28 years after Final Fantasy 7 introduced a generation to the concept of waifus, Tetsuya Nomura says Tifa's popularity is "not just about appearance"

Over a year after the launch of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, Tifa Lockhart has been awarded the title of "best character" at the fan-voted Famitsu Dengeki Game Awards for 2024. While Tifa has become one of the go-to video game crushes for multiple generations of players, Tetsuya Nomura – who served as character designer on the original Final Fantasy 7 and now directs the remake series – says her appeal is about far more than her looks.

"Thank you for voting for Tifa," Nomura says in a statement for the award show (translated by Genki on Twitter). "It has already been about 30 years since I designed the original Tifa. Her getting such support, even now, after 30 years, is a great honor as a designer. However, a character is not just about appearance, personality is also important. I believe Tifa’s good qualities are the combination of her character, expressions, voice, movements, combat abilities, and all of her other charms. The entire team worked together to create her charm, and we are truly grateful for the recognition that it has received."

If you've been on the internet for more than three seconds, you've probably seen an array of Tifa fanart running the gamut from "admirably chaste" to "beyond pornographic," and there's historically been a bit of debate in the Final Fantasy fandom over whether Tifa's appeal is in her looks or her character. Of course, some of that debate is the product of deeply silly fandom wars between Aerith stans and Tifa fanatics, so maybe it's best to just ignore all that and enjoy your favorite characters on your own terms.

As Nomura points out, people latch onto a character for a variety of reasons. Yeah, sex appeal is one of them, and Square Enix is more than aware of that – even OG FF7 background designer Kenzo Kanzaki once joked that his favorite character "would be Tifa, because of her ample bust." But that kind of appeal only gets you so far, and there's probably a bigger reason Tifa's popularity has outlasted that of, say, FF15's Cindy or FF13's sexy chocobo.

Square Enix points to Tifa and this $2,600 Nier Automata 2B statue for driving its "strong" merch sales - and I need to know how many of you bought it.