Read on Twitter
I'm about to go on a lengthy rant on how disappointing these character designs from Square Enix have been. Especially since their past work has left a huge impact on me. Like, these games inspired me to become an artist. I know they are better than this.
Let me try to explain. I honestly believe these artists are either art blocked or burned out. Another thing, is a believe the higher ups at Square. Push the artists to either be more modern, realistic, and/practical with their designs. Let's look at the whole Noctis cloning-
There's an obvious reason as to why there have been tons of fanart of all 4 of these boys as brothers. I would use one of these fanarts but I don't want to use another artist's work without credit. You can not deny how similar all 4 of them look.
I wanna circle back to Riku and then I'll focus on the some other KH characters. Like Riku's design from KH 1 to DDD are for the most part pretty consistent. It isn't until 3 Nomura decided to add lots of black the KH3 designs. I honestly wonder why he did that.
Here, I'm not even kidding look at both Lea/Axel and Isa/Saïx designs from BBS and compare them to 3. Why are their new outfits mostly black? At least, Isa/Saïx is some what similar. Lea/Axel not so much.
Don't get me started on how Hayner, Pence, & Ollette's not outfits are basically just skin. Of course, with lots of black.
Then you have Xion who's outfit is literally 99% black except for the white pleated ends. Also her official outfit looks way too similar to Kairi for me. She's just missing a hood and bracelets. Which is shocking because majority of main kh characters have hoods.
Poor Kairi can't catch a break. I mean all her main designs have no correlation with each other. Also, what happened to the purple that was so frequent in her first design. Then you have her new hair looking a lot like Yuna's. It's just missing the swish.
I have yet mention Sora because he's the only character with consistent designs. Throughout all the games. Which is not suprising since he is the main character. I do miss the mostly white jacket though. Suprisingly, King Mickey too, being the face of Disney and all.
Let me leave these here real quick. I mentioned it, so I might as well leave these. 
Okay, I'm gonna take a break from this thread. I do plan on talking about the Final Fantasy designs next. Since that's what made me frustrated enough to make this in the first place.
Adding this here since it applies https://twitter.com/dalurkingpepe/status/1306692924575559680?s=19
Okay going back to this thread. This is a known fact. Square Enix has a diversity problem. I'm gonna focus on Final Fantasy because of my love for this series. It is absolutely beyond ridiculous that these are the only black representation they have. With 16 games plus spin offs.
I'd like to quickly mention how disgustingly whitewashed Rude has gotten over the years. I'm including images with Reno just to show y'all the stark difference. C'mon Square you guys are better than this. I mean look at his original sprite.
It's so unfortunate the last time a black character was prominent in FF was in XIII. I'm pretty sure the negativity that surrounded that game. Is what has been causing Square to go in a stagnant direction. In terms of designing their character. FFXIII had fun designs too.
As much as I love both outfits for LR Lightning and Aranea. Their designs are very similar. From the color scheme, the side capes, and have no under armor. Then they look almost like Uma Thurman. At least, to me they both do. Especially since Lightning's face changed in LR.
I got side tracked in the last tweet. I would've forgotten my thought if I didn't put type it down. Still I believe this is the start where the designs. Started to become commodified for us. Of them using black a lot too. Compare all of Snow's designs. You can see the evolution.
The lack of merch for all their dark skinned characters, and when those characters get merch. They mostly come out disgustingly whitewashed. I'm not saying Square is racist but there is definitely colorism going on. It needs to be addressed.
The amount of black, latine, indigenous, dark skinned asians, and other non-white passing fans SE has. It's incredibly depressing that there is so little diversity in their games. Also the body diversity is also lacking too.
Taking anothe break, but I'll be back when my thoughts are more collected.
