Alternate outfit

Alternate outfits, also known as alternate costumes and frequently shortened to alt outfit or alt costume, are a recurring gameplay feature in the Final Fantasy series that allows the player to change their character's appearance. The effect this has on gameplay can vary—at times changing appearance has been an integral part of the gameplay, other times it is merely an aesthetic change. In some games, job system changes the characters' appearance to the job they equip. In some games, such as Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light and some Crystal Chronicles games, normal equipment pieces change the party's appearance in both the field and in battle. The ability to customize characters' appearance has become more common in modern games. For games that have character creation, the player can customize their character outright.

Final Fantasy
The Rat's Tail must be given to Bahamut and upon doing so, he will bless the characters by upgrading their job classes.

Final Fantasy III


The main characters' outfits change depending on their job.

Final Fantasy IV
In the process of transforming from a Dark Knight into a Paladin, Cecil undergoes a complete makeover; gone are the horns, spikes, and facemask of his former self as he dons his saintly trappings.

Final Fantasy IV: The After Years
Kain appears as the Hooded Man and rescues Ceodore near Mysidia after the Red Wings airship crashes.

Final Fantasy V
In battle, the appearance of the main characters depends on their job, and each member has a unique outfit for every job.

Final Fantasy VI
While escaping South Figaro under the control of the Gestahlian Empire, Locke can don disguises to move around town. By using the Steal command on Cadets and Merchants he can steal their clothes and disguise himself as a soldier or a merchant. Depending on his current supplies, NPCs will react differently and may allow Locke access to different parts of town. Upon entering the area where Celes is being held captive, the player will be prompted to remove their disguise or leave it intact, but Locke will remove any disguise he is wearing anyway when Celes is recruited. Using the bypass event glitch it is possible to leave South Figaro with Locke still in disguise, allowing him to retain his disguise for the rest of the game.

Celes herself must change into a flowing gown when called upon to substitute in Opera "Maria and Draco". Locke is shocked to the point of embarrassment upon seeing her backstage, noting that she looks beyond fabulous.

At the player's discretion, Gau's sidequest in the World of Ruin has the entire party trying to tame him, to comical effect. A debate over what would be appropriate attire turns chaotic, but the party does find a suit for him. Gau is never seen in this suit apart from getting reacquainted with his father, nor does his manner of speech improve any.

Strago and Relm can equip the Moogle Suit which alters their sprite into a moogle during battle.

Final Fantasy VII
Cloud, Aeris and Tifa have "Wall Market outfits" for infiltrating Don Corneo's mansion. Doing the quest is part of the main story, and the player can't participate in battle, leave Sector 6 or visit the Honey Bee Inn when Cloud is disguised as a woman. Cloud also disguises himself as a Shinra infantryman during the Junon parade, and the rest of the party follows suit to disguise themselves to stow away on the cargo ship. Some characters seen in flashbacks had different appearances when they were younger: Cloud, Aeris, Tifa, Barret, and Vincent.

Crisis Core -Final Fantasy VII-
Zack has five appearances that change depending on the progress in the story. A 2nd class appearance with his initial hairstyle, a 1st class appearance with his initial hair style, a 1st class appearance with his new hair style, a swimwear outfit, and a bloodied 1st class appearance with his new hair style. Zack's swimwear attire also appears during certain missions.

Final Fantasy VIII
The party members who attend Balamb Garden have three outfits: their casual attire that is their default look, a cadet uniform and a SeeD uniform. The SeeD uniform is only worn for the SeeD inauguration ball as part of the story, besides Quistis Trepe, who wears it when she is teaching and never wears the cadet uniform. The SeeD uniform never appears in battle. Rinoa Heartilly has a white party dress she wears to the inauguration ball and to the Garden Festival at Fishermans Horizon. Edea Kramer also has two attires: the sorceress attire, and the dress of a matron. The party of Selphie and two others explore the Missile Base dressed in Galbadian uniforms. Laguna Loire's party also dress differently depending on when they are met in the story: while in the G-Army they wear the Galbadian uniforms, but later on dress casually, and even later adopt Estharian outfits. The only character never seen in a different outfit is Seifer Almasy, although he is seen as a child among the other party members in flashbacks, and his trench coat becomes torn toward the end of the game.

Final Fantasy IX
Garnet Til Alexandros XVII is seen in three outfits: her formal dress, her orange jumpsuit with or without a white mage's hooded cape. Zidane wears a black hooded cape in the ending sequence. Though not an attire, playable party members and Kuja also have Trance forms.

Garnet appears with short-hair after a point in the game and appears with a different portrait. Zidane Tribal and Blank steal Knights of Pluto uniforms, and Blank appears in the first battle against Steiner wearing his.

Final Fantasy X
Rikku is introduced wearing a diving suit, but later discards it and wears her normal clothes for the rest of the game. Yuna and Seymour Guado also wear wedding attire for a scene.

Final Fantasy X-2
The dressphere system allows Yuna, Rikku, and Paine to take on different skillsets by changing their outfits. It is also shown that other characters can use dresspheres, such as Leblanc stealing Yuna's Gunner dressphere and using it to impersonate her. The dressphere system only changes appearance within battle, the characters retaining their default dresspheres on the field, though there are couple scenes where Yuna changes to Songstress for story purposes.

Final Fantasy XIII
There is no costume system, but via a glitch Snow Villiers can wear a "different" coat if the emblem from the back of his trench coat is rendered outside of battle.

Final Fantasy XIII-2
Serah, Noel, and Mog, can change outfits for aesthetic differences but no impact on gameplay. Costumes are downloadable content, variably either as pre-order bonuses and/or requiring the player to purchase them. Furthermore, the player can accessorize their Paradigm Pack with adornments.

Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII
The Schema system allows Lightning to change garbs in battle to change up her stats and abilities. She can equip up to three garbs at a time and change between them in battle. Outside of battle, the player can wear any garb any explore the overworld in it. Garbs can be acquired in-game in a variety of ways, while others are only available as DLC, and two—the garments Lightning wore in the two previous entries in the Lightning Saga—are unlocked by having save data for those games on the player's console. The player can also accessorize Lightning with adornments.

Lightning has a different outfit for the epilogue scene, one she never wore as a garb.

Final Fantasy XIV
The Warrior of Light can change their equipment, including headgear, chestpiece, hands, legs, feet, and accessories. Most of the high-level equipment are exclusive to specific classes or jobs.

The Glamour system is a feature that let the player apply the appearance of an equipment onto another equipment.

In the legacy version, the players could also change their undergarments and belts. These parts were removed in A Realm Reborn.

Final Fantasy XV
The main four party members can change outfits in the menu. Depending on the outfit worn, stat boosts will be applied to them. The player only has access to three outfits for the group at the onset, but can find additional ones during play. Outfits can also be acquired as DLC and pre-order bonuses, including special costumes for Gladiolus, Prompto, and Ignis, by downloading and completing their individual DLC episodes.

Noctis also appears in sleepwear that is his normal outfit without the jacket and shoes. Various characters undergo transformations, such as Ignis from Chapter 10 onwards, and everyone in Chapter 14.

Final Fantasy Tactics
Generic units can change their appearance depending on their job they currently equipped, and each units has a unique outfit and portrait for every job.

Final Fantasy Type-0
All fourteen members of Class Zero can change uniforms in the menu for aesthetic differences, with each set unlocked under different conditions. The HD version allows all uniform sets to be unlocked in-game and features an exclusive set, the Resplendent Garb.

If Machina Kunagiri has his l'Cie status activated, he will appear in his Incognitus outfit.

Dissidia Final Fantasy
The player can purchase alternate outfits for their character in the PP Catalog. Each character has a single alternate outfit to purchase and wear. These outfits are merely aesthetic and serve no purpose in gameplay, and cannot be used in story modes.

Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy
Alternate outfits are available in the PP Catalog, with all characters having two alternate outfits by default save for Feral Chaos, who has one. They serve no gameplay purpose, but are used in story mode to show characters in other cycles of the war—for instance, Tidus and Jecht wear their new Alt 2 outfits in the 12th cycle. Despite this, none of the costumes can be used in story modes, and the player never has an opportunity to play as a character wearing an alternate outfit in a storyline battle.

Additional costumes can be purchased as downloadable content. These outfits are designated "DLC" and then a numerical value. Through hacking it is hypothetically possible to assign any character multiple DLC outfits, up to 10—however, no character was given more than one.

Dissidia Final Fantasy NT
Each character has both alternate outfits and alternate color schemes in those outfits. Characters are also able to change their equipped weapon in battle independently of their outfit.

Bravely Default
The main characters' outfits change depending on their job. Tiz and Ringabel have two alternate outfits each, while Edea and Agnès have three, that they can wear in place of their job-wear after being acquired in the game. Some of these outfits are censored in the English version. The Japanese version adds one more alternate outfit for each character that is unavailable in the English version. These outfits can be seen if sent through StreetPass, though Agnès's outfit is censored and Ringabel's in replaced with his Freelancer outfit.

Bravely Second: End Layer
The main characters' outfits change depending on their job. Each character also has six alternate outfits each that they can wear in place of their job-wear after being acquired in the game. Some of the outfits have been censored in the English version.

Final Fantasy Record Keeper
Wardrobe Records allow a player to change the outfits of their characters for aesthetic purposes, but they have no impact on battle. Some characters are shown changing into alternate outfits for their Soul Breaks; Cloud, for instance, will change into his "Cloudy Wolf" attire from Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children when using Cloud Cycle, regardless of his current outfit otherwise.

Final Fantasy Brave Exvius
Each of the standard characters has had at least one alternate costume. However, the player cannot simply change costumes at will. The alternates instead appear as separate visions, each with their own stats, skills, and unit ID numbers.

Mobius Final Fantasy
Wol and Meia can wear any number of outfits, each dependent upon the active job in a given deck. Each job also carries with it a set of personality traits and quotes that both will occasionally exhibit. Meia can also accessorize her job attire with add-ons won from gacha or delivered as gifts; these may include eyeglasses, hairpieces, and clothing ornaments, all of which have no impact on battle.

The same applies to the player's Echo, whose entire form and personality changes according to her outfit.

Ehrgeiz: God Bless the Ring
Cloud Strife's alternate costume is the Shinra infantry uniform. Tifa Lockhart's alternate costume is based on her Yoshitaka Amano artwork, and a third unlockable costume depicts her in her cowgirl outfit from the time she served as a guide in Nibelheim. Yuffie Kisaragi's alternate costume is a palette swap based on the early concept color scheme for Final Fantasy VII. Vincent Valentine alternate costume is the Turk suit.