in Shibuya'a in-game sprites. Development Developers initially conceived of the character that would become Terra Branford as a half-esper young man in his early 20s. He was to be a partner and rival of the dark, mysterious Locke Cole. The character's design changed over time, however, to that of an eighteen-year-old half-esper female. Character designer Yoshitaka Amano initially created the concept art for Terra. Tetsuya Nomura, one of the game's graphic directors, redesigned her in chibi form for her representation in the game. The main difference between the two was her in-game appearance has green hair as opposed to her original blonde. In a 2006 interview, Amano stated that Terra was his favorite video game character to design. The developers intended for the game to have an ensemble cast with no unique protagonist. For this reason, the second half of the game opens with another character, Celes Chere, instead of Terra, who opened the first. Another reason for this shift is that the team wanted Terra's story arc to progress in a new direction after the first half. The game story made Terra a very passive character in the first half of the game to show her personal growth and strength as the story progressed. At the end of the game, Terra was initially going to die when magic left the world. However, the development team decided that this would be "excessive" as she had finally discovered her humanity and let her live without her magic powers. Although the character's name is "Tina Branford" in Japanese media, American playtesters "hated the name Tina, almost to a person!", according to the game's translator Ted Woolsey. For this reason, Woolsey renamed the character "Terra" in the North American English version of the game. While acknowledging that some might dislike the name change, he noted that the games he worked on "were meant for a broader audience than the one which buys and plays Japanese imports", and those who know Japanese should play the original versions. In the game Dissidia Final Fantasy, Nomura chose Terra as the representative hero for Final Fantasy VI. He reasoned that without her, there would be no female hero character in the game's roster. Nomura stated that "based on [his] feelings" from Final Fantasy VIs production, he "thought it had to be Terra" as she appeared on the game's cover art and advertisements. Gameplay-wise, Terra is Nomura's favorite