Examples of Damage Control in Gaming: The Tifa Discourse for Final Fantasy VII Remake Is Out of Hand

It’s been a little under two weeks since the E3 2019 presentation and promotion for Final Fantasy VII Remake, which impressed several (but not all) skeptics concerned about how the team is approaching the project. This doesn’t mean they no longer find the episodic approach Square Enix is taking questionable, but we’ll see how that turns out.

The presentation and new trailer placed good focus on Tifa Lockhart, whose design received the most immediately identifiable changes compared to other characters shown. Her breasts didn’t look as cartoonishly huge as they were with the original game’s CG model, and instead appeared modestly sized. The difference is how she’s now wearing a sports bra and suspenders to practically support her upper body. Her skirt is still short, though she’s wearing short shorts underneath to prevent from flashing everyone, similar to Lightning in Final Fantasy XIII. They also gave her stockings to place a different kind of focus on her thighs, so it’s not completely fanservice-deprived. The design is more practical for a more realistic version of the character, taking cues from her Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children design, and most fans are satisfied with it.

The fans who aren’t satisfied are beating their drums the loudest, as is always the case with these issues. Any apparent reduction in Tifa’s breast size constitutes censorship to them, and they received all the ammo they needed this past week after interview segments from the newest issue Japanese Famitsu magazine were mistranslated or posted without context by people and sites who should know better.

Initial details suggested that the FFVIIR development team, helmed by director and main character designer Tetsuya Nomura, was forced to shrink Tifa’s breasts by their ethics department. This contextless excerpt from a longer interview spread through social media thanks to certain users, bad YouTubers, and so-called anti-SJW websites (which I won’t name) acting in bad faith for attention and hits. The internet’s worst gamers were already spreading conspiracy theories among themselves after thinking her breast size was reduced due to “politics” (in this case, women having opinions), and felt this validated them.

(There’s no helping anyone who thought the original Final Fantasy VII wasn’t political, by the way.)

It was even worse when legitimate sites posted the translated aspect without context, and some used blatant flamebait titles that attracted the worst people. Eurogamer, Polygon, and VG247 all played a part in spreading the original bad translation.

This is how misinformation spreads. Media reads a single translation saying her chest was ‘restricted’ (mistranslation) and runs with it as if it’s open for interpretation or means shrunk. Stop quoting Japanese language articles in English unless you know Japanese. pic.twitter.com/bwCZDWPbPE

— Gaijinhunter (@aevanko) June 20, 2019

It’s bad enough when these kinds of headlines are coming from MRA-aligned websites, but usually-good websites being this careless is the equivalent of throwing a bag full of red meat to horrible people. It’s worse that some of them haven’t edited the headline since the piece was posted on Wednesday.

Fortunately, cooler heads have since provided more accurate translations of the interview segment, along with other questions and answers from the magazine for context. Nomura was never forced to edit Tifa’s breasts or give her support, but had always planned for Tifa’s design to be done in this way thanks to the desire to reference real-world outfits. Tifa’s suspenders, for example, are based on military wear, while her gloves are based on those used by martial artists. Her physique is more athletic, while the ethics team passed along advice saying it would look unnatural if she didn’t have ample support for her upper body. The design didn’t have to be altered from the original concept Nomura drafted for the game, and anyone still upset doesn’t understand how breasts or bras work.

This is a good time to keep in mind that Tifa’s breasts were nowhere near as large in Nomura’s original 90s artwork as they were on the original character model, so this newer version is closer to the original artistic vision in the upper-body area. The 90s was a horny and “Xtreme” time, given her original character model and others like the original Lara Croft. Not that this acknowledgement will matter to people who believe this only matters when they’re explicitly catered to.

This issue is another example showing how frighteningly easy it is to spread misinformation on the internet, and how sites usually on top of this can be complicit; but this is especially the case with translated information. Make sure to cross-check translated information you come across with another good site before believing it. Translations usually turn out fine, so we thankfully haven’t reached the point where this becomes a constant problem. But mistakes can have serious consequences, as they did for the issue in this post.

Square Enix likely won’t have much more to say about Tifa’s redesign after this, lest they walk into another minefield. Since FFVII Remake’s first episode is due for release on March 3rd, expect to see more info in general about the project and the changes they’ve made from the original game between now and its release.