Tifa's Eternal Appeal Down to More than Just Appearance, Says Tetsuya Nomura

I can think of two big reasons why she's been everyone's favourite 🤩

She's a complete package. A beauty, hot, nice personality, and she's also badass. In the og and remake, i never get bored every time she's in my party. Her fighting style and special moves are just fun to watch, especially her Limit Breaks.

For me, she's FF ultimate waifu along with Yuna.

I don't think any of the women in FF remake/rebirth are actually written well. The writing leans too much into shipping and tropes and anime filler nonsense to actually give them real arcs or characters. But then it is expected given how poor Nomura and his team are at writing characters.

Look at Yuna one of SE's better written women characters. She actually has an arc, grows, learns. She isn't constantly dropped into unnecessary comedy or into being overly twee.

I mean, no doubt she's hot, but she's kind and loyal and can beat you to a pulp with her fists. She's also one of the most well-developed characters in the game. Basically the perfect girl. 😛

@Balie3000 that's Unbridled Strength and Whirlwind Uppercut, right?!

@ZeroSum Nailed it! 👌🏻

If we’re allowed to express our love for FF7 characters’ assets then let me just say that Vincent’s is big and veiny. And you don’t wanna know what it’s like when he turns into Chaos.

@breakneck "But then it is expected given how poor Nomura and his team are at writing characters"

Nomura wasn't FF VII writer nor he has any creative inputs about the writing. That credit was for Kazushige Nojima (og & remake), Yoshinori Kitase (og), and Motomu Toriyama (remake).

And Nomura only involvement with FF VII story was in the og game where he worked together with Hironobu Sakaguchi to create the basic / concept story. Outside that, it was all Nojima & Kitase works.

She's a great well written character and her voice actresses both English and Japanese do a fantastic job but let's not kid ourself the main reason she's so popular is because of her looks, if she looked like i dunno say Aloy or the lead from SW Outlaws she would be hated by that certain crowd.

She is written kind of restrained and less over the top of other characters - that makes her seem mature and even motherly at times. But yeah, she is a very good looking gal!

That's his opinion.

Mine personally is that if it wasn't for her silicone materia she would be no more popular than any other FF character. People do not remember Cindy for her mechanical skills or Lulu because of her personality.

I'm not saying that this is a good thing btw, I'm saying that is the society that we live in. I wonder how liked she would be by certain people if Square dared to give her face fuzz?

Tifa is the complete package.

There are lots of female characters with big breasts that didn’t make the cut, so anyone saying that is the reason has missed the point (or is distracted by the two points?).

This isn’t only about big breasts. Most men want an attractive waifu, of course, and Tifa is attractive, but they also want someone who is loyal, caring, and strong, but isn’t dominating or overpowering.

Most female characters written today are girl bosses in all the bad ways. They are angry, feisty, argumentative, dominating, belittling the male characters etc.

Most men don’t act like that and don’t like other men who act like that, let alone women acting like that.

Tifa isn’t those things, but is one of the most kick ass female characters there is.

Developers could learn a thing or two. Make female characters attractive, feminine, but also tough in a way that compliments not competes with the male characters, and you’ll be on to a winning formula.

Yeah she's great, but so is the whole cast of FFVII. Barrett, Aerith, Cloud... no later FF game would have a team that look this iconic. And they did a very good job of updating them for the remakes as well.

@LifeGirl if you state your own opinion, the use of "people" may be a treacherous path. I, for one, do very much remember Cindy for her skills and Lulu for her personality, and Tifa is among my FF faves with many other ladies like Rydia, Terra, Freya and Vanille none of whose respective physiques are remotely as memetic among the fandom's more hormonally volatile representatives.

@Skeletor85 yet another word that ridiculed the mentality it was associated with and then got adopted by the very mentality in the umpteenth demonstration of deficient sense of irony and self-awareness.

@Perturbator FFXIII says hi. One of the most memorable and most fire-forged casts in the series, and that's coming from someone who has binged the borderline entirety of it by now. Heck, it's a rare entry to have updated my own roster of Final Fantasy top faves with a male character (namely Sazh).

Tifa is easily one of the best written characters in the franchise and has one of the most iconic scenes too (Life stream scene).

@LifeGirl I would agure that Lulu has a pretty good arc through out the story.

@Oram77 I would say this extends into what I remember of x-2 as well

I said this before in this site but I say this again

Who was the one who came back to Cloud after he fought Rufus in the Shinra Headquarters to save his life?

Who is the one who tried and succeeded to cure Cloud from his confusion and depression?

Who was the only one who stayed with Cloud in the Highwind and spent the night with him?

Tifa is that girlfriend that you can always trust.

Aerith is that girl who is nice to you but has a crush on someone else

Tifa is certainly more likable in the Remakes. Back in 1997, Aerith was Cloud’s girl for me, never leaving the party. Well, … ;(

@8bit4Life "Never leaving the party"
I have doubts unless you never finished FF7

@Skeletor85 I don't see anything cringe with the word.

@LifeGirl I'm sure many people remember Tifa outside her sexy design because she's the first playable female character in FF series who used martial arts as her fighting style. Usually always male character who got fighter / monk role. But Tifa broke that tradition.

I'm pretty sure a lot of people remember Lulu because of her 'cold & firm' personality and her role as Yuna 'big sister' who always reminds her about her duty. But Lulu design also unique where she wears a lot of belts and she used a Moogle doll as her weapon.

Cindy on the other hand, i'm not surprise why not many people remember her especially her "mechanic skills" since her role in the game is very small and has very limited appearance. And her design is nothing unique or interesting outside she's a sexy mechanic.

Congrats to my number one favorite video game girl!! ❤️

@Skeletor85 yet your profile pic is of a guy licking his own nipple…

We could put it to a Push Square poll to settle it. We had a ‘Best Final Fantasy Protagonist’ poll and Cloud won that easily back in 2023 but Clive had a good showing for second place. I suspect if we did a ‘Best Supporting Character’ that Tifa could take the crown.

In fact, I would venture to say she would probably do well in an ‘Ultimate PlayStation Character Tournament’ like we did back in 2018 (the old Push Square regulars will all remember). Looking back, Tifa was not included in that original field of 128 characters in the tournament, even though there were characters like Knack, Delsin Rowe, Faith, Sub-Zero, and Johnny Gat.

I know that tournament was back in the good ol’ days when internet discourse was much less toxic, but another tournament like that might be fun. We should get it done before Master Chief and Marcus Fenix are officially considered “PlayStation Characters” because that will really stir things up 😅.

@Skeletor85 it was literally my first time using the word waifu and I got called out. 😅

What’s wrong with the word anyway? It seems to accurately portray what Tifa is viewed as?

I appreciate that she and aerith are not squeaky anime waifus.

@Kienda glad to see someone hit the nail on the head. And yeah developers really should take note on all the aspects outside of just how the character looks

It's her appearance and her ti...s

Up until the remake, Tifa was never in my squad but after trying her skill set out, she definitely is now.

She does as the kids say has strong "waifu' vibes

@Skeletor85 That's not a bad thing.

As someone who's never played a Final Fantasy game in their life, I can confirm beyond a shadow of a doubt it's Tifa's looks and ONLY her looks that make her the 'most appealing' girl in gaming.

Best girl. Most fun, kick ass fighting style, barely ever lays the heavy stuff on Cloud, has perfect sense in women's clothes for men. It's been years since I played 7 but see why this is the vote. Me, I'll always pine for Nei, poor Nei, proto Aerith, I mourn thee still

@DennisReynolds this is exactly my stance. Yeah she’s a kind hearted and strong character that snaps Cloud of some sulking moments. But to act like it’s not her looks, cutesy expressions and jiggly movements is just an insult to the creator. He designed a character people find attractive AND likeable after thirty years! Be proud of that! It’s nothing to be ashamed of.

@RagnarLothbrok a lot of people these days seem to really be afraid of saying a woman is attractive, beautiful etc. They use all these other words because they don’t want to be offensive, but come on, what woman is offended at being called beautiful? If you’re leering and being creepy while saying it, sure, she’ll be bothered. But sheesh, I’ve never been told by a woman “I’m not beautiful I’m strong!” or “Don’t call me pretty or hot”.

Also, Tifa is pixels on a screen. It’s fine to say she’s attractive but if you’re comparing her to real people a therapist visit is in order.

@Coffeeglitch I saw a girl that looked like tifa. They exist but she doesn’t I suppose failed to tell her anyway; bit nerdy so I said nothing instead

@PuppetMaster also helps that her moveset it pretty much mandatory to clear some of the hardest VR challenges too. She's such a great character.

@SystemAddict would be a strange opener to have on her mind if it went anywhere, eh? “Were you thinking of me or that anime character?”