Cosplay Girl Wearing Tifa Lockheart Costume

Designed by Tetsuya Nomura, Tifa was not present in early versions of Final Fantasy VII, and instead only three characters were intended to be playable: protagonist Cloud Strife, heroine Aerith Gainsborough, and Barret Wallace. However during a phone call to project director Yoshinori Kitase, the idea was suggested at some point within the game to permanently kill one of the characters, and after heavy discussion it was decided to have Aerith die. Nomura later joked that this was his idea to introduce Tifa into the game. Regardless, the notion of having two concurrent heroines and the protagonist torn between them was something Kitase liked, describing it as something new not present in past Final Fantasy games.