Worst Character Designs

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So I was discussing this with someone last night - what are some of the things that Final Fantasy is mocked for nowadays? Corridors? "Moms are tough"? FFXIII in general? More FFXIII sequels? lol, no versus?

And one thing that came up was fashion. Yes, fashion disasters. Which Final Fantasy characters do you think are victims of a warped designer(s) and their wardrobe of absolutely carnal evil? Which Final Fantasy characters look so ridiculous that you would pelt tomatoes or faeces at them as they're strutting their stuff on the catwalk?

1) which characters have designs that are just unmitigated disasters to you, or just generally awful and unlikeable?

2) visual representation of these characters is optional. But I will do it anyway just to truly convey the horror.

3) can you find out who designed this character? I just want to see which names come up.

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1

- Shalua Rui

- DESIGNER: Tetsuya Nomura

- WHY IT'S AWFUL: I...don't even - she's a one-eyed, partially cybernetic scientist with some sort of tragic story going on or something like that and Nomura felt the need to regurgitate that sort of design for her? Honestly, why even bother with the lab coat if she isn't even going to properly wear it? It's a terrible mix of "hi guys! This lab coat and these spectacles mean I am a scientist!...even though I look more like a street hooker. Mhm."

- AWFULNESS RATING: Please stop designing characters now.

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2

- Nooj

- DESIGNER: Tetsuya Nomura

- WHY IT'S AWFUL: our eminent candidate to be leader of the world in FFX-2 is dressed in his zip-up pyjamas with sets of random, unnecessary belts thrown across his body, his hair looks stupid and one of those impossible sorts for no reason either - yup, this is Nomura at his best when unrestrained. Belts and zippers. Yaaaay.

- AWFULNESS RATING: I could do better when I was six.

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3

- Lulu

- DESIGNER: Tetsuya Nomura

- WHY IT'S AWFUL: You don't see what's so wrong with Lulu's character design? Well, if you take a full render of her design and look down, you will see a dress pretty much made up of belts. A sea of belt buckles and straps. How is that remotely physically pragmatic? How does she run, let alone move in that? How would she get up after falling over? How does that dress even work? Are the belts glued together or something?

- AWFULNESS RATING: Final Fantasy deserves to be laughed at.

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4

- Seymour

- DESIGNER: Tetsuya Nomura

- WHY IT'S AWFUL: ....can you honestly take him seriously? And why is he showing plentiful midriff? Good grief, sir, you're a very distinguished high priest! I have grown to like the ridiculous hair though, because...it's just non-stop hilarious. He would have needed to bolt steel frames to his cranium first for that to be possible.

- AWFULNESS RATING: Hilarious.

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5

- Kuja

- DESIGNER: I believe it was Yoshitaka Amano

- WHY IT'S AWFUL: Speaking of Seymour's midriff, here's some real midriff. And look at that crotch. Look at everything. Manly.

- AWFULNESS RATING: So good I genuinely thought he was a woman for about half an hour while playing the game.

----

6

- Leblanc

- DESIGNER: Tetsuya Nomura

- WHY IT'S AWFUL: it looks fantastically awful. It elicited about a few minutes of laughter from my eleven year self when I first saw it - to my mother's disapproval. And I am amazed that she can hold that outfit together. I don't know how cosplayers do it.

In fact, everyone in Spira is a fashion disaster.

- AWFULNESS RATING: Hilarious.
 
I may be a minority, but I absolutely love Nomura's character designs. I think his work is fantastic and interesting. There's always something different about his characters, they all look like individuals with original styles. Like you'd expect in different worlds; variation. Sure, some of the characters have weird and wacky costumes but, well, a lot of people do wear strange clothing, I think it makes things less bland when you have characters with bad taste. I thought all his characters clothes fit their personality which is what matters imo. The only character I can think of whose fashion I didn't like would be Rikku (x-2) not because it didn't suit her, but just because it was boring.

Worst character design - Quina. I think it looked too feminine (after the fact that it kind of makes me feel nauseous). It's meant to be sexless right? Then why is it wearing a dress? Misleading, also, for a creature whose focus is on food, it looked more like it was dressed for a party...

Other than that I can't think of any complaints. I actually think FF has the best designed characters of any of the games I've played.
 
In fact, everyone in Spira is a fashion disaster.

I fully agree. Even the NPC's clothing is awful.

Tifa (VII) - an awesome character ruined by a horrid, skanky design causing everyone to pass her over as the big-breasted slag trying desperately to compete with virginal, perfect Aerith for Cloud's affections :mad:
Irvine (VIII) - really, a cowboy? I couldn't take him seriously.
Lulu (X) - for all the reasons stated by OP
Adel (VIII) - is it a man? Is it a woman? What the hell is it??

And last but not least, Serah's outfit from XIII-2. Contrary to popular opinion, I thought her XIII outfit was very cute, though slightly schoolgirl, but she is only 18 in that game. I myself own a skirt just like Serah's and I often wear it with T-shirt, sneakers and black stockings and I'm 25 :p
Her XIII-2 outfit is horrid though, no self-respecting time traveller should ever let any era be influenced by that monstrous pink and gold scrap she somehow holds together on her body! Serah's character suffers the same treatment as Tifa's, simply for her clothing IMO, her personality is actually really lovely and I enjoyed having her as a protagonist in XIII-2.
 
i haven't really minded many of them, but i can definitely agree with shalua rui or whatever... what the hell is with that skirt? :wacky:
 
Quina, really...

As the series goes on, I find my distaste getting less. Sometimes I wish sleeves were a little longer or characters didn't have this one thing that made the design look weird, but for the most part, I don't mind. As said, everyone in Spira had wtf designs, but hey, consistency is nice I suppose?

Bu Vaan... dude. Is that like, armor?
 
I also like Nomura's work. Yes, his bad designs are mainly from FfX series, but then again similar bad designs from different games have been out around the time. Also the compaints of zipper and belts is the typical Tetsuya Nomura hate. Yes, he overplays them but so do other artists. Its not an overall bad design.

Overall, the number is small...idk why shalua is number 1. But yeah its bad but compared to the others, not even.

Lulu's sea of belts dont bother me at all. It actually looked pretty modern to me. Not actual belts.

Each character has a distinct style in every game. Quina doesnt bother me compared to all the other freaks in ff9.

The one i didnt like was Rikku's in the original ffx because it looked like yuffie wannabe. I liked how refined it was in ffx-2 and i dont find it boring at all.

In FF13-2 i hated Serah's design as it tried to be too daring for her and didnt match her personality.

Same with Snow in 13-2. His original bandana look hid alot of his hair, and in this one he looks like hes trying to be even more of a badboy but in his late 40s making his relationship with Serah even more weird.
 
@Fleur I have to agree with you on all of those apart from Lulu, whose design I quite like. :lew: I do agree that, from a pragmatic point of view, her dress would have been better without the belts, although I still quite like those as an aesthetic feature. :hmmm:

I am surprised no one has mentioned Wakka. ;) His design suits his character and it works, but his quiff is crazy beyond reason. His yellow dungarees are very so-so... They should have stuck with the clothes underneath them. Black trousers with his golden yellow top could have worked! I can't find out who designed him. :sad3:

Quina Quen has to be one of the worst characters from an aesthetic point of view. ;) And Amarant... Once again, it's all down to the hair!
 
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