Treating her as a friend from the heart
Q: In expressing the process of getting to know Tifa gradually, what did you pay attention to?
【Maaya Sakamoto】: From the very beginning, Aerith was very close to Tifa, and she seemed to act at her own pace, as if Tifa naturally opened up to her. I voiced her hoping to convey a friendly feeling. Aerith is truly sincere toward Tifa, treating her as a friend from the bottom of her heart.
Their friendship keeps deepening
Q: In this chapter, the friendship between Tifa and Aerith keeps deepening. In order to depict various emotions while deepening that friendship, was it important to give them more time together?
【Toriyama】: In the Midgar story, Tifa and Aerith spent surprisingly little time together, so we decided to focus on their relationship in this underground sewer. We could only prepare such a gloomy place, and that was only possible because the story was based on the original story.
Testing their friendship, getting to know each other
Q: The drainage pump minigame tested the friendship between Tifa and Aerith! Why was this minigame included?
【Hamaguchi】: I'm glad that you could feel the friendship between Tifa and Aerith. Nojima's script didn't mention the drainage pump, but we had always hoped to have Tifa and Aerith not only get to know each other in scenes but also to have them "under the player's control" accomplish something together.
When we proposed adding the drainage pump minigame at that time, it was already late in the development process, and the designers were strongly resistant given the schedule for producing assets, but we explained the importance of including their cooperation and successfully added it to the plan. I'm very grateful for the designers' responsiveness. We are truly thankful for the designers' support.
Hide-and-seek is an important moment between the two
Q: The atmosphere of this chapter of FFVIIR changes completely. During development, was there any concern that it would disrupt the flow of the story?
【Toriyama】: We made the train graveyard a standalone chapter, so we added scenes not present in the original story and structured the story accordingly. Like the previous chapter, this chapter is also an important moment in the relationship between Aerith and Tifa, so we connected them so that when Aerith and Tifa part ways in the next chapter, this chapter's effect would pay off well.
Aerith encourages Tifa
If Shinra's plan to drop the plate were actually carried out and destroyed the Sector 7 slums—thinking of the worst that could happen, Tifa can't help feeling dispirited. Aerith gently encourages her, and promises that if she can protect Sector 7, they'll go shopping and bring Cloud along together.
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