Summary
- Final Fantasy games can be divisive due to fan base size, with each game having admirers and critics.
- Tifa Lockhart is popular across various FF games due to her strength, design, and combat abilities.
- Tifa appears in multiple FF spin-offs, offering unique gameplay styles from arena battles to rhythm games.
Every Final Fantasy game is simultaneously the best and worst in the series, as the fanbase is so big and can be so divisive that each game has earned a fair number of admirers and haters. For example, Final Fantasy 7 is perhaps the most successful entry in the series, but players weaned on SNES classics like FF4, or those who came in via FF10 or FF15, might not have seen what the hype was about.
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Yet many more enjoyed its Materia-fiddling gameplay, its head-twisting story, and its endearing characters. Particularly Tifa Lockhart, the bar owner-turned-brawler who responds to random encounters with her fists. She’s become so popular that she’s turned up in all sorts of FF games, including ones that put her back in the player's hands.
11 Final Fantasy 7
Where It All Began
Final Fantasy 7
- Released
- January 31, 1997
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Square Enix
- Franchise
- Final Fantasy
- Genre(s)
- RPG
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation (Original), PC, iOS, Android, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, PS4
- OpenCritic Rating
- Strong
Starting with her debut, Final Fantasy 7 made her the equivalent of the old Monk class, as she’s all about fisticuffs. Players can give her claws and different gloves to bolster her strikes, but she’s overall about giving her party’s different threats blunt force trauma. In terms of physical strength, she’s the strongest woman in the game, and the 3rd strongest character overall, just behind Cloud and Barret.
Though it’s made some players over the years think she’s more pugnacious in personality as well. While she's definitely no wilting flower, she still has her share of character flaws to face up to. She’s more emotionally dependent on Cloud, to the point where she lets him believe what he liked despite knowing better herself. By contrast, Aerith is blunter and has more of an attitude than her staff-waving would suggest.
10 Dissidia Final Fantasy Series
Serving Knuckle Sandwiches to the Rest of Final Fantasy's Cast
Dissidia Final Fantasy
- Released
- August 25, 2009
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Square Enix
- Franchise
- Final Fantasy
- Genre(s)
- Fighting
- Platform(s)
- PSP
Still, Tifa’s sheer strength and pretty design made her popular, effectively turning her into the Chun Li of FF. So, when Square-Enix made Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy, the second of their Dissidia brawling-based spin-offs, it was perhaps no surprise that Tifa would become the next FF7 representative in the game.
This time, she’s all about feinting her strikes to bait her opponents into leaving themselves open. She can cancel out her attacks at different times to keep them guessing. Though, like FF7, her players need luck on their side too, as her EX Burst Attack is her Final Heaven Limit Break. This time, if her slot machine-style reels hit right, she’ll blitz her opponents to bits. If not, the results will be less favorable.
9 Theatrhythm Final Fantasy Series
A Different Kind of Active Time Battle
Theatrhythm Final Fantasy
- Released
- July 3, 2012
- ESRB
- e
- Developer(s)
- indieszero
- Franchise
- Final Fantasy
- Genre(s)
- Rhythm
- Platform(s)
- Nintendo 3DS
Dissidia was essentially an arena fighter, though it still requires getting to grips with RPG mechanics to get ahead. So, fans likely figured the Theatrhythm Final Fantasy games weren’t just going to be Elite Beat Agents with Cecil, Tidus, and Celes pottering about. It was more like a classic RPG battle where players had to hit the beats to get ahead, complete with stats to raise after each event.
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Tifa made it into every game of the series, but she was originally a DLC character for the (now delisted) iOS port of the original game. The sequels, Curtain Call and All-Star Carnival, made up for that by giving players two Tifa variants: her OG look and her Advent Children design. She can even do her Final Heaven attack again too, provided players can keep up with the music.
8 Pictlogica Final Fantasy
Solve Puzzles to Help Tifa Clear Out the Dungeons
- Developer: Jupiter.
- Platforms: iOS, Android, Nintendo 3DS.
- Release: October 2013 (iOS/Android), July 2017 (3DS).
- Closure: November 2018.
Players today can still see what Tifa can offer in Dissidia and Theatrhythm, even if it means breaking out old hardware like a PSP or 3DS. For Pictlogica Final Fantasy, they’d need to import a Japanese 3DS, or an old Japanese iOS/Android smartphone, as the game was exclusive to the Land of the Rising Sun until it was delisted from their respective app stores back in 2019.
It was a straight-up combo of RPG elements with dot logic puzzles, as players moved their parties (4 members and a backup buddy) against hordes of monsters. They then had to solve different puzzles based on lining and arranging dots the right way. The faster they did it, the quicker their Limit gauge would charge to pull off big attacks.
7 Final Fantasy: All the Bravest
Not Tifa's Brightest Playable Appearance
Final Fantasy: All The Bravest
- Released
- January 17, 2013
- ESRB
- E10+ for Fantasy Violence
- Developer(s)
- BitGroove
- Franchise
- Final Fantasy
- Genre(s)
- RPG
‘Playable’ is a relative term when it comes to Final Fantasy: All the Bravest. If players were blessed by the gacha gods, they’d get a 16-bit sprite of Tifa to add to their party, where she could Beat Rush or Somersault her foes into submission. Otherwise, they’d likely end up with any of the other classic FF characters. Some of which they likely already had to begin with too.
Though Pictlogia would test the brain, FF: AtB felt more brainless, as players basically threw whoever they had on their side against their enemy parties. No strategy and no summon selections. Just chucking whichever characters they had against the wall. If they died, players would have to wait an hour for them to heal or pay real cash for an instant heal hourglass. Needless to say, it wasn't received well.
6 Final Fantasy Record Keeper
The Brawling Bartender's Slightly Better Gacha Appearance
- Developer: DeNA.
- Platforms: iOS, Android.
- Release: September 2014.
- Closure: September 2022.
FF: AtB was considered an embarrassing fiasco for its shameless money-grubbing, yet it lasted for a whole decade in the app stores, only getting delisted back in 2023. By contrast, the more considered Final Fantasy Record Keeper managed 7 years, letting players use FF: AtB’s neat sprites in an actual RPG, with dungeon crawling and Active Time Battles and everything.
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Players didn’t need to pay and pray to get Tifa either. Well, eventually. At first, players could only get her if they took part in special events or used a special item in the Hall of Records. But eventually, players could get her and Cloud by beating the Mako Reactor N.o.5 dungeon. She’s similar to her FF7 incarnation, only she has more HP to make up for her lacking defense stats.
5 Final Fantasy Explorers
Where Tifa is Always Playable Some of the Time
Final Fantasy Explorers
- Released
- January 26, 2016
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Square Enix Racjin
- Franchise
- Final Fantasy
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG
- Platform(s)
- Nintendo 3DS
- OpenCritic Rating
- Fair
Tifa is technically playable in Final Fantasy Explorers, which is surely the best kind of playable character around. It was an original multiplayer RPG for the 3DS that saw players explore an island Monster Hunter style, but with a job system to diversify each party member’s gameplay, and a variant on the Trance system from Final Fantasy 9.
In that game, players gained a powered-up form where they did 1.5x their regular damage. In FFE, the original characters turn into classic FF summons and characters, depending on whether they have the right magicite. If they used Trance 50 times, they’d turn into Tifa on their next go, and use ‘Final Heavan’ (sic) to give foes a single, hard, light-infused punch.
4 Final Fantasy Brave Exvius series
Trust in One's Vision to Save the World
Final Fantasy Brave Exvius
- Released
- June 30, 2016
- ESRB
- m
- Franchise
- Final Fantasy
- Genre(s)
- RPG
If fans didn’t want their main lady to be reduced to a glorified summon, Final Fantasy Brave Exvius made her a properly playable character. Sometimes. The game was basically a crossover between the classic RPG series and A-Lim’s Brave Frontier series, complete with its Chain system where players could combine their commands into one long barrage.
Tifa turns up in both the original game and War of the Visions, its sequel, as an optional playable character and a Vision, a physical manifestation of thoughts and feelings. She comes in her OG, Advent Children and AVALANCHE guises, each offering different stats and rewards if players gain enough of her trust.
3 Mobius Final Fantasy
Tifa Goes From Gambling Slots to Slinging Cards
- Developer: Square Enix Business Division 1.
- Platforms: iOS, Android, PC.
- Release: June 2015.
- Closure: June 2020.
The FF games aren’t any strangers to dealing in cards, as people who got way into FF8’s Triple Triad may remember. So, Square Enix decided to go back to card games with Mobius Final Fantasy, where players tried to save the world of Palamecia from the armies of Chaos by putting together the right deck for the job.
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It largely follows a cast of original characters, but December 2018 saw Tifa Lockheart get added to the game as its Ultimate Monk Hero. She offered a wide range of hard-hitting attacks, complete with perks that boosted EXP gain and attack power. Not that everyone got to try her out, as the game was delisted in Belgium and Korea in November 2018, 2 years before it ended for the rest of the world.
2 Final Fantasy 7 Remake
It Finally Happened and Still Caused a Furor
Final Fantasy 7 Remake
- Released
- April 10, 2020
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Square Enix Business Division 1
- Franchise
- Final Fantasy
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG
- Platform(s)
- PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5
- OpenCritic Rating
- Mighty
2015 was the year pigs flew, as that’s when Square-Enix announced they would actually remake FF7 with modern graphics and gameplay. Though it would take another five years for Final Fantasy 7 Remake to be finished, and even then, it only covered the first of the OG game’s three discs. Real-time gameplay and graphics came at a cost.
What got some fans in a tizzy was Tifa’s slightly redesigned look, where she gained a black undershirt and more realistic proportions, so to speak. Clothes aside, she looked almost the same as her Advent Children model. There was just something about her cartoony, busty look that got them more attached than Cloud’s old Popeye arms. Still, they could always change them with mods.