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A member of the anti-Shinra militant group Avalanche. Tifa manages Seventh Heaven, a bar located in the Sector 7 slums. A student of Zangan-style martial arts, she can clobber opponents with her fleet-footed combat techniques.

Description

Tifa Lockhart is a playable character in Final Fantasy VII Remake. She is a brawler who equips Knuckle Knuckles as her weapon. Tifa's main strengths are her agility, speed, ability to combo her moves together, her ability to both quickly build up enemy's stagger gauges, and her unique ability to increase bonus damage dealt during stagger.

Tifa joins the party in Chapter 3, "Home Sweet Slum", in a party with her and Cloud. During this time, she can partake in many Odd Jobs, which will improve Cloud's affection score with her and grant the ability to choose a dress she wears in Chapter 9, "The Town That Never Sleeps". Tifa joins the party frequently throughout the story, and becomes a party leader briefly in Chapter 16, "The Belly of the Beast", as well as Chapter 17, "Deliverance from Chaos".

If Tifa is transformed into a toad, she becomes a black and white-colored toad with a black skirt on suspenders.

Battle[]

Somersault stance from FFVII Remake

Tifa in battle.

Tifa is a melee damage-dealer focused more towards single-target damage, with high damage-per-second potential. She is very mobile, with high movement speed, giving her a quick ability to position herself advantageously in battle, and her attacks can react quickly to an enemy's movements. Another of her strengths is her ability to quickly stagger enemies and build up stagger bonus damage.

Tifa's unique mechanic revolves around building "chi" through the ability Unbridled Strength, which increases the number of basic attacks she can use, as well giving her an additional Triangle attack, up to three attacks (Whirling Uppercut, Omnistrike, and Rise and Fall), to be used consecutively for massive damage, as well increasing the bonus percentage damage against staggered opponents. This chi level is visually shown by a fiery aura that envelops her. Holding Square when using basic attacks will cause Tifa to unleash an uppercut similar to Whirling Uppercut, which can be cancelled into her dodge roll to minimize the ending lag.

Her attributes, like Cloud's, are balanced, but weighted towards physical damage and speed. She has the second-highest Strength Strength in the game after him. She has the best Speed Speed attribute, which translates into the fastest build-up of ATB possible. This, coupled with her strength stat, translates in very high damage-per-second. While having lower Magic Magic attributes than Cloud, she can fulfill the role of a battlemage spellcaster effectively, especially coupled with her speed attribute to charge up spells faster. The main issue with this is that she has the second-lowest MP pool after Barret.

Tifa Aerial Attack from FFVII Remake

Attacking in the air.

Tifa's main issue lies in her limited range, forcing her to position herself properly to maximize her damage output and avoid enemy retaliation. Her mobility makes up for this, and most of her attacks have very little recovery and can be canceled into dodge rolls easily. This can be further taken advantage of with materia such as Parry Materia Parry Materia and Deadly Dodge Materia Deadly Dodge Materia, allowing her combos to be more fluid and uninterrupted. When compared to Cloud (and Barret while wielding a melee weapon), her melee damage has the lowest area-of-effect. Tifa also has low durability, meaning her survivability is entirely dependent on her mobility to avoid damage rather than mitigate.

Stats[]

Level EXP HP MP Strength Magic Vitality Spirit Luck Speed SP Weapon Level +
11 2483 1193 29 23 21 16 16 23 19 15 1
12 3409 1301 30 26 24 18 18 24 20 20 2
13 4380 1413 31 29 26 20 20 25 21 25 2
14 5519 1519 32 31 28 21 21 27 22 30 2
15 6840 1642 32 34 31 23 23 28 24 35 3
16 8927 1733 33 36 33 24 24 29 25 40 3
17 11223 1849 34 39 35 25 25 30 26 45 3
18 13932 1921 35 40 37 27 27 32 27 50 3
19 16877 2010 36 42 38 28 28 33 28 55 3
21 23150 2194 38 46 42 31 31 35 31 65 4
22 26624 2281 39 48 33 32 32 37 32 70 4
23 30170 2413 40 51 46 33 33 38 33 75 4
24 33838 2477 41 52 47 34 34 39 34 80 4
25 37642 2566 41 54 49 35 35 40 35 85 4
26 41596 2694 42 57 52 37 37 42 37 90 4
27 45618 2782 43 59 54 38 38 43 38 95 4
28 49723 2940 44 63 57 39 39 44 39 100 4
29 53925 3012 45 64 59 40 40 45 40 105 4
31 65808 3233 47 69 63 41 41 48 42 115 5
32 72799 3362 48 72 65 42 42 49 44 120 5
33 80282 3448 49 74 67 43 43 50 45 125 5
34 88222 3517 50 76 70 44 44 52 46 130 5
35 96633 3584 50 78 71 45 45 53 47 135 5
36 105245 3650 51 81 74 46 46 54 48 140 5
37 114355 3716 52 83 75 47 47 55 50 145 5
38 123979 3782 53 85 77 48 48 57 51 150 5
39 134130 3844 54 88 80 49 49 58 52 155 5
41 156070 3941 56 89 81 50 50 60 54 165 5
42 167887 3988 57 91 83 50 50 62 55 170 5
43 180287 4035 58 92 84 51 51 63 57 175 5
44 193285 4080 59 94 85 52 52 64 58 180 5
45 206895 4125 59 95 86 53 53 65 59 185 5
46 221131 4168 60 96 87 54 54 67 60 190 5
47 236006 4212 61 97 88 54 54 68 61 195 5
48 251534 4255 62 98 89 55 55 69 63 200 5
49 267731 4297 63 99 90 56 56 70 64 205 5
50 284610 4338 64 100 91 57 57 72 65 216 5

Equipment[]

Leather Gloves from Final Fantasy VII Remake icon

Tifa's weapons are gloves of various materials. Her default weapon is the Leather Gloves Leather Gloves, a versatile weapon which has fairly well-rounded attributes while leaning towards physical damage. Most of her weapons give her upgrades to her speed, and all have upgrades to give her the chance to start battles with a higher chi. Compared to other characters, Tifa's weapons focus more on building up her speed and damage than her durability. Her weapons have higher boosts to physical damage attributes than most characters, but also have fewer abilities that improve MP recovery or her HP. Her weapons therefore play into her role of dealing damage-per-second. Tifa can earn SP for her weapons with Way of the Fist manuscripts.

Tifa's weapons focus her on either physical damage or magical damage playstyles. For physical damage, the Metal Knuckles Metal Knuckles and Feathered Gloves Feathered Gloves provide her the highest Attack Power Attack Power and speed attribute boosts respectively, where the former focuses on sheer physical damage output but compromises her spellcasting potential, while the latter makes fewer such sacrifices and grants her greater speed overall. These weapons best fit Tifa's typical playstyle of dealing quick physical damage-per-second.

For a magical damage playstyle, Tifa can equip weapons focused on giving her spellcasting prowess. The Mythril Claws Mythril Claws grant her a great Magic Attack Magic Attack attribute increase at the cost of a lower attack power boost, and are well-suited towards damaging spells, while the Sonic Strikers Sonic Strikers improve her MP and MP recovery rate and provide less of a compromise to her physical damage. Purple Pain Purple Pain is a more versatile weapon for Tifa, which has fairly moderate attribute increases for both physical and magical damage, but greatly improves her durability, addressing her biggest shortcoming, while also increasing her critical hit rate and limit break damage. This means it plays well into Tifa's playstyle, while not excelling in any area.

In terms of accessories, early on Tifa benefits from Power Wristguards to boost her strength, or on equipping accessories that provide resistance to debuffs that leave her vulnerable. Later, Tifa is the best choice to equip the Transference Module due to her high speed allowing her to consume ATB charges quickly, meaning that with the accessory, she will also quickly build up her limit gauge. The Champion Belt is also a great choice for Tifa, as improving her strength attribute and her HP simultaneously takes advantage of one of her best traits and addresses a major shortcoming. For armor, Tifa should focus more on improving her durability than on increasing her materia slots.

Abilities[]

True Strike from FFVII Remake

True Strike.

Tifa's abilities make use of her high mobility, allowing her to move in and out of combat, and to close gaps between her and her opponents easily. Her abilities can be performed together in quick succession as a combo to easily build opponents' stagger gauge. Tifa is also unique in her ability to easily increase bonus stagger damage with her Triangle attacks and True Strike. This makes her mandatory to obtain the "Staggering Feat" trophy.

Tifa's Unbridled Strength and martial techniques are a core mechanic to her playstyle, buffing her damage, quickly staggering an enemy, and being one of the few abilities that boost an enemy's stagger bonus damage. Next to this, Starshower is arguably her next most important ability to her moveset, as it plays into all her strengths. This ability deals tremendous single-target damage (greater than any of her other abilities), builds an enemy's stagger gauge, makes her very evasive and near-immune during its animation, and sets up another attack quickly after while boosting its damage. In particular, Starshower increases the damage of her next ability by +70%, and can be used with any ability, magic spell, or limit break. This means it is crucial not just for melee damage builds, but also helpful in spellcaster builds.

Divekick is Tifa's best ability for dealing area-of-effect damage, due to its radius. The ability causes her to leap in the air and deal damage when crashing down, but it can be used straight after her Whirling Uppercut technique or while she is mid-air to cut part of the animation time and use it more quickly. In terms of burst damage, Tifa's next strongest ability is True Strike, which is more focused on single-target damage, but greatly boosts stagger bonus damage.

Tifas Omnistrikes ability from FFVII Remake

Omnistrike, an Unbridled Strength technique.

Focused Strike allows Tifa to move in-and-out of battle quickly, exiting and reentering combat rapidly. The ability is very evasive, and will also restore ATB on use, allowing it to be spammed often to avoid enemy's counterattacks and overwhelm them by moving rapidly. In particular, with Deadly Dodge and parry materia, it gives her great fluidity in battle. A similar ability to this is Overpower, in which Tifa leaps towards an enemy. This ability does not grant Tifa the same evasive maneuvers, but can pressure an enemy quickly, and allows her to leap back into battle and close the gap.

All of Tifa's abilities deal physical damage, with the exception of Chi Trap. This ability deals magic damage over time, in a melee range. Against enemies resisting physical damage, Chi Trap is therefore an excellent choice, and Tifa can place multiple traps at once to quickly stagger an enemy.

Materia[]

Chakra ability from FFVII Remake

Chakra.

Tifa comes with the Chakra Materia Chakra Materia equipped, which when leveled up, allows her to self-heal with no MP cost. Tifa should equip materia that builds up her ATB gauge quickly, allowing her to rapidly combo her abilities together. Though she is not as good a magic user as Cloud and Aerith, materia that boost ATB build-up can still grant her very high damage-per-second in spellcasting builds.

Deadly Dodge Materia Deadly Dodge Materia and Parry Materia Parry Materia materia are core to Tifa's playstyle, as they make her more fluid. Deadly Dodge increases Tifa's damage when she attacks after a dodge roll. It and Parry can be combined very effectively with Focused Strike and Starshower to make her evasive while still building up an enemy's stagger, overwhelming most enemies. Both Parry and Deadly Dodge charge her ATB quickly, allowing her to use these paired with attacks in-between her abilities to move in and out of combat while building her ATB to unleash the next ability.

Tifa Deadly Dodge from FFVII Remake

Deadly Dodge.

First Strike Materia First Strike Materia, ATB Stagger Materia ATB Stagger Materia, and Skill Master Materia Skill Master Materia also play well into her core strength, as they allow her to build up her ATB gauge quickly. This is beneficial both to a more physical damage-oriented build or a spellcasting build. Other materia that boost her ATB charge rate also play well into this strength, and Tifa benefits immensely from Time Materia Time Materia, both in terms of its Haste Haste and Stop Stop spells. Casting Haste on herself improves her already fast ATB charge rate, while casting Stop can extend an enemy's stagger or otherwise freeze them in place, leaving them vulnerable to her close-range damage. The ATB Assist Materia ATB Assist Materia materia also takes advantage of Tifa's high ATB charge rate to benefit other party members, raising their ATB after she uses her abilities.

Tifa can make use of the Elemental Materia Elemental Materia materia to exploit an enemy's elemental weakness. In a physical damage build, this further increases her damage towards enemies with a weakness, and in a spellcasting build, it allows her to make a more efficient use of magic materia slot and improves her physical damage in-between spells. The Luck Up Materia Luck Up Materia materia can also play an important role in a physical-oriented build, as a higher Luck Luck stat translates into higher critical chance, especially if she is equipped with the Purple Pain weapon.

Tifa summons from FFVII Remake

Tifa using summoning materia.

Since Tifa has a naturally low Magic Magic stat, she can be a good choice to give magic materia that don't rely on spell modifiers, such as Barrier Materia Barrier Materia, Poison Materia Poison Materia, and the aforementioned time materia. If she does equip a spell while in a physical damage role, Wind Materia Wind Materia can be effective to drag enemies towards her, helping her close the gap.

Tifa can still be built towards spellcasting to deal damage, especially with a weapon that increases her magic attribute such as Mythril Knuckles. In this case, Tifa should equip Magic Up Materia Magic Up Materia and MP Up Materia MP Up Materia materia to capitalize on spellcasting damage more, and to address a shortcoming in the form of her low MP pool. For general use, Tifa should instead equip HP Up Materia HP Up Materia to address her naturally low HP, giving her greater ability to sustain damage in battle.

In Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, the Synergy Materia Synergy Materia has been reworked, no longer requiring ATB charges or MP for the follow-up spell. Because of this, it's arguably one of the best materia to be equipped in any character, as it allows for free damage. While it can be equipped on Tifa, it benefits other characters more, as she can quickly build-up ATB and use abilities in succession, allowing for a flurry of spells from the synergized character.

Tifa is a great candidate for the Ifrit Materia Ifrit Materia due to its passive bonuses to attack and strength, as well defense and vitality, helping remedy Tifa's low defenses. Alternatively, Chocobo & Moogle Materia Chocobo & Moogle Materia provides a bonus to luck, one of the most important attributes for Tifa. When used as the main player-controlled party member, Bahamut Materia Bahamut Materia should be used, as it provides the best attribute increases all-around.

Limit breaks[]

Dolphin Flurry from FFVII Remake

Dolphin Flurry.

Tifa's level 1 unique limit break is Somersault, and her level 2 limit break is Dolphin Flurry. Both of these limit breaks are martial techniques that deal tremendous physical damage towards a single target, based on her attack power attribute, which can also hit nearby enemies. Dolphin Flurry also increases an enemy's stagger gauge, and deals significantly more damage that Somersault, but when set as her limit break, takes much longer for the limit gauge to fill.

Because of her naturally high strength, and the high attack power boosts of her weapons, Dolphin Flurry can potentially deal the greatest amount of damage of any character's limit breaks. This can be further improved by 70% if it is used following Starshower, providing her the greatest potential damage output. Though Tifa can take advantage of a staggered enemy to deal bonus damage, it is normally better for her to use the time to build up their stagger damage with True Strike and her Unbridled Strength techniques, and to instead use limit breaks at any opportune moment once available.

Somersault from FFVII Remake

Somersault.

As Tifa builds up her ATB gauge quickly, she is arguably the best choice to equip the Transference Module accessory. This will transfer ATB uses into quickly building up her limit gauge, allowing her to use Dolphin Flurry or Somersault much more often. Once obtained, Gotterdammerung is also a great choice on Tifa to use her powerful limit breaks often throughout battle, because of her high attack power attribute that transfers to her limit breaks.

Tifa is also a good choice to equip the Refocus Materia Refocus Materia, giving her the Refocus limit break. This allows her to use three ATB charges for a long time, which Tifa can take advantage of as she can fill these charges quickly.

Quests[]

Tifa first joins during Chapter 3, "Home Sweet Slum", in a party with Cloud. She appears in most quests throughout the chapter. She leaves at the start of Chapter 4, "Mad Dash", but rejoins the party for its penultimate quest, "Sudden Attack". After this, Tifa appears in the main party along with Barret, from Chapter 5 up to Chapter 8, "Budding Bodyguard".

Tifa joins Cloud and Aerith's party in "The Audition", the final quest of Chapter 9, "The Town That Never Sleeps". She remains in the party for the following chapters, though in Chapter 12, "Fight for Survival", she leaves after the quest "Head for the Pillar", rejoining in "To the Top".

Pull-ups minigame against Jay from FFVII Remake

"Wavering Heart" pull-up minigame.

During Chapter 13, "A Broken World", Tifa leaves the party during "In Solitude", rejoining a party led by Barret in "Reunite with Tifa". She then remains in the party, and in Chapter 14, "In Search of Hope", she partakes in a Pull-Ups minigame in Wall Market, in the sidequest "Wavering Heart". Later, in Chapter 16, "The Belly of the Beast", Tifa becomes the party leader for the quest "Acquiring the Keycard", rejoining the normal party with Cloud and Barret afterward.

In Chapter 17, "Deliverance from Chaos", Tifa is in a party with her and Aerith for the first quest "A Way Out". She then leads her own party with her and Aerith during a series of quests in "Find the Others". The player switches between Cloud and Tifa's party, and Tifa's party complete the subquests "Research the 3rd Ward", "Rescuing Red XIII", "To the Central Terminal", "A Way Up", and "Source of the Sound". After this, she rejoins the party with Cloud and Aerith for "The Ominous Trail", up until Chapter 18, "Destiny's Crossroads". In this chapter, Tifa appears in the party periodically throughout the final quest, "The Turning Point".

Interactions[]

Seventh Heaven Bar Choice from FFVII Remake

Selecting a choice of drink.

After doing all "Home Sweet Slum" sidequests in the Sector 7 Slums, the quest "Alone at Last" commences. In this, Tifa and Cloud plan to go out, and what kind of attire the player suggests she wear plays into determining what she wears in Chapter 9, "The Town That Never Sleeps", for Don Corneo's audition.

At the beginning of "Escape to the Surface" in Chapter 10, "Rough Waters", the player can choose to talk to Tifa or Aerith to progress; the following scene is different depending on whom the player talks to, and the answer affects her affection score.

In "Resolve" during Chapter 14, "In Search of Hope", a cutscene will appear with Tifa depending on her affection score with Cloud.

Behind the scenes[]

Of Tifa's abilities, Starshower was her most popular among players at 38% among respondents to a survey, followed by Unbrilded Strength at 13%, and Dolphin Flurry at 11%. 51% of players reported seeing Tifa's first "refined" dress (suggesting they either selected it in "Alone at Last", or did not complete the sidequests), followed by 31% of players who selected her "exotic" dress, and 18% who selected her "sporty" dress. Tifa was also the most common resolution scene option, as 56% of playres reported seeing her resolution scene on their first playthrough, compared to 42% seeing Aerith and just 2% seeing Barret.[1]

Gallery[]

References[]

  1. Square Enix (2020, August 14). "Results of the FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE Post-Play Survey". From Final Fantasy Portal Site. Archived from the original on August 14, 2020.
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