Aya Brea was created by Hironobu Sakaguchi and designed by Tetsuya Nomura. Aya was originally being designed by someone else, but the original sketches did not satisfy Sakaguchi, who had wanted a long-haired character like Aerith Gainsborough, a central character from "Final Fantasy VII". At the time, he was creating another unspecified character for a different project who sported short hair: he got confused while designing them and accidentally combined the two designs, creating the then-current Aya. The original concept for her was to have her as strong, sexy and "bewitching".