A few days ago an article popped up in my Facebook memories, concerning the garb of a certain Final Fantasy hero and how utterly outlandish it was. Regardless what you think of this character, it’s hard to argue with that logic, nor am I against calling out fashion faux pas wherever they might happen to fall.
Also, just to note, I’m extremely picky about my parody. If you’re going to make fun of something, do it in a way that isn’t just bashing it. Good parody will poke at the known ridiculous aspects of a work without vilifying its value. I’ve seen too many parody/satire sites that miss the mark and go overboard with it. They’re not poking fun, they’re making fun, and while it can be nuanced, there is a difference. The linked above does the former and is quite amusing.
Anyway, the article put me in the mind of a pair of questions, the first of which I’ll post this week, and the second, which will be posted next (you will never guess what the second question is…)
Who is best dressed Final Fantasy character?
I need to think about this one for a moment, because I don’t just want automatically go with my default
*checks Pinterest and the Google*
Alright, I have a winner, but there were more runners up than I’d thought, and like so many of my posts, this became far more involved than I’d planned it to be.
Final Fantasy IV
Rosa
She has spikes on her epaulets, which are usually reserved for villains, yet it doesn’t take away from her white mage aesthetic. The one question/uncertainty I do have concerns whether or not that’s her underwear we’re seeing…
Rydia
She looks like a fairy princess and kind of is, considering the king and queen of the Feymarch pretty much adopted her.
Final Fantasy VI
Celes
Her general’s garb is so elegant, and yes, she could still lay you to waste and not muss her outfit for the evening.
Final Fantasy VII
Sephiroth
I’m a goth myself, so my hot general running around in leather bondage gear looking like a runway model is what my dreams are made of ♥♥♥ Plus, you just can’t go wrong with black and silver.
Final Fantasy VIII
Squall
A leather jacket lined in wolf’s (?) fur is never going to go out of style (so long as the fur is faux in real life).
Seifer
The long coat with the Templar crosses is some fashionable foreshadowing to his romantic dream of becoming the Sorceress’s Knight.
Final Fantasy IX
Beatrix
Everyone’s outfit in FFIX is pretty freaking ridiculous. Zidane is wearing cuffs with no sleeves, Kuja is rocking a thong, I don’t know what the fuck Eiko is wearing, and we’re not even going to talk about Quina, but Beatrix once again shows that generals know how to dress.
Final Fantasy X
Lulu
Belts for a skirt in a fur lined dress paired with pale skin, that hair, purple lips, and the attitude make for one bad ass combination.
Yuna
Her outfit is almost the polar opposite of Lulu’s: modest where the mage is revealing, youthful where Lulu is mature.
Final Fantasy XII
Balthier
The most Han Solo character of the Final Fantasy universe, he’s kicking ass and taking names with that vest (the story should’ve focused on him and Fran, speaking of…)
Fran
Fran pretty much allowed us to see bunnies as sexy, though I suppose arguably Playboy did that already. Fran did it better, and more literally. Have you fucking seen her shoes??
And the winner is…
Final Fantasy VI
Setzer
Setzer
Setzer owns his own floating casino and frequents the opera (mostly due to his obsession with the mezzo soprano Maria). It’s a requirement that he be well dressed, and the garb of the gambler proves how well he does at hiding his true hand.
Obviously this is all subject to my opinion, illustrious though it might be ;p Who do you think is the best dressed Final Fantasy character? Let’s discuss in the comments!
The Shameful Narcissist Speaks 
I love all the costumes! Fabulous!
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Final Fantasy has so many fancy characters 🙂
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Great post! Unfortunately, I’ve yet to see some of these fabulous folks in a game yet. I love Squall’s jacket! *fans self* All of Squeenix’s characters are so pretty… It secretly destroys my fragile self-esteem, lol.
Lightning is the blatantly obvious winner for me! Squeenix wanted to convey strength with her design, and I say they hit the mark perfectly. In XIII, she’s dressed like soldier who is trained to fight, not to prance around in some eye candy outfit that looks pretty, but isn’t very practical for fighting things. Her shoulder pad across one side with a military rank looks so badass too. In XIII-2, she is a deity’s chosen warrior. Her outfit is a tad more elegant and makes her look like an awesome mythical knight.
Lightning Returns is just wow!! The battle mechanics are all about swapping her many outfits for different situations. There are so many you can get! For example, ones that are good for healing, magic, tanking, debuffing, etc. There are even Aeris, Yuna, and Lara Croft outfits for her. I got the special Cloud outfit for preordering it. She kicks so much ass in that one, which really helped me because the game is so damn hard. I also laughed when she does Cloud’s battle victory stance with it. Her default outfit is really spectacular too. It makes her look like the badass savior of the world that she is, haha. Lightning is just freaking amazing! 😀
Why yes, I am an incredibly biased Lightning fangirl (sorry).
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Anything involving leather is okay by me (as well you know)! There are no ugly Final Fantasy characters, at least not the main ones (well the main, main ones).
You know, she is dressed practically especially considered what franchise she’s a part of lol. Like I love Sephiroth, but his outfit makes no damn sense. My extrovert friend and I used to say that Shinra was the corporate army with the most lenient dress code, and it’s true! I mean granted Seph, Genesis, and Angeal were all SOLDIER 1st Class so probably once you get to that point you can just wear whatever the hell you want. And besides the bondage straps across his chest, at least his footwear is appropriate for a general. Celes is wearing high heels. Granted being able to kick ass in shoes like that is impressive, but it’s not remotely practical. Hm, maybe I should’ve done a “most practical/impractical” outfit. I can’t mention who’s wearing the worst, because that’s next week’s question lol, but rest assured, it is the WORST outfit ever.
So Lightning Returns does something similar to FFX-2! The dress sphere was a major part of that, though I really didn’t like Yuna’s outfit in that game. I didn’t play it, so I couldn’t include it even if I did. I’ve seen pics of Lightning in Cloud’s outfit, and I thought it was a photo manipulation! Didn’t realize it was part of the game.
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Exactly! Most JRPG characters have such magnificent costumes, that would be absolutely horrible to battle things in. I guess it is suppose to be fantasy though, haha. The Great General’s outfit does make him seem like the powerful commander he is suppose to be. I’ll be honest, I can’t even walk in high heels, let alone try to kick ass with them on. Celes sounds like she has mad skillz! 🙂 I thought that’s what next week’s question was going to be.
I rented X-2 (I forgot renting games from a store use to be a thing) and only played it for a few hours, but LR does seem similar now that you mention it. I hated everyone’s outfit in X-2, lol. Lightning Returns has a few outfits I despise too, but I simply didn’t use those. I really loved her Cloud outfit! It even came with his Buster Sword. It was so powerful I didn’t replace it until I was around half finished the game. It pays to preorder sometimes 🙂
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JRPG characters do have some pretty outlandish outfits, but I’ll say this: at least it’s both men and women like it is in comic books. I remember reading this article that talked about how ridiculous women’s costumes were. Like the artists had NO idea ow boobs work LMAO. There was one super heroine who had straps across her chest. Straps. Just no. The way they cartwheel and ump around (in high heels usually) they’re going to be flopping out all over. Lulu’s dress is pretty low cut, but she’s a black mage, so she’s not really doing any direct hand to hand fighting.
I’m honestly impressed with how Sephiroth can kill you with hair blowing in his face and not get any blood on it #skills His outfit looks, er, well, I don’t even know how to say this, but I’ve seen movies that take place in, um, Germany in a certain decade, and well, yeah, his outfit is a bit reminiscent of a certain thing *headdesk* I have a bit more to say about that, because there’s so really super creepy similarities between VII, the Shinra, and that. They have a bunch of characters named after German philosophers, too like Bugenhagen, Heiddeger, and I believe Palmer, too. It’s…yeah.
High heels hurt my feet. They are clearly torture devices.
From what I’ve seen, the only person whose clothing I remotely liked was Paine. I thought she looked pretty cool. I still want to play X-2 so I’m not just parroting the opinions of others though, but from the rating on Grouvee, it’s much farther down on the scale than the original.
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Most female characters I’ve seen in comic books are absolutely horrible, lol. JRPGs have definitely set the bar for outlandish dress equality 🙂
Oh wow! I didn’t even notice all the evil decade in Germany connections in VII. That is really creepy actually… 😦
Me in high heels? NEVER gonna happen, lol
X-2 seemed like it should have been called “Squeenix’s Angels”. I’ll give it another chance, someday. I do want to find out if they save Tidus or not. I found him a bit annoying, but that part did almost make me cry near the end of X, haha.
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At least with JRPGs their clothing might be a bit elaborate, but at least they’re not breaking the laws of physics with their back flips hehe.
Oooooh yes. I have some ideas about why that is, but I’ll need to brush up on my history.
Does Lightning wear heels?? *aggressively googles* Nope! They look like flat heels to me.
Omg Squeenix Angels would be perfect. I really want to know what the hell they were thinking. Was X just too sad and they needed to lighten the mood by going in the exact opposite direction? It almost feels like a teenagers fanfiction of X, which is not to deride teenage fanfiction, but it just seems like something someone of that age group would come up with.
I felt bad for Yuna even though Tidus was a pain in the butt. She was in love with him, and her whistling for him at the end of the game is pretty heart breaking.
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That is one of the many, many, many reasons why I consider Lightning my favourite video game character and badass idol, haha.
If I remember correctly, X-2 opens up with Yuna as a pop singer or something… I just remember being all “WTF is this?” lol But yeah, I like your reasoning for X-2’s direction!
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Right?! Like how does that make any kind of sense unless you think about it as a fanfiction of X that someone made? Nowhere in the original game is there any mention of pop singing. Do they eve have radios? No, how would they since that would be considered machina. It’s the most out there sequel I’ve ever heard of. I mean The Matrix sequels weren’t good, but they at least kept within the same vein of the main story line!
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I know! It seems that after crushing Sin/ Yu Yevon she decided to switch to a more relaxing singing career. I want to at least know why… lol.
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I actually just thought about this. I said that they didn’t have/couldn’t use machina, but that was when Sin was holding sway over their lives! Once they defeated it, technology could progress again, and it’s possible that Yuna wanted to do something that would involve the technology that she’d been denied? It still seems weird that an essential priestess who was willing to sacrifice her life for her people would all of a sudden become a pop singer, buuuuut maybe it’s her way of rebelling?
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That would make sense! I must say I much prefer seeing her as an inspiring priestess instead of an Ariana Grande type of character, haha.
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We have enough pop stars; we don’t need them inundating our video games Omg…actually FFVII kind of does it, too. Genesis is based on Gackt who is a HUGE pop star in Japan.
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I actually liked 12’s character designs very much but hated 10 and 11. I’m going to get so much crap for saying this but I hated how Yuna and Tidus
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*I hated how Yuna and Tidus were dressed
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I liked Yuna’s outfit, but Tidus’s getup was the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen. I’ll be talking about Tidus next week :p
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XII did have very good character designs! They had the technology to elaborate on the visuals, and they used it. I can at least say that about the game. I really liked the way Balthier and Fran were dressed, and the Judges reminded me of Cecil’s Dark Knight armor.
It’s your fashion opinion!
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I always thought Locke had a cool outfit. I’m a sucker for bandanas…
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Final Fantasy VI’s outfits are so colorful! I always thought it exemplified the hope motif the game carries throughout, as opposed to VII with it’s more monochrome colors that reflect a dystopian wasteland (save for Aeris’s pink, which is very telling). To be honest, everyone from FFVI looks like they just raided a Joann Fabric and pieced bits of material together lol. I say this lovingly though. The colorful sashes and bandanas are pretty awesome, though it makes it a bitch to cosplay any of them :p
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That’s some cool analysis. And yeah, I’m sure they would be hard to cosplay!!
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A trip to Joanna’s Fabrics would be a must :p
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*crush on Lulu rising!*
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She is a gorgeous lady. My fem Final Fantasy crush is Celes, but I wouldn’t kick Lulu out of bed for eating crackers.
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Does Sora count? I’m on a Kingdom Hearts kick right now, and I know that Sora sounds like an odd nominee, but hear me out, lol. I am obsessed with anything Disney, and Sora’s outfit is a pretty clear nod to Mickey Mouse’s outfit, so I would like to nominate him! 🙂
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His outfit is reminiscent of Mickey’s! I never thought about that before, and that’s extremely clever on their part.
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I came in to say Rydia, and I’m glad you covered her 🙂 I love that unique green outfit. I’m a fan of Zidane’s outfit too, but I’m biased having cosplayed as him, really getting to know his clothes. I also liked Yuna’s original outfit, and also admit to liking her various silly outfits in X-2, haha. Setzer is a great ultimate choice though. That man is classy!
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Her outfit is so pretty and fairy-like. I really loved that they included something like that in the game, especially using the different time in the Feymarch as well.
You cosplayed Zidane?! That’s awesome! I always thought his arms must be so cold especially when they were in the Ice Cavern hehe.
I really, really hope I draw Setzer in Brave Exvius, because I really, REALLY want to draw Sephiroth when they release the VII batch, and since I have Cecil and Kuja, I can have my super silver haired pretty boy band XD
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God I love this. Can I mix things up by suggesting Magus or Schala from Chrono Trigger? Those robes from Zeal are on point.
In terms of Final Fantasy, VI definitely holds a special place in my heart – I would not have considered Setzer though, dashing as he is. Yoshitaka Amano’s renderings of Relm always captured my imagination, so colourful and bright, matches her personality so well.
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You sure can! I just googled them to remind myself and I have to agree. That story of Schala and Janus (aka Magus) was so sad. He just wanted to protect his sister from his mother’s zeal (sorry, the pun was just too easy).
I love how colorful the clothing is in VI, even though I’m more of a goth and VII is my favorite hehe. It’s so bright and cheerful, which fits with the theme of hope the game carries! Relms clothes are so fitting for her artistic talent including her little beret-type hat. Excellent choice and thanks for commenting!
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Although I am a fan of FF9 I cannot defend cuffs with no sleeves or even worse a thong.
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In the absence of sleeves, cuffs make no sense! I was just saying on Twitter that Kuja must’ve needed to moonlight as a stripper to afford to feed his silver dragon, which is why the thong and thigh high boots. It’s my theory and I’m sticking with it!
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