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Pre-emptive defense of my choices for her materia:

Screencapping the moment where the materia is glowing, she seems to be carrying the following color materia (top to bottom, by limb): R. Arm = Red, Purple, Green, Yellow. L. Arm = Red, Blue, Purple, Green. R. Leg = Purple(?), Green, Blue, Green. L. Leg = Green, Blue, Yellow, Purple. In short, 2 red, 2 yellow, 5 green, 3 blue, and 4 purple. I "?" the one purple as it seems to shift color as she moves, it *could* be red.

She is observed to have cast the following: Fire, Ice, Stop (All), Haste (All), Lightning, Barrier, and Ultima. I believe the green lightning that went with the black sphere in the casting during the “falling battle” indicates it is Ultima and NOT Demi. Tactically, Demi cannot be a finishing blow anyway, it will always leave an opponent with at least 1 HP; it’s best used against fresh opponents. Any gamer worth their salt would load her with green materia like Flare, Contain, Transform, etc. but nope, that’s too OP, can’t do that here.

The way Monty framed this combat makes red materia essentially useless; they would take too long to Summon, and are perhaps too powerful (they are essentially an instant all-enemies attack; time stops for both sides while the summoning animation plays. As FF7 classic summons, they would behave in that fashion, not as Yuna’s -- or even FF7 Remake’s -- persistent aeons.) For this reason, I rule that the ambiguously-colored materia in Tifa’s right leg (which shifts from purple to red as the camera pivots around her) is a useful purple instead of a useless red.

Two DoA girls were enough to fend off all 3 FF'ers while Ayane was doing her ritual. Hell, with the 3D mobility advantage teleportation gives her, Kasumi could have probably done it alone. The FF girls could NOT do the same in the reverse situation, because Tifa is the only one who could stop Hitomi...which she can't do while she's casting!

Let’s determine the easy ones first, the purple. While Mega-All would have been nice, it’s probably too OP for our intended duel, so, no. No need for EXP+, Gil+, Enemy Away, and Enemy Lure. Chocobo Lure is a wasted slot where there are no chocobos. Pre-empt might have been useful, but isn’t really demonstrated, she joined a combat already in progress. Long Range is not demonstrated, neither is Counter Attack, Cover, HP → MP, nor Underwater. This leaves us with four stat enhancers, MP+, HP+, Speed+, and Luck+. I especially like Luck+, for reasons explained below.

Let’s see, which yellow materia we can conclusively exclude? Slash-All, W-Magic, W-Item, W-Summon, Steal (aside from zero demonstration, from a party standpoint, Rikku fills that role), Throw, Morph, Manipulate, Mime. Enemy Skill and Master Command are way too OP. Double Cut would have been my personal choice to equip, but doesn’t seem to be the case here. “Sense” is a good common-sense choice. Deathblow seems not only possible but plausible; it arranges a trade-off between accuracy and damage, the bearer doesn’t hit as often, but every hit scored is “critical” (150% damage). In an RPG setting, where accuracy is typically very high, near guaranteed, that’s not so bad. In this 3D arena, against ninja opponents with unearthly levels of evasion, well, Tifa ends up missing A LOT, even WITH the Luck+ materia (which would dovetail nicely with this combat strategy). Q.E.D. (“it is demonstrated”).

Our loadout-in-progress is therefore:

L. Arm: red, blue, HP+, green R. Arm: Red, MP+, Green, Deathblow L. Leg: green, blue, Sense, Speed+ R. Leg: Luck+, green, blue, green

There are two types of magic demonstrated where Tifa is able to affect more than one target, which implies pairing with blue All materia: Time magic (Stop and Haste) and Barrier. On Classic equipment, it would be arranged as two pair of linked slots, O=O O=O There are two possible placements for this, either left or right leg. So, we can assign one pair to each leg.

L. Arm: red, blue, HP+, green R. Arm: Red, MP+, Green, Deathblow L. Leg: Time↔ All, Sense, Speed+ R. Leg: Luck+, green, All↔Barrier

Since red cannot be cast as actual summons is this arena, the red/blue pairing on Tifa’s left arm (weapon) implies that the blue would be either Elemental or Added Effect, to add something to her attacks. Since this would be in effect at all times, carried on every punch, regardless of where Ifrit had one star or was mastered, we can’t use an Ifrit+Elemental on-weapon pairing to explain Tifa’s lava-run “boot to the head”. If there had been a red+blue pair on her legs (armor), Ifrit+Elemental would have explained her ability to run unharmed on lava, but that is not what we see on screen. I chose Titan+Elemental, as the Earth element would not have flashy visible special effects, would help her with the previously mentioned hot-foot (in a fighting game context, not necessarily under her native world laws), in addition to enhancing the Meteordrive Limit Break used against Hitomi in the falling battle.

Added Cut, HP Absorb, MP Absorb would have been smart, and while not demonstrated, are possible because she would have needed to CAST the summons to get the effect and never did. My personal choice would have been something like Hades+Added Effect on weapon, but for some unknown reason, Tifa is unable to inflict ANY status effects (Hades inflicts ALL AT ONCE) via physical strikes. Even when she is able to blind Hitomi….it just doesn’t matter because our DoA uber-brawler just happens to have the D&D proficiency “blindfighting”.

L. Arm: Titan ↔ Elemental, HP+, green R. Arm: Ifrit, MP+, Green, Deathblow L. Leg: Time↔ All, Sense, Speed+ R. Leg: Luck+, green, All↔Barrier

This leaves us with three green materia...but four more spell effects we have to account for! Which means she either switched materia between rounds at some point, or Monty made a mistake by not thinking it through when he was painting glowing colored dots on her. Since Monty must be infallible ;) let’s work with what we see. Tifa most recently, in the falling stage, cast Lightning and Ultima. That must be two of them. Her best luck with any casting was Ice, so she probably kept that as well. This leaves us with:

L. Arm: Titan ↔ Elemental, HP+, Lightning R. Arm: Ifrit, MP+, Ultima, Deathblow L. Leg: Time↔ All, Sense, Speed+ R. Leg: Luck+, Ice, All↔Barrier

To match the screenshot. But, there you have it, my best interpretation about what materia Tifa had equipped in Dead Fantasy 4.

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