Squall vs Cloud

[Reis_Winds]

[Doggiez]

[crazy_seeker]

thats a really hard choice. cloud is calm cool and collected and is a team player. squall is also calm cool and collected but a lone wolf. cloud was a failure for soldier, and squall was the top seed, techincally squall is better, but its hard cuz both of them kick a lot of butt.

[chinadude310]

The one with the bigger sword win of couse.

[soloazn]

Cloud's the cool guy .

[subzero]

[RadicalDreamer]

Squall he is cool and ha has nicer girlfriend

[Reis_Winds]

[Viewtiful_E]

Now this is a question I have thought about for a little while. Now... first you have to put your rabid fanboy/fangirl senses away. Second you have to realize that these things can be judged, if you do it in a realistic way and you take in account the graphical changes and changes to the characters ( Cloud ).

Now I will list some stats and some other stuff on each of the contestants.

Squall Leonhart

Age: 17
Height: 5' 8"
Weight: ? ( Wasn't listed in the instruction booklet )
Weapon: Revolver ( Gunblade )

Well... Squall is perhaps the greatest swordsman in his entire world and uses the Gunblade, which may be the hardest weapon to master in the Final Fantasy VIII world.

Without Junctions he seems to be able to hold his own against a Junctioned cadet who really should be a SeeD ( Seifer ). This gives great merit to his normal strength, speed, and combat ability. While Junctioned I can only imagine that his skills will likely multiply by a great deal.

His mindset is one that would be very tactical and calculating in a battle, giving him the ability to think a step or two ahead of his opponent. His mind will also allow him to Junction his magic to great effect, allowing his already amazing physical and mental capabilities to be much more then they would be normally.

Though at the same time he seems to be easily defeated when underestimating or simply being surprised in battle. This is shown two times throughout the game. The first time was when he fought Seifer in the opening AMV and the other time was when Edea impaled him with the Icicle.

His weapon the Revolver is a Gunblade and to my eyes it seems to be rather unbalanced. Unless the blade is made of some kind of metal that is lightweight I'd imagine that it is very front heavy. The next thing I noticed is that they handle is rather short and intended to be held with one hand. I have also noticed the sharp edge is very much like a katana, which is a good thing considering it's weight. ( More on this later )

Holding such an unbalanced weapon would give any normal person much trouble in striking and holding the blade upright. Squall on the other hand seems to twirl it around and swing it with speed and great force. If you would watch Seifer who is most likely Junctioned ( think about Seifer’s personality... ) struggle against the multiple blows Squall uses to attempt to knock his older foe off balance you would see this. This also shows that Squall must know what he’s doing against a nimble opponent like Seifer. With Junctions I could imagine that it would feel as though he was holding the lightest sword in the world.

Before I mentioned that the edge almost looked like a Katana blade, which gives Squall a great advantage when combined with the weight of his sword and strength of his body. A Katana is best used for cutting and could very well be used for a thrust or stab. The weight of the Gunblade would greatly contribute to any cutting motion and would make the blade difficult to block unless you had Strength better or on par with Squall.

The katana curvature makes it very good for cutting, but also makes it easily damaged against heavy armor or rapidly blocked strikes. The Revolvers weight and frame will counters this makes this a very suitable weapon for the task. If the blade were to dull then the sheer weight of it and force that it is swung with will be less but very effective.

By far the strongest aspect of the Gunblade is the trigger mechanism. Pulling the trigger sends a shockwave down the length of the blade, significantly increasing the amount of force that was put into just about any swing. I'd go into how this works but it really isn't the place to do so.

Other then his Gunblade Squalls greatest weapon is his Junctions. The attribute raising capabilities are great but the best feature of this powerful weapon. The fact that Squall can Junction special abilities is what really makes this shine. I'm not going to go into detail about this but if Squall were to Junction his abilities correctly he would be very formable early on and later in the battle.

Overall Squall is a slower swordsman compared to those that specialize in speed but is actually very fast with his strikes. His Gunblade is very dangerous and his ability to Junction can make him seem very god like.


Cloud Strife

Age: 21
Height: 5'7"
Weight: ?
Weapon: Buster Sword / First Tsurugi

Cloud is perhaps the most famous of the Final Fantasy characters and is a very good swordsman for some reason.

At first glance Cloud looks to be a total wimp. At second glance Cloud is a wimp with a huge sword and at the third glance you are most likely already dead so it doesn't matter. This is implying that this SOLDIER reject is amazingly fast with his very unbalanced weapon.

I don't see where he gets his amazing sword technique from though, he didn't make it into SOLDIER so he couldn't have been all that great. Then again... neither was Zack. In my opinion he could be much better with a rifle or projectile weapon. I say this because he was a regular ShinRa troop and would have more experience with that kind of weapon. I would like to say that it doesn't matter because he could be crummy with the rifle, though that doesn't make sense because he would have been thrown out of ShinRa if he wasn't any good at either positions.

Though his strength is displayed may times in the game, the best example being the time he threw Sephiroth into the Mako pool.

From what I have seen of Advent Children ( only trailers and AMV ) he seems to have unnatural strength, speed and reflexes to be able to wield a sword as large as the Buster Sword.

The Buster Sword would weight about 104 pounds, much heavier then Squalls Revolver or most other swords. It's size and weight makes it a very effective weapon for heavy crushing cleaves and long wide slashes. Though because it is just about as big as the person that wields it I can imagine that the different ways to attack would be limited to horizontal or vertical types, diagonal would cause the blade to collide with the ground no matter which way he were to swing the big hunk of metal.

The lack of attack modes would make it very defense oriented, which isn't the swords downfall at all. Its size would work very well as a shield and could deflect just about any strike, with the danger of throwing the wielder off balance.

Cloud and his Buster Sword are like a more extreme example of Sagara Sanosuke and his Zanbato from Rurouni Kenshin.

Cloud also has the First Tsurugi, in Advent Children. I'm not going to even include this weapon because it is really... like... a bunch of weapons in one. Though if he were to use this then the battle would tip more in his favor.

Cloud can also use materia but it also makes him weaker in various attributes and the fact that he is limited by the slots in his armor and sword make his materia a rather weak factor. So Cloud would have to either come up with the greatest combination using very few materia or just forget about it all together.

In the end Cloud is a great long-range swords man but is weak in close range due to the length of his weapon. His attacks would have to be mainly horizontal or vertical type attacks unless he were to alter his height to use more intricate diagonal based attacks.


Conclusion

In the end Squall would win against Cloud while the later used the Buster Sword. Though it won't be an easy victory by any means. If Cloud were to use his First Tsurugi it would be more favorable for Cloud but that doesn't count Squall out.

Squall also has superior combat training when compared to Cloud, who happened to first pick up the Buster Sword after Zacks death.

The battle could really go either way so I guess it is up to the guys at SquareEnix to make the last call. Oh and please don't say I am biased for some reason... I rather dislike both characters. Finally... if any of my information about anything is incorrect please inform me, it would de a great opportunity for me to learn.

[Mastawang]

Squal is to emo Cloud will murder the fool also Cloud is older and more exerinced giving him the edge in smarts.

[Reis_Winds]

[Viewtiful_E]

Thanks for the compliment Reis Winds and you are welcome.

Like I said in the post it all depends on which weapon Cloud is using and how well Squall is Junctioned. I didn't include Limit Brakes because I find them to be like bringing guns to swordfight. Though then again, a simple haste or slow spell can get around any Limit Brake if the battle was Real Time.

[Only_Anime]

Squall because his final gunblade freaking sweet, plus he has the Ragnorok which is alot better than the airship in FFVII.

[fresh_no_concept]

Viewtiful E: Master Materia does not lower attributes at all. If Cloud has all Master Materia, he would be going on his base attack and defense. So I came up with a little combination of Materia that might just do the trick:

Weapon: Ultima Weapon (8 slots - linked)
Armor: Imperial Guard (6 slots - linked)
Accessory: Ribbon (quite possibly the best accesory in FF)

Ultima Weapon ( "|" means that the materia is linked)

1 - Master Summon
|
2 - MP Turbo (increases power of Summons)

3 - Master Magic
|
4 - Support Materia of choice (I'd try out MP Turbo as well, but Quadra Magic could work...)

5 - W - Summon (Two Knights of the Round = a LOT of damage)
|
6 - W - Magic (8 Flares = a LOT of damage)

7 - Enemy Skill (Big Guard and Magic Hammer are so lovely)
|
8 - Magic Plus (just to boost KoR a little bit more =P)


Imperial Guard

1 - Pheonix (fire damage + Life 2 on Cloud)
|
2 - Final Attack (allows Cloud to summon Pheonix as he dies, thus giving Squall fire damage and reviving Cloud at the same time)

3 - Double Cut (Cloud can cut up to four times with this baby)
|
4 - Counter [Support kind] (Allows Cloud to counter with 4 slashes every time Squall hits him)

5 - HP Plus (self explanatory, boosts to 9999)
|
6 - MP Plus (self explanatory, boosts to 999)


I actually do like the realistic point of view that Viewtiful E wrote. Brings Cloud's and Squall's uber powers into perspective. I would think that Final Attack - Pheonix combo might just make Cloud damn near invincible, but it can only be used 5 times. I do admit that Cloud is VERY dependent on his Materia, and if it was just a pure sword battle, Squall DOES have more training, and IS at an advantage. If anyone has some uber crazy junctions for Squall or better materia combo for Cloud, by all means, post and we'll see what bodes well against what.

Still leaning toward Cloud though, he handles a sword pretty damn well (especially AC Cloud). Yeah, yeah, Squall didn't get a movie to showcase some moves. But he did get a nice little CG intro to showcase his fighting skills in the beginning (where Viewtiful draws upon a lot of Squall's positive attributes) whereas Cloud gets next to nothing in his game. I'm done for now. This thread is actually getting interesting... =)

Only Anime: What does an airship have to do with how well one fights?

[OniJai]

I think that cloud will win becuase. just look at the games. FF7 was so much better than ff8 and cloud looks so much cooler in adventchildren when he did his special at the end. That move eve owned sephiroth. No one else can do shit like that.