Hoo boy, so here I am. Let’s talk about Final Fantasy 7. As some of you may already know, FF7 is an RPG by Square, released in the year 1997. It was the first Final Fantasy game that used 3D graphics, and at the time the game looked quite spiffy. Nonetheless, over the years the game had aged in the graphics department, which did give yours truly some thought on the value of graphics, but that one’s another story.
(Admittedly, Cloud Strife's spiky head would not feel so spiky at the time if not for the clunky-ness in graphics.)
Opinion has been divided on the value of the game. It’s not the greatest of all time, and it’s neither the best game of the year, or even the best game of the year for the Playstation 1. It was still a decent game though, and only at my worst moods I’d say that it was not bad. HOWEVER! However… I’m not here to talk about that.
See, if you were expecting a review, fans of FAN, I’d direct you to some random gaming site, or Wiki. Or TVTropes even, as I know they’d do a much better job dissecting the game, with relatively balanced discussions on the story and gameplay aspects of things. A good game reviewer should also take the time to actually replay the game and make notes. However, ratings and real reviews are not for me. What I’ll do here is do my best with what I have right now: a trusty laptop! a decent internet connection! and enough chocolate milk to severely damage a lactose intolerant man. So without further ado, let’s do this!
So here we are, and it’s Final Fantasy VII. Let’s talk about the girls. Now, one of the things that came to my mind a while ago is that the playable cast of the game is mostly above 20 years of age. Only two characters are not, and one of them is Red, so he doesn’t count. One trip to memory lane later, I find myself thinking about the girls.
So we have three female characters that you can control in battle. So here’s what I’ll do: one is to briefly talk about them, and against my better judgement I’ll rate them with the help of random, ambiguous, and totally useless set of factors, okay? Let’s do this!
First up, we have Tifa Lockhart. The main dude’s childhood friend. Fights with her fists in battle, and she’s hot. Erm, I mean, anyway… she’s one of the characters you get to used ’round the start of the story. Stats wise, she’d fit the fighter, not warrior, type well. Hits hard, fairly fast, but weak defense-wise. If you want power in your party, she’d be a good choice alongside Barret or Cid. Being a character that uses martial arts/her fist to fight, she’d make a good choice for fight scenes (something that Advent Children did with nice results).
The sexy one. She wears the kind of clothes, and has the kind of body that would work very well with Dead or Alive’s game engine. Imagine that. Yeah? Yeah. While I’d mention the graphics again, that does not stop the fan-art from giving a bit of va va and voom. Incidentally, while her FF7 clothes are a bit in-between the lines of inappropriate and impractical, I’d give points on its simplicity. The urban scenery of Midgar would look out of place if you gave her something too elaborate, you know? In fact, most of the clothes in FF7 are fairly simple, a bit different from the more colorful and varied stuff in FF6, but it works well with the world around them.
Personality-wise… well, I don’t really remember much of her, to be honest. She feels more quiet than Aeris, and for most part Tifa fits the role of a supporting character than a love interest for Cloud, for most of the game. There are moments when she gets to be more direct, like when she became the main controllable character while Cloud was on hiatus. At the very end, she’s a good support; in battle, for Cloud, and for the party in general.
92-60-88 cm. Yes, I searched for her three sizes, and yes again: they exist.
Ratings! Well, in a scale of softdrinks, I’d rate her as a 7UP on a relatively warm day. Among RPG characters, there’s many that stand out more than Tifa. Still, she earns points thanks to her ass-kicking fighting powers. It’s always nice to have a character who can fight with their fists, and it’s a nice bonus to throw in a bit of fanservice here and there. FF7 showed some decent action for her in battle, while AC and Dissidia (and probably Ergheiz. Remember Ergheiz? I liked the ninja and the pro-wrestler) gave Tifa a chance to show it more fluidly.
As for the fanservice… On one popular image board, she’s got around almost 4000 images. Quite a lot! Pretty much the Final Fantasy female with the most amount of fanart, ranging from safe to something that you can’t show your mother, ever ever ever. In fact, I remember quite clearly back when the internet did not have a lot of easily accessible image boards, that Tifa was one of the VG characters that had a lot of… um, fanservice. While Tifa’s time is long past, she still has a small place in history for the fanservice.
Next up, we have Aeris Gainsborough, or Aerith. The healer of the party, the flower girl, and the one that was important to most of the plot of the game despite a well-known circumstance. She fights with a staff, but with how low her attack power is, it’s more accurate to say that she’s best suited as the magic-caster of the party. Her limit breaks involve healing you, and since I was pretty much a newbie to RPGs I assigned her to only that task while I unbalanced Cloud with all the cool magic while Barret attacked things. It was a group that was easily killed.
She’s the one that died. I’m thinking if this remains such big news. Not surprising news, mind you, as the surprise was way out of the bag long ago. I’ve heard of people crying about it, too. That might be possible, but I was mostly irked that I was inconvenienced without a constant healer. It was sad, yeah, but my suspension of disbelief was not quite there yet. The phoenix down is mentioned here and there, but her death would have been more realistic if you’d put it in the universe of Final Fantasy Tactics.
While she’s the healer, her personality is much more direct and active than Tifa. Upbeat, but not too overconfident. An older sister character, compared to Tifa’s childhood friend. I think that she would have a better job in getting Cloud out of his shell. If it worked out in the end, she could have been the Rinoa to Cloud’s Squall, or maybe Zidane to his Garnet. Something close to that, at least. On the other hand, it was mentioned in the game (and more or less shown in Crisis Core that she had someone else). Alas, poor Cloud. Alas you and your spiky-headed hair…
I give her the rating of delicious ice cream! She’s girly, but I feel that she’s more strong-willed than Tifa. The fourth character you meet in the game, she shows a more colorful side to the game after meeting Mr. T and the down-to-earth Tifa. Think about it. There were the flowers, her clothes which looked lighter compared to Cloud and company’s clothes, and the brightness in her personality. She would have made a decent action girl type, but she works best as a spellcaster in battle.
I could post some heavier fanservice, but methinks it's a bit too early for the fire and the pitchforks to chase me away...
Now on the fanservice side of things, the same image board has around 1200 images. Not a lot compared to Tifa, but still substantial. She doesn’t have the sex appeal of Tifa, but from looking at her stuff, there’s a bit of maturity in there that has a kind of appealing charm. That does seem to fit, as Aeris is a year older than Tifa or Cloud… I think.
Anyway, I was thinking if Aeris won’t be as memorable if a lunatic did not kill her dead. It’s hard to say… If she were to survive, I imagine her taking charge more during Cloud’s crippled moments. That would count as something, right?
That's the face of a douche, man.
Lastly, we have Yuffie Kisaragi. Might be a ninja, actually kinda annoying. The one who kept stealing your gil if you didn’t have a strategy guide like me, and the one who would eventually steal all your materia for a while. That was very annoying. Uhm, well, to be honest I never really got to use her that much. I also thought she was a boy sometimes early on.
The token ninja character, but Shadow was way better (and he had a dog)! No seriously, I never really got to use her that much. Since she was one of the optional characters (one of which was Vincent, who I did use) there wasn’t a lot of important moments about her, save for one or two side-quests. She’s quite energetic though, more so than Aeris. A bit too high on the energy though, and being one of the youngest characters in the game she’s not quite mature…
Well, as a ninja, I guess her MO is more about being a trickster than being cool. I remember her being annoying when she stole the party’s materia, and that’s about it. Sorry, if I played the game again… well, maybe I’d use her in the party, but she sucks in battle for me.
She’s got a little more than a thousand pictures on the image board I go to. Not a bad number, when all’s said and done. One could find her energy and slight childishness endearing, I admit. That’s a good word. Her clothes is quite skimpy, like Tifa, and her ninja-ness gives a feeling of excitement. That’s my guess. A tomboy. Rating is tomboy.
In the end, that’s your three female playable characters in good old Final Fantasy 7. It’s up to you to decide if the game is great or not, but here I am talking to you about females. Odd, innit? Perhaps you find this lacking in photos, but don’t worry about that. It is my job to show you the way, and so I’ll be giving you what you want and need. I can’t be calling this the fanservice pack without a bit of fanservice, no sir. So… so without further ado, here’s my pick of the day, in the world of Final Fantasy 7…
…oh yeah! It’s girl Cloud, or cross-dressing Cloud. If you worked hard enough, Don Corneo will pick Cloud instead of Aeris and Tifa. My bet is that he’d pick him over Yuffie as well.
Well, good night everybody! Here’s to another weird day.