Games and fashion have never exactly gone hand in hand. PC players wearing non-ironic t-shirts about binary code. Developers wrapping their characters in leather from head to toe and thinking it’s still ‘the look’. Any Nintendo tee that isn’t adorned with ‘know your mushrooms’. Let’s face it; trying to inject fashion sense into the gaming world is a lost cause.

But while the medium has never been famed for snappy dressing, there are worse things than being unfashionable. Like fighting in your kecks. Against a giant lizard. A giant lizard who’s carrying a big sword. Yep, dressing impractically for the situation is something the following characters are all guilty of. And these guys and girls don’t just need a new tailor; they need a good mental professional to help them through these clothing catastrophes.

As modelled by: Gloria in Devil May Cry 4

What’s the best attire to wear when you’ve got a hot date with dozens of ravenous hell beasties? Protective armour? A Kevlar vest? Iron-coated underwear? Nope. The only thing that’ll do the job is a bodice so revealing it would make a helmer of German grot blush. While the ludicrously flimsy fabric might provide no protection against mandibles, claws or scythes, it does pack some NASA-shaming tech in its nether regions.

Other half left the room? Good. Now look closely and you’ll see that Capcom’s curvaceous starlet is wearing no… how can we put this delicately? Under garments. Thanks to some gravity-defying magic, though, the tip of that bodice somehow always manages to strategically cover our lady’s unmentionables. But while it may protect her privates from peeping eyes, we don’t imagine it offers much resistance against the hordes of hell’s weapons.

As modelled by: Mario Mario in Mario Galaxy

Space. The final frontier… for terrible clothing choices. There’s a reason why NASA invest/waste millions of their moolah on the space program every year. R&D for rocket technology. Advanced training for astronauts. And, of course, those useful things called space suits. They’re really handy by all accounts. Something about letting you breathe in an oxygen-free environment, we think.

But not for our boy Mazza. Oh no. Who needs all that needless breathing apparatus and all that shit that stops your head from popping like a balloon when you’ve got a pair of red and blue dungarees to brave the cold, uncaring vacuum of space. The portly plumber’s lungs should collapse before he nabs his first power star. And let’s not even start on how useless his shoddy Italian garb should be for traversing planets covered in molten rock, man-scoffing plants and giant bees.



As modelled by: Arthur in Super Ghouls ‘N Ghosts

One of gaming’s toughest titles is made even harder, thanks to Arthur’s ridiculous armour. On paper, wearing a reinforced metal suit seems like a pragmatic and practical solution when tasked with beating up beasties. But in practice it offers about as much protection as a soggy cardboard box in a hurricane.

Get so much as breathed on by any of the monsters in the game and you can say goodbye protective suit and hello to the most iconic boxers in videogames. The stupidly breakable armour may be laughable, but it still offered a might more resistance than a pair of cotton undies against a world filled with ghouls, goblins and gaming’s most nails bosses.