@179107199999 @Blue_Donkeykong @inaka_rob I was referring to FFI's a one-time only costume change that occurs at the only point in the game where your characters' jobs change (Warrior to Knight, Thief to Ninja, etc.). That's what I meant. FFIII was the first FF game to allow players to change jobs freely.
@inaka_rob Wow, what ignorance. Changing costumes when changing jobs has been in the series since the very first game when you upgrade jobs after bringing the rat tail to Bahamut. Since then, FFIII, FFV, FFX-2, FFT, FFTA, FFTA2, FF Dimensions, and FFCC: My Life as a King have used that gameplay element. Job-based costumes are nothing new, and they have never detracted from the series.
In some titles (FFXI, FFXIV, FFCC: Ring of Fates, FFCC: Echoes of Time), you can actually see your armor. The only FF games where you can "play dressup" just for fun are FFXIII-2 and FFCC: My Life as a Darklord with their DLC costumes, and the Dissidia titles.
The games I listed above are all the FF games where you can change your appearance over the course of the game, and it doesn't detract from anything. It's been in the series since day 1.
Surprised that neither the article nor comments mention this, but many FFXI players don't think Tanaka's resignation is due to illness. He's reviled among the playerbase, likely the single most hated employee (now ex-employee) of Square Enix, and his poor direction of FFXI in the past 2 years or so reduced the playerbase by thosuands. Right now, the hottest topic on the official FFXI forum is BYE TANAKA! (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/24637-BYE-TANAKA!). A poster in that topic articulates what many players believe is the real story:"Tanaka would be forced out of the game due to his inability to listen to players and poor vision for a MMORPG [if he had not resigned]. He has proven to be very capable at making single player console RPGs, and completely inadequate at making MMORPGs. He treated FFXI and FFXIV as just another single player console RPG, but with many players, and look what it did to both of those games. Community members stated several times that things were broken and their "vision" of both games were flawed, he refused to listen, even to his own test server / beta players. They took him off FFXIV to get that game fixed, and so far it's worked extremely well. Now that he's messed up FFXI even more (since abyssea) their pulling him off to increase profitability. His choice was retirement or being humiliated by being made the executive manager for archival of file 13."
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