cloud was great until Advent Children. then they just ruined his character by making him weep all the time.

If you want to talk about emo characters then make a cloud thread. Squall actually looks badass. Maybe the blond hair and blue (mako) eyes blind everyone from reality =P

Guys, don't laugh, but when I was a kid, I wanted to look like Squall. Not in personality (well... maybe the "badass-ness"), but looks... like plastic surgery for the face and stuff!

No pretty much people are hitting it on the head.  The things everyone ping Squall for being 'emo, a 'loser', whiny, trying to run away from his friends and the problem, etc' are all things CLOUD did.  Instead, Squall was someone who had a troubled childhood and was 'anti-social' (different from 'emo') and had pretty much an entire group of people putting their hopes and dreams on his shoulders.  He didn't want it, but he stepped up to the plate and took not only the leadership of his team, but the WHOLE GARDEN anyway.  And he got a shoulder full of ice, tortured and chased to the ends of the Earth for it.

Sorry, Cloud having 2 meltdowns and being strung along until some 'epic final showdown' with a psychotic one winged angel is hardly a comparison.

dude squall is probably the best main char in a FF game far better than cloud whos an emo dude living a life that isnt his all because he got addicted too a green liquid that is the definition of steroid

too much blasphemy these days. and too much jrpg and ff8 hate. i so tired o the "ff7 widows" that think that ff8 ruined ff7 2 "the sequel" or something.

Squall=Emo Cloud

I agree that Squall is a much better main character than Cloud, but I don't know that I'd go so far as to call him the best one in the series. He is my favorite though.

And I'm not a hardcore Final Fantasy 7 fan; I'm more of an old school 1-6 Final Fantasy fan than anything, but Squall is not only derivative of Cloud, but simply put the most boring, unlikeable character in the most boring, unlikeable game in the series.