Tifa Lockhart is a playable character from Squaresoft's blockbuster RPG, Final Fantasy VII. She is skilled in martial arts and uses gloves as her weapons. Tifa is quite often seen as a sex symbol due to her provocative clothing and bust size. She is voiced by Ayumi Ito in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.

Biography

Final Fantasy VII

Tifa Lockhart was born in Nibelheim, and grew up with Cloud Strife. Although they were not friends as children, as a teenager she developed a crush on him, about the time he left for Midgar as a teenager to train for Shin-Ra's elite military corps SOLDIER. While in Nibelheim, Tifa learned martial arts from a master, Zangan.

Later, Tifa acted as a Nibelheim tour guide for a group of SOLDIER personnel inspecting the Mako Reactor in the Nibelheim Mountains. The group consisted of the 1st class SOLDIERs Sephiroth and Zack, as well as two MPs, one of which, unbeknownst to Tifa, was Cloud. After the inspection, the group returned to town, and Sephiroth stayed in the basement of the Shin-Ra mansion to read through the research notes left by Hojo. What he discovered changed him, and without warning, he set fire to Nibelheim and slaughtered the townspeople. With her hometown in ruins and most of her loved ones dead, Tifa followed Sephiroth as he returned to the reactor, only to find that her father had been murdered as well. In blind rage she attempted to kill Sephiroth, but he was ready for it and turned the sword on her. After Cloud and Zack fought Sephiroth, Zangan found and returned the grievously injured Tifa to safety.

Due to the serious nature of her injuries, Zangan brought an unconscious Tifa to the city of Midgar to have her healed. Zangan left her in the care of a doctor, before returning to his travels. When Tifa recovered, she set up a bar named "7th Heaven" in Midgar's Sector Seven. There she met Barret Wallace, the leader of the resistance group AVALANCHE. Tifa joined, as she wanted revenge on Shinra for the events that had occurred in Nibelheim. Later, when Cloud came to Midgar, Tifa convinced him to join as well.

On the Way to a Smile: Case of Tifa

A story from Tifa's point of view, set after Sephiroth was defeated, and before Advent Children. Tifa, Cloud and Barret move to a town just outside of Midgar, called Edge, and set up a new Seventh Heaven as they attempt to build a "family". After Barret leaves to settle his past, Cloud and Tifa tend to the orphan Denzel and Barret's daughter, Marlene. Tifa also sets Seventh Heaven as an orphanage, caring for the other children orphaned by Geostigma.

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children

When Tifa and Marlene go to the Church in the slums, they discover that Cloud had Geostigma, and that that was where he had been staying. Loz enters the church, and Tifa fights him to protect Marlene, but is eventually knocked unconscious. When she wakes at home she convinces Cloud to try to save Marlene, Denzel, and the other Geostigma-infected children captured by Kadaj, Yazoo and Loz. Tifa's role in Advent Children is primarily that of Cloud's friend and caretaker of Marlene and Denzel.

Other appearances

Tifa is a playable character in the fighting game Ehrgeiz and the electronic board game Itadaki Street Special, and appears in the OVA Last Order: Final Fantasy VII. Last Order shows the events at Nibelheim that 15-year-old Tifa was part of, based on flashbacks in Final Fantasy VII.

Trivia

• Tifa was not originally present in the early drafts of Final Fantasy VII's story. She was created, not to replace Aerith as the main female character, but because Tetsuya Nomura felt that another female character should be added, since Yuffie being in the game is optional.
• Tifa's last name is Lockhart in Squaresoft's material. Her last name became Lockheart in the English Final Fantasy VII translation by Sony Computer Entertainment, and this version also appears in some other second-party material.
• Tifa appears on a poster hanging in a room in the PlayStation RPG Xenogears.

External links

• Character profile at the official Square Enix Final Fantasy VII site
• Final Heaven, fanlisting with links to several fan sites