Cloud Strife

For fighter info, see Cloud (SSB4) and Cloud (SSBU). For other meanings of "cloud", see Cloud (disambiguation).

Cloud Strife
Official artworks of Cloud from Dissidia Final Fantasy and Dissidia Final Fantasy NT.
Universe	Final Fantasy
Debut	Final Fantasy VII (1997)
Smash Bros. appearances	SSB4 Ultimate
Most recent non-Smash appearance	Final Fantasy Resonance (2026)
Console/platform of origin	PlayStation
Species	Human (augmented via Mako and Jenova cells)
Gender	Male
Place of origin	Nibelheim (birthplace) Edge (surrogate hometown)
Created by	Yoshinori Kitase Kazushige Nojima Tetsuya Nomura Hironobu Sakaguchi
Designed by	Tetsuya Nomura
Voice actor	Takahiro Sakurai
Article on Wikipedia	Cloud Strife

Cloud Strife (クラウド・ストライフ, Cloud Strife) is a character from Square Enix's Final Fantasy series. He is the main protagonist of Final Fantasy VII, its high-definition remake, and its film sequel, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. Cloud also appears throughout Final Fantasy VII's related media, the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, and as a supporting character in the Kingdom Hearts franchise.

Cloud made his Super Smash Bros. debut in Super Smash Bros. 4 as a downloadable character, and returns in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as an unlockable character.

Origin

At the beginning of Final Fantasy VII, Cloud appears as a proud, yet arrogant and aloof swordsman, claiming to be a former member of the elite paramilitary group SOLDIER. He starts the game as a freelance mercenary, hired by the insurgency group Avalanche to help them in their cause against the Shinra Electric Power Company. Over the course of the game, Cloud discovers that his past and memories are not what he believes them to be; alongside his newfound friends within Avalanche, he is swept into a greater journey in order to defend their home planet of Gaia. His true identity is gradually unveiled as someone who is brave, socially-awkward, yet ultimately heroic and passionate for his friends.

Prior to the events of the game, Cloud leaves his childhood friend Tifa Lockhart and their hometown Nibelheim for Midgar in order to join SOLDIER, admiring Sephiroth as a legendary hero. Though he fails to join SOLDIER, only becoming a mere infantryman, he befriends an actual 1st Class SOLDIER named Zack Fair. Following a series of traumatic events, including the razing of his hometown at Sephiroth's hands, being forcibly injected with Jenova cells by Shinra, and witnessing Zack's murder, Cloud's mental state is shattered. He takes up Zack's Buster Sword and attempts to be his successor, but his memories are warped, causing him to believe that he was an ex-SOLDIER and to forget that Zack ever existed, essentially replacing him in his mind. Cloud begins to carry himself with the attitude he thinks is becoming of a SOLDIER 1st Class: sarcastic, cynical, and motivated purely by cash and his own ambitions. His similarity to Zack attracts the attention of Aerith Gainsborough, and creates distance upon his reunion with Tifa years later, as she notices that Cloud is unlike himself.

The injection of Jenova cells leaves Cloud susceptible to being mind-controlled by Sephiroth, whose consciousness summons those with Jenova cells to the planet's core where his body lies. Before and during his first arrival at the Northern Cave, Cloud is further traumatized by Sephiroth's actions; he witnesses his slaughter of Aerith, surrenders the apocalyptic Black Materia to him in a mind-controlled state, and finally learns his memories and personality as a SOLDIER are fake. With the help of Tifa and his fellow party members, Cloud gradually recovers, and is able to come to terms with his past, embrace his true personality, and move on. After a long journey, he returns to the Northern Cave for a final showdown with Sephiroth, where they are able to save the world.

The film sequel, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, depicts Cloud having settled down in the city of Edge two years later, taking care of an orphan called Denzel with Tifa. Having gone his separate ways from most of the party, he is processing survivor's guilt and deep grief from Aerith and Zack's deaths, and is afflicted with a disease called Geostigma.

Learning that Geostigma is a plague born from Jenova's cells, he sets out to defeat the three newly-emerged Remnants of Sephiroth's consciousness - Kadaj, Yazoo, and Loz, who are kidnapping infected children in order to revive Jenova and Sephiroth oncemore. Cloud is eventually cured of his Geostigma with Lifestream-infused water from Aerith's church, and is able to heal the children, reunite with his party, and defeat the revived Sephiroth in one last duel, finally overcoming his grief.

As Final Fantasy VII became the best-selling and most recognized game in its series, Cloud is widely considered the most famous Final Fantasy character. Despite the unconnected nature of each main game, Cloud is often used to represent the franchise as a whole (much like Marth for Fire Emblem), and frequently shows up in crossovers both within and outside the series. In some of his more notable side appearances, Cloud has been playable in every Dissidia Final Fantasy title to date, and has served as a boss, side character, or an ally in multiple Kingdom Hearts titles. The Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy depicts an expanded, alternate-timeline retelling of the original game's storyline, with Cloud reprising his role as protagonist.

Although the original Final Fantasy VII lacked voice acting, since the first Kingdom Hearts, Cloud has consistently been voiced in Japanese by Takahiro Sakurai in all appearances. Sakurai reprises his role in Super Smash Bros., where his voice is used in all international versions. In English, Cloud was voiced by Steve Burton in most media between Kingdom Hearts and the post-Smash Final Fantasy VII Remake, where he was replaced by Cody Christian. Burton was not asked to reprise his role for Super Smash Bros. due to the game's non-union status and budget.

In Super Smash Bros. 4

As a playable character

Cloud, as he appears in Super Smash Bros. 4.

Cloud appears as a newcomer in Super Smash Bros. 4, and was formally announced during a Nintendo Direct on November 12, 2015. Released just over a month later on December 15th, he is the first fighter hailing from Square Enix, and the series's sixth third-party character overall. According to Super Smash Bros. series creator Masahiro Sakurai, Final Fantasy characters were heavily requested to appear in the Super Smash Bros. series, with Cloud receiving the most support out of all of them.

While discussing potential candidates from the Final Fantasy series to include in SSB4, Sakurai stated in an interview with Square Enix veteran Tetsuya Nomura that he could have included characters such as, Bartz Klauser from Final Fantasy V, or Terra Branford from Final Fantasy VI. However, Sakurai ultimately said it was difficult to imagine a Final Fantasy character to include that was not Cloud, primarily owing to his design and iconic status.

Unlike most playable characters, Cloud has two distinct models that comprise his costumes: his classic Final Fantasy VII design (albeit with his slightly modified attire from Dissidia Final Fantasy) is his default costume alongside the Buster Sword, while his "Cloudy Wolf" design from Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children is an alternate costume alongside the Fusion Sword.

Cloud's strengths include highly disjointed range thanks to his Buster Sword, surprisingly fast attacks relative to his range and power, and quick overall mobility. Despite being a heavyweight, these traits collectively give him a heavily offensive playstyle that is useful for combos and excellent at aerial combat, especially edgeguarding. Additionally, Cloud's unique Limit Break fighter ability slightly boosts his attributes and converts his special moves into powerful, single-use KOing options once it is full, further improving his offensive presence to the point that he can score KOs even at fairly low percentages.

However, Cloud has a few glaring weaknesses in spite of his tremendous strengths. The most notable of these is his inconsistent KO potential, which is due to his very small number of easy-to-land KOing options outside of his Limit Break special moves. Aside from this, Cloud's polarized aerial movement results in his recovery and off-stage endurance both being lackluster. Lastly, his grab game is one of the worst among the cast, and some of his moves have noticeable amounts of ending lag.

Overall, Cloud, like Mario, boasts numerous advantages that are supplemented by a relatively low learning curve, which have contributed to him achieving very noticeable tournament results and representation. As a result, Cloud is ranked 2nd/3rd out of 54 on the current tier list, tied with Diddy Kong; this places him in the S tier and posits him as a top tier character.

Trophies

Cloud's trophy in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS

Cloud's trophy in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U

Cloud

The protagonist of FINAL FANTASY VII, Cloud wields the enormous Buster Sword, a memento from his comrade Zack. Once a SOLDIER of Shinra, he now fights as a mercenary against the corporation he originally served. His decision to join AVALANCHE’s insurgence, however, will transform his destiny.

FINAL FANTASY VII (11/1997)

Cloud (Alt.)'s trophy in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS

Cloud (Alt.)'s trophy in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U

Cloud (Alt.)

Filling the Limit Gauge allows Cloud to perform a Limit Break, supercharging his next special move. His down special becomes Finishing Touch. With a huge swing of his sword, Cloud summons a whirlwind that inflicts only 1% damage, but boasts brutal launch power. Go for a KO while his foes' damage is still low!

FINAL FANTASY VII (11/1997)

In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

As a playable character

Cloud, as he appears in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Cloud returns as a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. He was formally announced alongside the rest of the cast via Ultimate's E3 2018 trailer on June 12th, 2018. Although his moveset is largely unchanged aesthetically, Cloud received noteworthy mechanical changes, particularly to his Limit Breaks. Unlike in Super Smash Bros. 4, the Limit Gauge is now constantly displayed next to his damage meter, and a full Limit Charge must be used within 15 seconds or else it will deplete entirely.

As of update 10.1.0, Cloud's "Cloudy Wolf" costumes use Omnislash Ver. 5 like in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, with Takahiro Sakurai returning for new lines. Compared to Omnislash, Omnislash Ver. 5 has the same total damage output and knockback, but consists of 11 initial hits instead of 14 (with each hit inflicting 0.6% more damage to compensate) and has different hitbox placements. This same update also made Tetsuya Nomura's artwork of Cloud from the PlayStation release of Final Fantasy VII into his default fighter spirit, although the player can still swap between it and his Ultimate render fighter spirit.

Spirits

• 

  1,004. Cloud
• 

  1,005. Cloud (Advent Children)

Gallery

• 

  Cloud's Poster for Smash 4.
• 

  Cloud in his Advent Children costume, as he appears in Super Smash Bros. 4.
• 

  Cloud in his Advent Children costume, as he appears in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Names in other languages

Language	Name
Japanese	クラウド, Cloud
English	Cloud
French	Cloud
German	Cloud
Spanish	Cloud
Italian	Cloud
Chinese	Cloud 克劳德, Cloud
Portuguese	Cloud
Korean	클라우드, Cloud
Dutch	Cloud
Russian	Клауд

Trivia

• Cloud, Young Link and Toon Link are the only swordsmen in the Super Smash Bros. series capable of wall jumping.
• Due to having access to his "Cloudy Wolf" attire from Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, Cloud is the only character with an alternate costume directly taken from a movie.
• Cloud is the first character to have his victory theme continuously play over the results theme. He would later be joined by Joker and Sephiroth in Ultimate.
• Prior to update 10.1.0 in Ultimate, Cloud was the only third-party character in the game who did not use pre-existing artwork for his fighter spirits. However, his Advent Children costume's fighter spirit continues to feature his Ultimate render only.
• Cloud, Sephiroth, and Hero each hail from one of the two companies that merged into Square Enix, as Cloud and Sephiroth were from Squaresoft and the Hero was from Enix.
• Cloud is the first fighter whose Final Smash was substantially altered in an update, and consequently the first fighter whose Final Smash varies in name and appearance depending on the alternate costume.
• Prior to update 10.0.0 of Ultimate, if the game's language was set to either variant of Chinese, Cloud's name was shown in English on the character selection screen and the Spirits mode, as with several other characters in the Chinese and Korean translations of the game. As of update 10.0.0, he has his name written properly in hanzi. This is presumably due to the release of Final Fantasy VII Remake, which is the first game in the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII series to receive an official Chinese translation.
  • However, the official site for Ultimate was never updated to reflect this in either variant of Chinese.

External links

• Article on the Final Fantasy Wiki