Cosplay has become an enormous part of the gaming community. Every year, every conference, and every character reveal results in passionate fans exercising their creative muscles to create both media-accurate and inventive new takes on classic characters from games, comics, and movies. One of the biggest influences on that culture for more than two decades now has been the iconic Final Fantasy 7. The game features some of the medium's most recognizable heroes and villains and seems to be an endless font for cosplayers. There are a few reasons why Final Fantasy 7 has stayed so prominent in the cosplaying community.
Final Fantasy in general has influenced a plethora of amazing cosplays and replicas all over the internet. Recreating those characters in real life has been a hobby (and a profession) for many fans for years now. Final Fantasy 7 has inspired some of the most popular cosplays in general, and a big part of that retention has been due to the iconic weapons like the Buster Sword, and Sephiroth's absurdly long Masamune katana. Moreover, the series itself features many different costumes and changes to its characters, and their popularity has spilled over into many other games. This means that FF7 cosplayers have a lot of history from which to draw their inspiration.
Final Fantasy 7 Characters Have Many Iterations to Inspire Cosplayers
It goes without saying that Final Fantasy 7 has some of the most popular characters in gaming. Cloud Strife, Tifa Lockhart, Aerith Gainsborough, and Zack Fair are names immediately recognizable to many fans. These characters struck a chord with many due to their roles in the game's story and with distinct designs like Aerith and Tifa inspiring many impressive cosplays. The creative process of creating the armor and weapons, like the Buster Sword, also create a fun challenge for cosplayers looking to expand their skills. Another reason why FF7 has stayed so prominent in the cosplay community is the sheer number of variations on the characters that already exist.
Final Fantasy 7 characters are popular enough that they have appeared in spin-offs from the main game like the Advent Children movie, the Dirge of Cerberus spin-off game, and the Kingdom Hearts series. There are also a host of prequels that revolve around side characters like Zack Fair and the different members of the Turks. In the modern imagining, FF7 Remake, there are even different costumes like the various dresses to obtain for Cloud, Aerith, and Tifa during the Wall Market sequence. Even the voice actor for Aerith in FF7 Remake has gotten in on the cosplay trend.
Cloud's appearance in the first Kingdom Hearts is a uniquely popular version of the character. His costume had been blended with that of the other fan-favorite Final Fantasy 7 character Vincent to create a unique vision that combined some of the most interesting elements of each characters.
This plethora of places to draw inspiration from has been a huge part in Final Fantasy 7's continuing impact on the cosplay scene. This is coupled with the fact that a large subset of the cosplay community embraces the potential sex appeal of the medium, and characters like Tifa and Aerith are seen aside "gender-bent" versions of the fairly androgynous Cloud and Sephiroth. It's impact on the gaming legacy in general can't be refuted, and it seems that Final Fantasy 7 will continue to impact the cosplay community just as much for the foreseeable future.
Final Fantasy 7 Remake Part 2 is currently in development.