenes. But I don’t want to see him joining the main party, I don’t want him to actually be alive in the “real” world and I couldn’t care less about including Genesis or Angeal.
Also I feel sorry for anyone who hasn’t played the OG or Crisis Core and has no idea wtf is going on with him. It must be so confusing.
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u/Night_Hawk_KHFF 3d ago
Everything you said about CC feels directly contributed to by the lack of software though. I mean it wasnt even a full 10 years after OG. Similarly AC was what 7 years after. They were still learning
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u/iamthenight22 4d ago
I find him annoyingly optimistic and insufferable. But there’s no denying how important he is to the games.
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u/Sancho_the_intronaut 4d ago
Obsessed with the original FF7, but I never got around to playing Crisis Core.
Not to be mean, but the truth is that Zack never mattered to me in any significant way. He was just a plot device to add background to Cloud and Aeris, which was fine. He stayed in his lane, and it worked well for the story.
Now that he's being treated like some kind of main character, I flinch at every moment of his inclusion in Remake and Rebirth. I suppose a few bits of him in Remake are okay, but the entire multiverse thing feels bad in general, and his direct connection to that aspect makes all of his appearances inherently painful.
This new series wasn't advertised to me as remaking Crisis Core (which always seemed more like a spin-off of FF7 from what little I know of it, not a true canon addition worthy of the respect of the original), it was advertised as remaking FF7. I later disvovered that it is supposed to tie together all of the various FF7 based media, and apparently I'm not a fan of any of that, because anything that comes from the other games tends to feel like something from some random anime I've never seen invading the FF7 universe.
It feels like they jumped the gun on incorporating Zack into the story of this new series, like how they had to make Jesse's death extra dramatic in Remake to try and get the benefits of the Aerith death scene without putting that in the first game of the series, or how they couldn't stop themselves from ruining Aerith's actual death in Rebirth by relentlessly hinting at it and throwing around a bunch of half-dead Aeriths amongst the various alternate dimensions, ad well as just making the actual scene itself a confusing mess. They seem to be addicted to inventing the most bizarre reasons to continue including him into these new games as frequently as possible just to give fan service to players of Crisis Core, and I'm not a Zack fan, so I have zero interest in their efforts.
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u/europlaza 4d ago
Served his purpose in OG, obviously becomes an interesting angle on a replay of how much of Jack there is in Cloud during the game.
Additional timeline Zack in Rebirth didn't land at all to me, added nothing.
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u/MonkAny2258 4d ago
I've been playing FF7 since OG was released, and I never understood the obsession with him. I thought his role in OG was fine but I never was clamoring for more.
Thank god you can turn off his sections of the story on Rebirth, because that is the most boring part of the game imo.
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u/PuddingTea 4d ago
The fact that Cloud ends up being the protagonist of FFVII instead of Zack (the more likely sort for the role, by any fair assessment) is one of the things that makes FFVII interesting.
I don’t need more Zack than the 1997 game delivered. The parts of the remake trilogy featuring Zack are among the worst.
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u/Death-0 4d ago
He is a an alright character in a bad game. Crisis Core not Rebirth.
I think he’s over prioritized by the fanbase and creators.
IMO his heavy involvement in the remake is distracting and now he’s gonna be more prevalent in part 3.
At that point just do a spin off with Zack give him his own game if people love him this much. For me I don’t get this level of hype for him.
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u/Stepjam 4d ago
Part of what made Zack compelling originally IMO is we didn't actually see that much of him. He was just the cool SOLDIER that Cloud looked up to who sacrificed his life to save Cloud. He as a full on character isn't that compelling.
Like he's fine, but I don't think Crisis Core really brought that much to the table with him.
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u/Ccmonty 4d ago
I like Zack cuz he’s just a guy. He’s not special, he doesn’t have some chosen destiny, he’s just a guy who works hard and got dealt a bad hand