Like taking a pair of trousers to the tailor, a good mod can breathe new life into a game, altering the way it looks or plays to exciting—or hilarious—results. Final Fantasy 7 Remake has a few solid mods already, like one that turns pretty boy Cloud Strife into a sexy boy, and another that reimagines Sephiroth as Ronald McDonald, because why not? Now, our three best girls—Aerith Gainsborough, Tifa Lockhart, and Yuffie Kisaragi—have been given a different kind of makeover, one that sees them put on enough muscle to snap anyone in half.
As spotted by PCGamer, the mod repository Nexus Mods has a trio of new transformations for the girl band. Created by modder FudgeX02 at the start of March, each mod turns one of FF7R’s leading ladies into a muscle mommy. I mean, they’re jacked, looking like a bodybuilder or maybe a wrestler on steroids. The best part is that in addition to the incredible character models, FudgeX02 has given them each fitting and hilarious names. We’re talking “Aerith Gainsbro,” “Beefa” Lockhart, and “Buffie” Kisaragi. They’re so good, I’m dying, and it makes me wonder if Mako is actually just a green protein shake.
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As FudgeX02’s descriptions of the mods indicate, every aspect of these women has been embiggened. “Everything’s bulked up,” he said. “No more Twig Tifa.”
In DMs with Kotaku on Nexus Mods, FudgeX02 said that while he first made Tifa buff two years ago, he’s since created mods for Resident Evil 4 and Street Fighter 6 to hone his skills. This new Beefa—and the other two muscle mommy mods for Aerith and Yuffie—only took him a couple of hours to put together. He also gave a simple explanation for why he sent our leading ladies to the gym.
“I always felt Tifa was too thin to be a brawler, which is why I made the first version of ‘Beefa’ two years ago,” FudgeX02 said. “Of course, my version is too big, but the character really seems like she should be more like Cammy from Street Fighter instead of looking so frail. As for Aerith and Yuffie, that was just because I could.”
I asked FudgeX02 to elaborate.
“I like muscular women,” FudgeX02 explained. “To me, muscles are like a bonus modifier. Bigger is better in my eyes.”
I suppose it makes some sense for Tifa and Yuffie to have a bit more muscle than they currently do in the game. The former is a martial artist, the latter is a ninja. Those professions require some beefiness, right? I just don’t know if anyone was expecting them to look like Dwayne Johnson or John Cena. I mean, these women look like they bench press at least 200 lbs. This means that, if Cloud Strife really weighs 160 lbs, any one of these women can pick him up, no problem. Similarly, while we don’t know Sephiroth’s official weight, I’ll totally assume “Aerith Gainsbro,” “Beefa” Lockhart, and “Buffie” Kisaragi could crush him. No Materia required.
