Players ask for strong female characters often and usually just get a woman who knows how to fight—too literally, a strong woman. But not in Final Fantasy 7's case. When it introduced Tifa, a character who hadn't even been considered until very late into development, she became a fan favorite even among the Final Fantasy 7 developers. She was intended to be a childhood love interest for Cloud Strife but grew into so much more as the developers kept it going.