Final Fantasy 7 writer Kazushige Nojima says he "regretted" how Aerith and Tifa's relationship was handled in the original JRPG, and therefore saw Remake and now Rebirth as opportunities to make good on the friendship he envisioned all those years ago.
In a Square Enix blog post collecting developer sentiments on the heels of Rebirth's release (our Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth review has all the details), Nojma shares an anecdote from the original game's development.
"Around the time that we finished making the original Final Fantasy 7, a senior programmer turned to me and said, 'It sure seems like Aerith and Tifa don’t like each other, don’t you think?'
"I was shocked to hear this, as they had obviously been on an amazing journey together and formed a close friendship because of it. But once I asked myself if I had really conveyed that part of their relationship, I found that I wasn't too confident. Not only were there not enough specific scenes to convey this, but there also wasn’t enough dialogue that hinted at their friendship. I regretted this for a long time."
When the Remake project kicked off, Nojima says he set a goal "to properly portray Aerith and Tifa’s friendship." This ultimately bled into the relationships between other characters, with "connectedness" becoming a unifying theme for his approach and the story as a whole. "It’s because of this connectedness that the characters and the planet on which they live were born," Nojima says.
"Thank you to that programmer from all those years ago," he concludes. I suppose we can also thank this programmer for, in part, indirectly inspiring the endearing relationships that truly blossom in Rebirth, with Tifa and Aerith quickly becoming fan favorites all over again.
Nojima's had an interesting history with Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Rebirth. Last November, he asked fans to stop sending him messages demanding he kill off or cut out their least-favorite characters. A month later, as Nojima shared his frustrations with the targeted harassment he'd inexplicably received, fans organized a wholesome thank-you movement to highlight their love of all things FF7.
Just a few weeks ago, Rebirth co-director Naoki Hamaguchi said he's begun been working with Nojima and other lead devs on the framework for Part 3. In fact, as recently as this month, Hamaguchi said "key elements" of Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part 3 are already coming together thanks to all the world-building in Rebirth.
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth hides a 27-year-old reference to the original JRPG that's so niche even today's devs don't fully understand it.
