People keep obsessing over this whole thing in FF7, when even as a kid I was unconvinced in any relationship they had. A tank protecting a Healer in WoW has more romance than Cloud and Aeris. In the game, it basically tells you that Cloud loves Aeris because he effin' does. there is no hint to them both being attracted to each other, they basically spontaneously hold hands and talk. Even if I could buy their relationship together, I can still not relate to Cloud in any way. He's annoying, basically a piece of cardboard, and once Aeris finally gets screwed in the chest, He grabs her corpse and starts whining to Sephiroth about his feelings instead of going on a godamned rampage throughout the game for killing his friend...Yeah, that's what it should have been. They should have been friends. Tifa was the one constantly standing by Cloud's side, they should have been the love story throughout the whole thing. Wouldn't that make much more sense? She would have made a man out of him.

As for the whole 'killing off Aeris', it totally comes out of nowhere, and completely shocking. but for all the wrong reasons. At the time, we had no idea what was going on and thought she was going insane. We then see her praying there for some reason and gets run through by the most impractical katana I have seen. there's bright pearly altars and floating stair steps, it was more surreal than anything. If you want a good death scene then

Spoilers here, for the inexplicably overlooked rpg masterpiece that is Final Fantasy Tactics.

Spoiler:
In Final Fantasy Tactics (the last good final fantasy game) Ramza and Delita are off to save Delita's sister, a commoner that was mistaken for a noble and kidnapped for leverage. Ramza joins because Delita could basically be considered his brother since they were raised together and Teta in turn, his sister. after facing down the Corpse brigade and defeating Wiegraf, they reach the fort where she's being held to see Ramza's brother Zalbag and cavalry arriving. Who then orders to shoot Teta and then captor. Algus (the shooter) then tells Ramza that the nobles didn't care for such commoners and that they killed her to save face. Ramza and Delita then go and ****ing massacre Algus (fun fact: in the battle, Teta's body is still on the map, but won't resurect if you try a life spell or phoenix down). That death had reason, it was a very sadistic and brutal reason, but a reason nonetheless. We see later that Aeris casted the spell, so her death was just to prevent people from knowing what the hell was going on until the next 2 discs.


In conclusion, Aeris' death wasn't an example of how a game can invoke a strong emotional response from the player. It’s an example of how a cutscene can trigger an emotional response, and that’s been happening since the introduction of film (to paraphrase from a blogger, can't remember the name). Anyway, this is all just my opinion, I expect any hatemail shortly.