Summary
Like any great JRPG in history, no one title in theFinal Fantasyseries is without its fair share of completely inexplicable fashion choices. Men with outfits no one would take to battle against supernatural or even regular beings in the hopes of surviving? Check. Women with incredibly impractical outfits for, well, just about any kind of situation? Double check!
It’s time to look at the strangest aesthetic designs made by the legendary Tetsuya Nomura, and let’s make it harder by not mentioning the intentionally absurd outfits from Final Fantasy X-2. This is GameRant’s look at the worst ofFinal FantasyFashion.
OG Squall might’ve been the big bang that gave origin to some of the weirdest outfits inFinal Fantasyhistory, but — should players forget about the three or four belts he wears for no reason — he looks pretty damn cool.
Squall fromDissidia, thefantasticFinal Fantasyarena fighter, however, just looks off. A little-known fact about the original Squall’s furry collar is that designer Tetsuya Nomura came up with it just to challenge the 3D artists and animators to make the hardest thing they could. They did the job so well that they probably shouldn’t have had to come up with a new version of the hero, one that features even more useless fur around his waist area. Don’t fix what rules.
Lulu’s looks fromFinal Fantasy Xare almost paradoxical. Her outfit looks just as awesome as it seems impractical. This person is wearing a long skirt that’s composed entirely of leather belts. They look great, sure, but there’s no way she’d be able to carry all that unnecessary weight throughout the entirety of a very physically demanding pilgrimage to defeat a creature powerful enough to destroy the world.
After the end of the game, Lulu would absolutely outshine anyone at a Spira fashion show — so long as the runway isn’t too long for her to make it to the end and back.
Tidus is one of the most clowned-on main characters in theFinal Fantasyseries, and a lot of that has to do with his clothing, especially because of his uneven-sized pants. They look so dumb and impractical that they make players miss the excess of belts carried by Lulu and Squall.
They look so dumb that even Yoshitaka Amano, the original Squaresoft artist, seemingly refused to draw them as Tetsuya Nomura had originally envisioned them, opting instead to have Tidus wearing regular pants that got that way because they’d been torn off by some monster — who’s hopefully not Nomura.
Seymour is the closest Tidus and co. get to a main villain inFinal Fantasy X, so he gets a pass for looking somewhat too edgy. This man, however, takes it just too far. Though he spends the entirety of the game chasing players with ever more weird mecha suits, nothing is stranger than what he wears in his day-to-day life.
On top of the strangest and most impractical summoner dress one can think of, Seymour’s hair remains the most ridiculous ever seen in a series known for very questionable hairstyles.
There’s nothing particularly out there about Rikku’s look onFinal Fantasy X. What sucks is the fact that she’s 15 in that game and is often shown off in cutscenes in a somewhat sexualized manner. The person responsible for revamping her looks for the sequel — where she isn’t much older — probably didn’t get the note, either, as she wears even skimpier clothes inFFX-2.Not cool, guys.
Nobody would take someone wearing Baseball or Football attire to a life-or-death battle seriously, but players more or less bought it because few realize that Wakka’s just wearing his Blitzball equipment 24/7. That silly shoulder guard is meant for balls, probably, definitely not for monsters. Those pants are even dumber, as they look terrible for monster-fighting, and especially for swimming.
What makes the developer’s choice of equipment for Wakka the weirdest, however, is his weapon. Why would Wakka, a famously mediocre player from the worst Blitzball team in Spira use a ball as his weapon of choice? It’s almost as if he doesn’t have an actual star player right beside him at all times.
Nooj’s outfit of choice is an all-time head-scratcher — even amongFinal Fantasyfans who’ve grown to accept Final Fashion. Nooj has a prosthetic arm and leg, but he also decides to wear a onesie that any person would have a hard time taking off.
That’s a pretty great fashion flex, but will the deadly fiends on Nooj’s path really care?
Also, what the hell is up with that man’s hair? It seems to laugh in the face of gravity almost as hard as Seymour’s own hair, and that guy was a powerful and mischievous summoner. Cool cane, though!
8Luso Clemens (Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire Of The Rift)
Luso Has Everything
While manyFinal Fantasycharacters are guilty of coming to battle unprepared, Luso Clemensfrom the lesser-knownA2seems to be carrying enough stuff to make up for everyone else’s lack of items. He’s wearing so much stuff that it’s almost impossible to identify everything he’s bringing, but it doesn’t really matter, because he’d likely be the first person to die in any fight against any creature.
His gear alone would be too heavy for him to carry, but there’s just no way he could lift that sword off the ground. In the very unlikely chance that he could, he definitely wouldn’t be able to put it to good use because that’s more impractical than the Buster Sword and a Gunblade put together.
Materia fromDissidiaseems like what Tetsuya Nomura would come up with when a very powerful entity would come up to him and ask him to create the most bonkers character design in the history of character designs. JRPGs are famous for featuring skimpy armor for female warriors, so this is probably the female sorcerer version of that.
The dress is absolutely ridiculous by itself, but it comes paired with an incredibly complex staff and what seems like the wings of Jehuty fromZone Of The Enders— a series that’s not even from Square Enix — coming out of her back.
Her choice of a dress makes Seymour’s look warm in comparison.
Plot twist: the final entry isn’t about a beloved hero, but rather about the bland world surrounding them. Though bothFinal Fantasy 15and theFinal Fantasy 7remakes look great, it’s hard to avoid noticing just how absolutely bland the NPCs inhabiting their respective worlds look. NPCs in previousFinal Fantasygames had never failed to look unique in a way that still had them looking like they belonged in their world, but not anymore.
These incredibly uptight-looking NPCs make the heroes stand out even more than they already normally would, and that just should not be. It’s precisely their mundanity that makes them so ridiculous as the backdrop of such striking protagonists.
