Sandbox / WTH Cleanup Department

This page here is created in tandem with the WTH Cleanup Department Thread. The main purpose of the thread and this sandbox is to cleanup the complaining present in the WTH, Costuming Department? page. The Fashion-Victim Villain will also get a peek.

The guidelines:

• This sandbox will make the more complain-y entries on the list more objective and neutral.
• We will also Alphabetize the page as well (Per Nen_desharu‘s request)
• For the video game section, We will remove instances where the player can freely make their outfit as outlandish as possible, since it doesn’t really fit the trope description.

Current folder: Video Games

Video Games (Original Entries)

• In Plumbers Don't Wear Ties, the narrator suddenly dons a chicken mask for no reason.
• Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The player can take over this role. Utterly serious cutscenes can have the protagonist standing around in any number of insane outfits. The possibilities are in the hundreds, such as: boxers only, a Groucho Marx face mask and tuxedo pants, or even a gimp suit. This last, in a business meeting with his sister.
• The Secret World and its remake/continuation, Secret World Legends, allow you to do this. And given how darkly horrific and serious the game's NPCs can be, Hilarity Ensues.
• The Soul Calibur series has been getting worse and worse in this topic with each new entry. It reached its lowest in Soul Calibur IV, specially with Ivy's ridiculous strip-bra. In Soul Calibur V they seemed to recover from it, although there are still some characters with ludicrous outfits.
  • VI makes this worse by removing alternative costume options (which traditionally were more modest than the main ones), though Create-a-Soul allows you to make your own. Even Hilde, the Token Wholesome of the series, got a new design that embroiled her in the recent "boob armour" debate.
  • Another real standout was Asteroth's alternate costume in Soul Calibur III. In the first two games, his alt costume consisted of an executioner's hood (granted, one with stupid looking antennae that curved over his back) and Spikes of Villainy protruding from his shoulders. In three, the hood was changed to a giant claw hammer and the spikes were replaced with nails. Actual giant metal nails.
  • On another note, designs for ZWEI and Viola (V) and Groh (VI) have been complained about for looking too much like JRPG characters in a game based on Historical Fantasy and Magic Realism. Groh particularly has been criticised for looking more like a K-Pop idol than a medieval warrior from Denmark.
• Unique and memorable character designs are usually a good thing in fighting games, unless the designers interpret that as "ludicrous, eye-searingly garish and ugly mismatches of colors and patterns for half the cast" like they did in the Fighters Destiny games. Day-glo, animal prints, and odd choices like thongs over tights or full Native American headdresses are just a few of the highlights, and if you're lucky, these won't all be on the same character.
• The Saints Row series, with its insane degree of Character Customization, features equally insane wardrobe choices depending on the player's whim. Including hot dog suits and gladiator helmets. This has the potential to ruin the mood of many story cutscenes. A character's funeral is a hell of a lot less of a Tear Jerker when it's attended by a hugely muscular Scary Black Man wearing a bra and a miniskirt with a traffic cone on his head and mime makeup on his face. Saints Row 2 allows you to rewatch cutscenes whenever you want, so you can try out different outfits and see what ruins the mood in just the right way for you.
• In both Dead Rising and Dead Rising 2, the player can make some questionable wardrobe decisions. Nothing says intense zombie fighting action like a pink women's business suit and a servbot helmet.
  • This video from Two Best Friends Play hilariously depicts the sort of Refuge in Audacity this game can become when it comes to inappropriate outfits to fight the zombie apocalypse in.
• IGN rated the outfit Link wears at the beginning of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword as making him one of the worst-dressed video game characters of 2011, calling it a "burlap sack disaster" and saying that "dressing like an Arizona grandma" was bad for the already effeminate hero.
• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild gives the player the Tunic of the Wild◊ as a reward for completing all 120 Shrines in the game. It's basically the original, green tunic, only with dorky, toddler-like short sleeves and pantaloons. Some players found the design to be baffingly underwhelming, to say the least.
• Who sends a bunch of mercenaries to fight, probably to the death, with paper bags or rubber gloves on their heads? Team Fortress 2 in a nutshell. The most iconic example is probably Demopan. Just LOOK at it◊, and you will see why some of the diehard fans see him as the symbol of everything that is wrong with the game today.
• The Last Story doesn't suffer as much, but it does suffer. Upgrading the armors can help make them look more sensible, or a lot worse. There's also a color option in case you think Calista's bright pink armor is too insufferable. Honorable mention goes to the Dragon greaves, which looks like half of a bad Dragon costume that was used at a furry convention. Of course, you could just make them invisible, which just makes the characters run around in incredibly boring underwear.
• Mass Effect:
  • Mass Effect 2 has taken some flak for putting several (female) characters in outfits utterly impractical for fighting in. The first game was good about giving characters practical outfits - every team member wore armor, flattering figures be damned. Then in Mass Effect 2 you have Miranda in a sexy Spy Catsuit, Samara in... another sexy catsuit with a Navel-Deep Neckline, and Jack with just some leather straps over her nipples. However, Miranda and Jack have unlockable alternate costumes that are much more reasonable; in Jack's case, she puts a shirt on, and a downloadable costume pack gives Miranda form-fitting composite armor and more sensible boots.
  • Mass Effect 3 received similar criticism when trailers featured Ashley Williams not only wearing what essentially came off as the Alliance's version of Miranda's uniforms but also letting down her hair, which would be impractical during combat. There were alternate outfits available, however; though they only added armor and didn't adjust the hair. There was also the form-fitting hospital gown that was see-through enough that her nipples were visible. It really clashed with the tone the scene was trying to set when you visited her in the hospital.
• Mortal Kombat 9 has a few of these. Specifically, Sonya Blade's primary costume. Does Special Forces not require their female operatives to at least wear bras or something? And high heels too? Seriously?
  • Mortal Kombat got into the game as early as part 3. Kabal, Stryker, Unmasked Sub-Zero, and especially Shang Tsung stand out the worst, and the weird spandex-y ninja outfits even managed the previously unthinkable feat of making Scorpion look like a dork.
• Similarly, in BlazBlue, we have squirrel girl Makoto Nanaya. Her Stripperiffic battle outfit is ridiculously impractical. Example: here◊ is her costume in Calamity Trigger, here◊ is her NPC costume in Continuum Shift, and here◊ is her playable character costume. The impracticality of it is even lampshaded in one episode of Help Me, Professor Kokonoe!
  Kokonoe: Who the hell goes around dressed like that!? How do you live knowing you're always one slight breeze or sudden cough away from a massive Wardrobe Malfunction!?
• Resident Evil:
  • In Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, most of the U.S.S have costumes that are fairly intimidating, if not exactly practical in a military sense. Except for Spectre. Ze goggles look goddamn ridiculous◊.
  • Resident Evil 4 takes place in a Castilian-speaking village from some European country that is not Spain. Excluding the odd The Texas Chainsaw Massacre knock off, everyone is dressed like in 18th century New England.
  • Jessica Sherawat in Resident Evil: Revelations. Black skin tight outfits (with or without high heels) are kind of a dime a dozen such that those aspects aren't worth commenting on, but hers adds the "additions" of one leg of fabric being completely sliced off (wouldn't that cause severe frostbite in cold water?), and a random purple accent on her other leg.
  • As is her teammate Rachel Foley, who wears a similar outfit. While she at least had the sense to not hack one of the legs off for no reason, she's instead wearing a suit that is about three sizes too small and thus can only be zipped up to about her nipple, and has scraggly messy hair with bangs that completely obscure her eyes. It's no frigging wonder she dies within about five seconds of starting their mission, considering she probably can't see and is wearing such a tight suit as to constrict her movements and cut off blood flow to her head.
  • Resident Evil 3: Nemesis has Jill Valentine's infamous tube-top and mini skirt combo. She has a more situation-appropriate long-sleeved top, but for some reason she has it tied around her waist. This one is actually given a nod in the novel, mentioning that Jill chose this ensemble for ease of movement. Whether that's a good justification or not is up to the reader.
• Fallout has a lot of strange fashions, which is at least somewhat excused by its Retreaux style. Still, whoever designed the Recon Armor from Fallout 3 has a rather morbid preoccupation with the human buttcrack.
• Rune Factory 4 is the first in the series to allow players to select a male or female protagonist at the start of the game (RF2 allowed you to play as your seven-year-old daughter in the second half of the game). Except...the female protagonist has soda can tabs on her nipples. Um, what?◊
• Tifa's cowgirl outfit was bad enough in Crisis Core, especially given she's wearing it during a series of events that are generally very dramatic and it seems completely out of place in such a context. However, it was made even worse when she appears in it during flashback scenes in the Final Fantasy VII remake, because if you've not played Crisis Core, it's even more inexplicable and doubly ruins the drama.
• Final Fantasy XII has, well, every main character except maybe Balthier, depending on your tolerance for large arrays of coloured rings. Basch is a Rummage Sale Reject with what appears to be a flattened Rubik's cube strapped to his chest, Vaan and Fran wear "armour" with no actual ability to defend vital organs, Ashe sports a neon pink miniskirt, and Penelo's wing-things cannot make sitting down comfortable.
• Final Fantasy XV has one of the worst and most baffling costumes ever in Cindy, the franchise's first female Cid/"Cidney". She's a car mechanic in a desert location, yet she wears a long sleeve yellow jacket that goes up to her gloves, yet her jacket is a crop-top and is open revealing her breasts and bra. She also wears charcoal-grey leather/pleather leg warmers and very white calf high boots (that look like cheap fashion boots, not steel-toed boots you'd wanna wear working around grease and oil all day). On top of that, she's wearing very skimpy daisy duke jean shorts with her bright pink thong poking out. It looks like about the most uncomfortable thing someone could wear to work on cars in the desert heat all day.
• Save very few exceptions, most of the armors from Xenoblade Chronicles 1 are so ridiculously ornamented that a lot of players prefer to stick with the standard outfits, even if it means to have lower stats. When the Definitive Edition came out, appearance overrides were added so that players could keep the armor but changed how characters looked if they didn't like the armor's appearance, and it was met positively by the fans.
• Xenoblade Chronicles 2 does away with the ability to change outfits and forces all playable Drivers to remain with the same outfits they are seen with. Well, save for a Hot Springs Episode for the girls (but they can't be made to wear towels in battles), and Rex getting a new brand outfit befitting of the one who controls the Master Blade...that he can't change out of. Particular examples include:
  • Pyra's needlessly Fanservice-y outfit got the brunt of the complaints, to the point that the fandom celebrated when DLC allowing her to wear a cloak over it became available. Notably, her swimsuit that was added in a patch covers more and is less provocative.
  • Mythra's outfit was also so needlessly stripperiffic that many fans preferred the more modest version designed for her spirit and later Guest Fighter appearance in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. The redesign proved so popular it was eventually added in as an alternate costume in Xenoblade proper.
• Castlevania: Judgment features bizarre new outfits for several classic Castlevania characters. The series has never had very period-accurate costumes, but Judgment takes it to hilarious new levels in addition to outright contradicting established character traits. Highlights include Simon (a 17th century monster hunter) wearing what looks like armored versions of a biker jacket and shorts, and almost nothing else; Trevor wearing an eyepatch not seen in any other game and having his entire upper body being covered in belts; Grant (who came from the 15th century) being covered head-to-toe in wrappings and wielding shurikens making him look like a mummified ninja; Shanoa (a witch recognizable for her unholy power source and extremely long hair) being dressed like a nun, complete with crosses and a veil covering her hair; Carmilla, who has a miniature Iron Maiden strapped to her shoulder; and the new character Aeon, who sports comically massive shoes, stitches up the front of his pant legs for no reason, a monocle that isn't held up by anything ,a gigantic clock on a stick that goes to 13:00 for some reason (along with a regular pocket watch), and no fewer than three popped collars nested within each other.
• Gelu in Heroes 3 wears what might be the silliest waste of leather in video games that doesn't involve players crafting leather swords.
  • And then they put him on the title screen.
• The infamous Varia Suit from Metroid Fusion. What normally set the Varia apart in other games was a more pink color or its trademark tall shoulderpieces. Fusion didn't have the shoulders, so it went for a far more garish look, with a lime-green primary color, with wine-red spots everywhere. No, seriously. It was so bad that when Samus Returns brought the Fusion Suit back for Fusion Mode, the Varia was changed to be a dark forest green, with actual pink spots instead.◊
• In Pokémon Ultra Sun and Moon, several of the alternate costumes after you complete the game have been criticised, most notably the Kommo-o outfit for males that you have to have $1,700,000 for the whole set, with some saying that the main character looks like a stripper wearing it or that the outfit looks like a bondage suit despite the fact that the main character is 11 years old. Many prefer the girl exclusive Lurantis outfit despite showing a similar amount of skin due to looking less ugly, while being relatively feminine overall.
• The clothing provided in nearly all games from The Sims franchise are often regarded as ugly, unfashionable or just plain weird. The modding community for the games heavily focuses on creating clothes, shoes and hairstyles to make up for this. Other creators have developed mods to outright hide the developer-created clothing.
• Trails of Cold Steel II:
  • Fie is 15, and her default outfit includes a crop-top and shorts, both very small. A more modest alternative outfit is available.
  • Altina Orion's age is not given, but she describes herself as a "younger sister" to Millium, who is 13. She wears a hooded leotard with cut-outs on the front. It would look sexy on an adult woman, but she's a child. She is also a recurring enemy instead of a party member, so no alternative costumes are available.

Rewritten Entries