Aeris. Aside from the fact that she's an Earth Princess or whatever, she's generally a good depiction of a regular city girl. Lately she's portrayed as soft and sweet, but in the actual game she has her share of snarky comments and manipulative moments. Before everything gets crazy, she's really only interested in landing Cloud as a squeeze. Not in the *WITHOUT YOU I'M NOTHING* kind of way, but more in the mid-20s companionship kind of way. Plus, the whole thing with Zack/Cloud is just... neurotic, but still somehow understandable. She's a really great character.

I also really like Garnet because she has a really great character arc from naive princess to strong queen (cliche, yeah, but pulled off very nicely).