Somebody Call the Fashion Police

Sylvie Paula Paula is a cheerful young woman who has uncanny electromagnetic powers. Sadly, her abilities made her the target of unethical experiments that caused severe trauma and altered her personality. It’s fair to say that Sylvie’s unusual fashion sense is a reflection of her oddball persona. Her multicolored dress looks like a pile of unicorn vomit, and she goes way overboard on the accessories. She wears about a dozen bows in her hair, and she also has multiple bows on her dress, gloves, and shoes. The giant eyeballs that adorn her outfit are even more unusual, and Sylvie apparently considers them to be her friends. Her stockings don’t match either, but that’s honestly the least of her problems. Sylvie’s the type of girl who marches to the beat of her own drum, and her clothing makes this patently clear.

The Onechanbara series focuses on scantily-clad zombie slayers, and the absurdities extend beyond the premise itself. The main character wears a fur-lined bikini and a cowboy hat as her default outfit, and the alternate outfits are even racier. Onechanbara Z2: Chaos featured a downloadable costume called “Strawberry Banana Surprise” that could be worn by all four heroines. The outfit simply places strawberries over the nipples and uses a banana to cover the naughty bits down below. (I don’t fully understand the logistics, but I assume a lot of double-sided tape is used.) It’s likely the most revealing that an outfit can be without earning an “Adults Only” rating from the ESRB. The outfit pushed the limits of fanservice, and I appreciate how brazen it is. It’s intentionally over-the-top, and it looks good enough to eat.

Voldo has had a role in every SoulCalibur game, and his unpredictable behavior, unique look, and bizarre mannerisms have made him one of the most iconic fighters in the series. Voldo often contorts and twists his body in unnatural ways, and this ultimately makes him an unpredictable fighter. He often fights with his back faced toward his opponent, and he’ll sometimes crawl around with his crotch in the air. His peculiar attire gives off a strong sadomasochist vibe, and his wardrobe is presumably comprised entirely of glorified gimp suits. His outfits change from one game to the next, but he always looks bound and gagged by leather straps. His aggressive codpieces are prominently featured too, as he has a habit of leaving his ass cheeks exposed. There’s no reason for a man to ever dress in such a fashion.

I’m not even sure where to begin with this one. Sangria is a ridiculous demon with a muscular body, an absurd hairstyle, and one of the most pronounced double chins I’ve ever seen. This is a list about fashion, so I don’t want to spend too much time talking about his physiology. That being said, his chosen attire only serves to accentuate these aforementioned physical qualities. His frilly collar draws your attention to his unsightly neck, for instance, and his opened doublet highlights his unusually large chest. His pink tights draw your attention to his beak, but they completely clash with the rest of his outfit. I haven’t even mentioned his trunk hose yet! Sangria looks like he’s dressed for a Renaissance fair, but he really should have tried to find clothes that fit properly. On the bright side, his outfit is the most memorable thing about NeverDead.

Journey to the West is one of the great classical novels of Chinese literature, and it served as the inspiration for Enslaved: Odyssey to the West and countless other stories. In the novel, Pigsy is defined by laziness and lust. His counterpart from Enslaved is clearly cut from the same cloth. Pigsy fancies himself a ladies’ man, but he’s actually an overweight pervert who has sleazy tattoos all over his body. (He genuinely has “sexy” written across his knuckles.) His cutoffs are grungy, his tanktop looks like it has never been washed, and his open-toed sandals are anything but flattering. The problems don’t end there. Pigsy wears a metal contraption on his head that makes him look like a literal pig, and his obnoxious lip-emblazoned belt buckle is downright trashy. I can only imagine how bad the guy must smell.

Tetsuya Nomura’s reliance of belts and zippers is well documented, and he is often criticized for “over designing” his characters. Lulu from Final Fantasy X represents the absolute pinnacle of his belt obsession, but I was rather fond of the design. Not all of his designs have been winners, however. Nooj is supposedly an elite soldier, but his red-on-purple color scheme makes him look like a clown. His asymmetrical design is all over the place, and it’s almost as if Nomura took rejected design elements from four separate characters and them together with belts. I’ll look past the robotic prosthetics and the asinine hairstyle for the purpose of this list, but I’m not sure what’s going on with that shaggy shoulder pauldron. The red bodysuit is obviously the biggest offender, and it looks like old-timey thermal underwear. Not very intimidating.

Leather bondage gear looks bad on most people, and this is especially true when you have a body like Randy Tugman. His exposed belly is almost as revolting as his pig-inspired gimp mask. Staying with the pig theme, Randy wears a pig head around his crotch that he names “Mr. Oink” for some reason. It’s all kinds of disgusting. His striped pants make him look like a clown, but they’re honestly the least offensive thing about his outfit. Randy is described in-game as “a socially awkward virgin and internet sex addict who is using the outbreak as a chance to get ‘married’ to any unfortunate women he can find.” This description proves to be unnecessary, however, as you could make an accurate assessment about the guy based on his appearance alone. Randy is a vile man, and his repulsive outfit reflects his unsavory personality.

Hans is an overweight man with an unusually large head. He was likely the subject of a bizarre futuristic science experiment, so I don’t want to make light of his physical abnormalities. Nevertheless, his chosen attire illustrates how important it is to dress for your body type. For reasons that have never been adequately explained, Hans wears nothing but boots and underwear. The sock garters are completely unnecessary, and the bondage bra couldn’t be more unflattering. His protruding nipples are straight up nightmare fuel. The TimeSplitters series is home to many outlandish characters, but Hans is the strangest of them all. He only appears in one Arcade League match, but he left a lasting impression despite his small role. What more can you say about a deformed man in bondage gear who flexes his muscles and asks you to join his gang?

Live A Live is a Super Famicom RPG that was released exclusively in Japan. The game could be described as a prehistoric coming-of-age story, and it’s structured around seven seemingly unrelated chapters that can be played in any order. The characters include a kung-fu master, a self-aware robot, and pretty much everything in between. Zaki is a narcissistic caveman who abducts others and tries to sacrifice them to the world’s last living dinosaur. He seldom speaks, but his vanity is apparent to all. In lieu of a loin cloth, he covers up his junk with a lizard. The lizard also functions as a weapon, so the game frequently has to pixelate his nether regions in the name of modesty. Incidentally, the developers had more shame than Zaki does. The lizard in question is still alive, and that makes the whole arrangement even more inappropriate.

Luso Clemens is an adventurous young student with a strong sense of morality and a weak sense of fashion. His outfit is comprised of low-heel boots, bizarre ankle funnels, sheer tights, yellow overalls with rolled up cuffs, silver knee guards, a torn shawl around his waist, a pizza-carrying satchel, small shields strapped to his elbows, an arm bandage, a sleeveless shirt cuff, a blue gauntlet, a decorative clover pin, and a large red beret. About the only thing he’s not wearing is a proper shirt! He also has a giant pizza cutter and a pizza satchel, but that’s pretty much par for the course. After his debut appearance in Grimoire of the Rift, Luso appeared as an optional character in The War of the Lions. He looked less ridiculous in his second outing, but it couldn’t erase his unfortunate first impression.