Zelos was a lot of fun to do. I even wrote down some of his quotes to memorize and a number of girls were impressed when they heard them.
You do have a point about the cosplay scene. Although cons have always had a large percentage of cosplayers, there is definitely a higher number, just because of the growing attendance. And I know what you mean about appreciation. From '11 to '14, I chose to dress as Locke, Edgar and Sabin, and despite good resemblances, few people recognized me. During that time, I also cosplayed Soul from the scene where he got caught cheating on the test and was certain that I a lot of people would react, just because the scene was so memorable, and I had never seen anyone do him that way before.
And that was the easiest one I had ever done, because all I needed was a white wig, a stitch mark drawn on my chest and blue swim shorts with bone cut-outs stuck on.
And at Kumoricon '12, I saw a girl in a Locke cosplay that was better and fancier than the one I wore the previous year and even it had few reactions.
But although I didn't get frequent comments and picture requests for the FF6 characters I did, I still had fun with the costumes, since I was able to find ways to get in-character. (i.e. As Sabin, I acted out cosplay character battles with blitz moves.)
Regarding a Super Nintendo, that's great to know. Harvest Moon is one of a small number of SNES games that sells for a lot, with another being Earthbound (a game I regret not getting the year it was released), which is to RPGs what Honus Wagner is to baseball cards, although less expensive.
If you can't find a SNES copy of FF4 at a used game store, be sure to order one on-line.
PS: If you own a Nintendo Switch, get Go Vacation if you don't have it. I play that game a lot with Miis I made of different video game and anime characters and would like to find more people to play it with. It would be awesome to do different mini-games multi-player with other people as names from Zelda, Final Fantasy, Tales, Soul Eater or Ouran.
PPS: Given that we're getting pretty off-topic (lol), it might be better that we continue this discussion in private messaging. If you'd like to PM me, feel free to.