Needless to say, Final Fantasy VII’s reputation precedes it. The PS1 original is one of the most beloved entries in one of the most beloved RPG franchises ever, and the much-ballyhooed remake has been a huge, super inevitable success. If you weren’t already intimately familiar with the adventures of Cloud Strife and his friends, you probably are now.
Still, it’s not just about Cloud and it’s not just about his friends. Over the course of Final Fantasy VII (original and remake), we meet a wide range of intriguing female characters. From main party members to obscure NPCs, from heroes to villains and everyone in between, here are our picks for the iconic title’s greatest female characters. Watch out for potential spoilers if you haven’t completed the original and the remake yet!
10 Scarlet
That’s right, friends. We’re kicking this party of the right way, with one of the most antagonistic female characters the game has to offer. Scarlet is a member of Shinra’s upper echelons, the Head of Weapons Development, and is just as ruthless, ambitious and devoid of empathy as many of the company’s bigwigs.
Love her or hate her (except not that first one), though, there’s no denying that she’s a force to be reckoned with. She’s one of those characters who lingers like a musty smell throughout the game, stealing the show whenever she does pop up. We can’t rate her any higher because… she’s Scarlet, but you’ve got to respect the fact that she plays a role in some of the game’s most memorable setpieces (such as her one-on-one fight with Tifa atop the Sister Ray in the original).
9 Elena
As Cloud explains very early in the game, the Turks are one of the shadiest groups within Shinra. Formally dubbed the Department of Administrative Research (reporting to the dastardly Heidegger), they put on a respectable front that hides all the dodgy dealings they get into on the side.
The party has many encounters with them throughout the course of the game, none of which are friendly. Where Reno and Rude are generally one-dimensional and hostile, while Tseng is enigmatic and calculating, new recruit Elena is very different. She’s enthusiastic and eager to please, with a compassion that’s tempered by her will to ump into a fight to defend her beliefs. She’s also the ‘enemy,’ but a more relatable character too.
8 Marlene Wallace
Granted, we see precious little of Marlene (though she has a prominent role in Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children). She’s the adopted daughter of Barret, first encountered at the Seventh Heaven bar. She’s just four years old, an intelligent and excitable girl who maintains a positive outlook during the most trying of times.
Born to Eleanor and Dyne, Barret raised her as his own after Shinra’s attack on Corel. She was then taken into the care of Aerith’s mother, who saw her to safety until the game’s end (she’s seen in Kalm, watching the conflict between Holy and Meteor). Her life has been a tragic string of Shinra-inflicted horrors, and you can’t help but root for this little girl to get the future she deserves. At the same time, due to her age, she’s more of a passive character, so we didn’t want to rate her any higher.
7 Ifalna
Of all the overarching background lore of Final Fantasy VII and its extended universe, Ifalna’s story is one of the most intriguing of all. Without reading between the lines and watching Professor Gast’s recordings in his Icicle Inn home, the player would know very little about Iflana, Aerith’s mother and the last surviving Cetra.
Through these tapes, though, we start to tap into the bond between Gast and Ifalna, the depth of the knowledge with which she could have enriched the world, the tragic circumstances of her and her daughter’s life. In the main story itself, she’s not very influential, but it’s the hidden depths of her part of the tale, her potential, that make her so darn interesting.
6 Jessie Rasberry
The case of Biggs, Wedge and Jessie is an interesting one to dive into. The first ‘chapter’ of the remake, as we know, focuses solely on the early stages of the original game, set entirely in Midgar. As such, it was inevitable that the events here would have to be expounded upon.
This Avalanche trio, as a result, had a greatly expanded role. The player saw them in action much more and learned a great deal more about them than before. Adding so much depth to her backstory and potential acting career was a masterstroke, but we’ve rated Jessie in the middle of the list because she and her companions had such a brief role in the original.
5 Yuffie Kisaragi
The resident Ninja/Thief of Final Fantasy VII is another character we’ve firmly placed in the center of our rundown. Why? Because she’s such a polarizing character. Yes, she’s a fan-favorite, but as far as the party itself are concerned, nobody quite knows how to feel about her.
As the Wutai sidequest makes patently clear, she isn’t to be trusted. Her devious ways have endeared her to lots of players, and she’s certainly iconic in her own way, but there are also many who’d much rather bypass that lengthy sidequest entirely.
4 Elmyra Gainsborough
Now, we can wax lyrical about the female members of the main party and their heroics (don’t worry, we’re going to), but there’s a major unsung hero we need to acknowledge first. Elmyra Gainsborough lost her husband in the Wutai War, only to gain a daughter when she happened across Aerith and the dying Ifalna at the Sector 7 station. Ifalna only had time to entrust the girl to her before passing away.
Raising the girl as her own was a noble deed in and of itself, but Elmyra did so much more than that. Protecting Aerith from the girl’s own extraordinary abilities, the Turks and Shinra, she later takes responsibility for Marlene as well. She plays a brief but crucial part in the game’s events.
3 Lucrecia Crescent
Speaking of characters who have huge impacts from the sidelines, let’s take a closer look at the enigmatic Lucrecia Crescent. In a standard playthrough of the original game, it’s possible to miss out on learning more about her entirely: only by adding Vincent to the party and accessing the hidden Lucrecia’s Cave do we get any real details about her.
In Dirge Of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII, we also learn much more about the actions of Sephiroth’s true mother, a Shinra scientist who ultimately had the most pivotal role of all in the Jenova Project. Again, all of this lore is optional when it comes to the plot of the main game, but it would never really have existed without the enigmatic Lucrecia.
2 Aerith Gainsborough
The humble flower seller of the slums who ultimately saved the planet didn’t get to spend much time as a party member, but her story and tragic end gave us some of the most iconic, heart-wrenching and unforgettable parts of the Final Fantasy VII experience.
Even with that aside, there’s no questioning that she makes for a fantastic battle companion. A born supportive character, she’s an excellent healer and mage who boasts brilliant limit breaks. Given the opportunity, many players would have kept her in the party for the whole ride. All in all, it’s just the limited time we get to spend with her that hurts her cause, and only one last female character could possibly top her.
1 Tifa Lockhart
Where do we start when it comes to this fiery fighter? Cloud and Tifa may have lost touch with each other since their shared childhood in Nibelheim, but when fate brought them back together again, they embarked on the adventure of a lifetime and then some.
The fact is, she’s a staunch friend and formidable ally, overcoming her own insecurities to buoy up Cloud and the party when they need it the most. Her strength in battle aside, the scene where she works alongside Cloud to restore his memories truly speaks of her strength and importance to this timeless tale.