Tifa Lockhart's Contest History

Who is Tifa?
It's much easier to understand who Tifa is by going into events that happen before Final Fantasy 7 begins.

Tifa and Cloud both grew up in the same hometown, called Nibelhiem. Cloud was a bit of an introvert at the time, and though he always had feelings for Tifa he could never get her to spend time with him. Tifa's lovely habit of always hanging out with the popular kids in town didn't help Cloud's feelings out much, either.

Eventually an accident occurs in the Nibel Mountains that injures Tifa pretty badly, and virtually the entire town treats Cloud like an outcast. Cloud decides that the only way to really win Tifa over would be to become strong like everyone else -- culminating in Cloud aiming right for the top and aspiring to be in Shinra's SOLDIER unit. Before Cloud leaves Nibelhiem to join the Shinra, he and Tifa share an evening at the town well. Cloud promises Tifa that if she ever needs protection, he'll be there.

Cloud goes on to make it into SOLDIER fairly easily.... so he thinks. After the party gets out of Midgar in the beginning of the game, a flashback occurs in Kalm in which Cloud discusses one of his first missions in SOLDIER. He was to return to Nibelhiem with Sephiroth, kill some monsters outside the Mako Reactor and investigate the cause of the monsters. The party that makes it to the reactor is Cloud, Sephiroth, Tifa (who is acting as a tour guide to the reactor as she knows the mountains well), and a lone Shinra Soldier.

When Sephiroth learns of the true events hidden behind his identity, he snaps. He kills Tifa's father, almost kills Tifa, releases Jenova from imprisonment in the reactor, and burns down Nibelhiem. The lone problem with Cloud's memory is that during all of this, he ran into the reactor to confront Sephiroth. It's there that his memory freezes and he can't remember what happens afterwards.

During the entire time Cloud is telling this story, Tifa acts like she's hiding something, almost as if she knows that what Cloud says isn't true. Unfortunately, it takes almost the entire game for her to muster up the nerve to help Cloud to see the truth -- and this only comes out of necessity. The excuse that Tifa fans make is that she does this because she doesn't want to hurt Cloud any more than he already is, though the case can also be made that Tifa is a simple idiot. It depends on whether or not you the player actually like her character, I suppose.

Tifa plays the role of the strong good-looking girl in FF7, though she's hardly a bimbo. She's actually very smart, and her along with Barret help keep AVALANCHE (an underground resistance movement against Shinra) afloat. She's also stuck in the middle of the Cloud/Aeris/Tifa love triangle that everyone loves talking about, though Aeris getting impaled certainly helped solve that little problem. She's overall a fairly decent character, but there are a lot of shortcomings in her personality that one needs to look past in order to enjoy her character in the game. Tifa generally does love Cloud, but has the damndest time showing it until very late in the game.

"Cloud... words aren't the only thing that tells people what you're thinking..." - Tifa

Tifa's Contest History
Win-Loss Record: 5-2

Summer 2005 Contest - Chaos Division - 3 Seed
 * Chaos Round 1 --- Defeated (6) Vyse, 75159 [78.07%] - 21114 [21.93%]
 * Chaos Semifinal --- Defeated (2) Luigi, 54588 [53.36%] - 47705 [46.64%]
 * Chaos Final --- Lost to (1) Sonic, 46155 [43.60%] - 59703 [56.40%]
 * Extrapolated Strength --- 16th Place [30.77%]

Being a Final Fantasy 7 character, Tifa was a near-lock to make it to the Chaos Division final. Some even felt that she could give Sonic a match due to how well Aeris did against him in 2003.

Tifa came flying out of the gate, making Vyse look absolutely horrendous to the point where some feel that Vyse needs an SFF adjustment in the stats -- and this makes sense, because Vyse went from beating Laharl 60-40 to being below Laharl in the stats the following year. Though in the second round Tifa didn't deliver nearly the beating against Luigi that would put her on Sonic's level (Luigi actually made a decent comeback scare before Tifa finally put him away), and her fate was pretty much sealed at that point.

She actually won a few updates against Sonic very early, but the morning vote just killed her. Still, 57-43 isn't that bad (despite being border destruction by Ulti standards <_<) and she lost to Sonic in a very high-scoring match. Assuming Tifa gets past all of the FF7 nomination siphoning and makes the field, being a perpetual top 20 character in the stats is hardly out of the question.

Thye real debate however is how the hierarchy goes with her, Vincent and Aeris. Perhaps we'll see the answer to that in the future.

Summer 2006 Contest - Limit Division - 1 Seed
 * Limit Round 1 --- Defeated (8) Ivy Valentine, 96118 [76.18%] - 30046 [23.82%]
 * Limit Semifinal --- Defeated (4) The Boss, 90595 [74.55%] - 30934 [25.45%]
 * Limit Final --- Defeated (2) Peach, 79830 [66.05%] - 41033 [33.95%]
 * Elite Eight --- Lost to (1) Samus, 71355 [49.51%] - 72773 [50.49%]
 * Extrapolated Strength --- 2nd Place [49.51%]

After mowing through her division, Tifa gave the eventual champion Samus her toughest match of the contest in a dead even affair. She would have beaten Samus were it not for a good Nintendo day vote, but the final numbers on Tifa are suspect due to that goofy match. No one outside of no-life delusional idiots (Vlado) thinks that Tifa or her division is truly as strong as that match would indicate, and any number of things could be blamed for it. We'll just wait to wait and see what happens next, but most will assume a reality check come next contest. Unless you think Tifa is suddenly a Noble Nine threat and this match was legit.