All FF7 Rebirth romances ranked from sour to sweet

The Red XIII date confuses me. I thought maybe I failed the first time and got the “standard’ scene in Chapter 12, but after tinkering with the handy extra settings option and replaying it later, nope. It’s just that way. Cloud and Red share a moment you could describe as sort of intimate, but in the end, it’s just about Cloud protecting Aerith. There’s no emotional give-and-take. We learn hardly anything new about Red. Cloud gets nothing from the exchange. There is a cute little handshake, but that’s about it.

The scene feels, if not phoned in, then a little pointless. Then again, I imagine Square Enix’s writers probably had to avoid making it too intimate and turning Rebirth into a furry simulator. On the bright side, we get to see Red XIII so happy that he almost wags his tail, which is adorable.

I know the Vincent et al date is supposed to be the Gold Saucer’s fail state, but it’s brilliant anyway. You bungled literally every other friendship and romance option along the way and end up on a Ferris wheel with a vampire, a robot cat, and a frustrated pilot. The vampire says nothing. The cat won’t stop talking. Cid probably hates you all. It’s a disaster, an evening from hell, and I love it.

It’s just not much of an actual date is all.

Barret’s date scene is touching and emotional, a fitting complement to Rebirth’s heavier emphasis on his paternal side. He tells Cloud a story from his younger days, where he had no one to guide him and learned about love only when he almost lost the chance to have it. Cloud doesn’t give much in return, but that’s understandable and maybe even a good thing. 

There’s not much Cloud, a shattered husk of a young man, can offer Barret, burdened by life experience as the Avalanche leader is. He can learn to live and put Barret’s fatherly advice into action, though, something that would help Barret as much as it would Cloud.

Yuffie’s date worried me before I saw it. After the Junon sea monster incident and silly awkwardness where Cloud hesitated to give Yuffie CPR, I expected something cringe and outdated at best, so I was surprised to find it was one of the sweeter and more touching scenes. Here we have two awkward, emotionally stunted people – Cloud, who hides behind stoicism, and Yuffie, who uses bubbly optimism as a shield – thrown together and forced into conversation for 10 minutes.

Yuffie opens up to Cloud about her feelings for Zack and covers her embarrassment with a mock fistfight that Cloud – in one of his softer, more self-aware moments – plays along with to help her feel better. At the end, he even offers some tender advice to help the kid out. There’s a beating heart under that blank, Mako-tainted stare after all.

Aerith’s date scene digs into some of the weirdness underlying her relationship with Cloud and feels partly like a plot beat setting up what will inevitably happen in the trilogy’s third part. It’s an “if you know you know” scenario that I won’t spoil here, but underneath the foreshadowing, the impending threat of a forgotten future, and the bizarre resemblances between Cloud and Zack, is something simpler: Two people trying to get to know each other.

Despite spending so much time together in Remake and then Rebirth, Cloud and Aerith barely have time to relate to one another outside of quests and survival. Cloud is a vaguely Zack-shaped tool of, or against, destiny in Aerith’s eyes, and Cloud sees Aerith as someone to protect. The date gives them a chance to set these preconceptions aside and see each other as people for the first time.

The Tifa date could win out by virtue of being the only actual date, the sole intimate scene where there’s more than a passing whiff of romance, but it’s in the top slot for more than that. The scene is superbly written and staged and even the “normal” date feels like a natural continuation of the tension that soured most of Cloud and Tifa’s interactions up to that point. 

Here, at last, is a chance for the pair to set the past’s bizarre mysteries aside and let their feelings guide them, and more importantly, an opportunity for Cloud to take control of his personality and emotions for once.

It’s a beautiful moment that ranks up there with some of the series’ best.