About the playable Final Fantasy VII team, there are a few reasons that I shall mention as to why it does not feel right to vote for any one character, in particular. Firstly, the game design of FFVII promotes interchangeability of characters in your party, so none of them are definitely better than others, strategically, if the player continually works on leveling up the team. Also, weapon, armor, and materia customization facilitate the framework for balanced builds. Secondly, other than Aerith, Cait Sith, and Tifa, the characters all grow, similarly, with each character going through a process of a traumatic experience following with a sense of encumbrance with their perceived woes of the world as the additional weight to their natural posturing and show their desperation to recover from their experiences through their neuroticism. Additionally, Aerith is an archetypal character, derived from the Cetra race, that all of the others characters strive to emulate after her physical death due to Sephiroth. Plus, Tifa acts the same as she does from the earliest age we see her in the game, but even she goes through a traumatic experience, though she handles it more gracefully than the others. Contrarily, Cait Sith sees the value in siding with Cloud's team without going through any sort of traumatic experience.
Thirdly, they all go through a process of realization that they need to save their planet and succeed in doing so with no one character intellectually growing more than any of the others. Cloud's victory in the final battle against Sephiroth, alone, gives him a sense of closure, but it also does the same for the others. At least, I would hope so in order to keep the quality of the story greater than the others not experiencing fulfillment due to not getting the last kill (I am thinking about the Gears of War multiplayer concept as I write this).
The strength of characters is their character. Outfits and battle potential are both weak ways to support the characters because they can both be compared with others or defeated by nefarious means.
I suppose that if I had to pick one character, it would be Cait Sith. That character is similar to many users on the internet, acting in anonymity. However, he is outstanding because despite not being an in-person participant, he decides to change his ways from that of a Shinra spy, originally seeking only to benefit his organization which comes at the cost of his planet, to help other people. It sends a good message about what people are capable of in anonymity.
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