Maria's appearance in the original game is based on American pop singer Christina Aguilera as she appeared at the 1999 Teen Choice Awards, which were held two months after the game began development in June 1999. Further cementing this connection, Maria is also Aguilera's middle name. While Maria's outfit was redesigned for the game's 2024 remake, the original outfit still appears during a brief scene where she finds it while raiding a closet and asks James if she would look good in it, to which he hesitantly says yes.