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Fan art is usually one of the easiest ways a community can show off their love for a specific fandom. Being one of the best games in the Final Fantasy series, Square Enix's Final Fantasy 7 has a very lively fanbase that consistently shares and creates new artwork about the video game. Recently, one FF7 fan combined the RPG with the 1990s animated series Hey Arnold!, re-creating Final Fantasy 7's main party members in the show's distinctive art style.
It is quite common for gaming and geekery community members to combine their fandoms together, especially when both categories provide a huge amount of source material such as different plot lines, lovable characters, and distinct settings. Some like to combine popular video game titles Final Fantasy and Animal Crossing: New Horizons, while others like to take inspiration from pop culture references, films, and well-known animated series.
On Reddit, user bagofbarbies posted their fanart of Final Fantasy 7 characters Cloud Strife, Tifa Lockhart, and Barret Wallace. In the images, they recreated the game characters in the art style of the animated series Hey Arnold!. The artist drew Cloud Strife as the series' titular character Arnold Shortman, while Tifa was turned into Helga Pataki, and Barret was made to look like Gerald Johanssen. Though the characters still looked like their distinct Final Fantasy 7 selves, the artist retained iconic features from the Hey Arnold! cast such as Arnold's football-shaped head, Helga's signature pout, and Gerald's tall afro hairdo.
Check Reddit for more images.
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Other users on the Reddit thread seemed to love the artist's rendition of the FF7 protagonists. One even gave the suggestion that bagofbarbies turn Hey Arnold!'s awkward character Eugene Horowitz into Final Fantasy 7's antagonist Sephiroth. The artist replied that they liked the idea. Others also wanted to see the remaining characters from the video game turn into their Hey Arnold! versions, and bagofbarbies shared that they are already working on it.
Both Final Fantasy 7 and Hey Arnold! were released around roughly the same time frame during the 1990s. Hey Arnold! first started airing on Nickelodeon in 1996, while the original PlayStation version of Final Fantasy 7 launched in 1997. Given the time period, it may be possible that the artist was exposed to the game and series at the same time while growing up, leaving enough of an impression to inspire them to create such pieces. Hopefully their creative juices remain and they will be able to draw the whole FF7 cast in the Hey Arnold! art style soon.
Final Fantasy 7 Remake is available now for PC, PS4, and PS5.