@Relvar: maybe their personal ideals mean more to them than selling a few more copies of the game. and maybe they don't want the types of people that would bitch about something as stupid as this in the community.

@ecs33: i'm offended by your statement and i'm going to go rant online for a couple hours about it then tie myself to a tree until you're forced to change your mind.

either that or just say f*ck it, it's just a game. then enjoy playing it.

@Warlord_Irochi: but it isn't supposed to represent "you". it is supposed to represent a character in another world, a video game world.

@Warlord_Irochi: how would changing the appearance effect gameplay or the game's story at all. unless the character created has a background you choose that determines certain story lines i can't see how it would change anything.

@Triton: i would rather have my story published the way i wrote it, even if it was going to sell a few less copies.

rolling over for whining gamers never turns out well for story lines or gameplay. even though this doesn't actually effect story or gameplay it could just be a statement about diversity that they feel like making. not everything in this industry or this world has to be about sales & profit.

do these same people get upset when they play a game as a certain character that is predefined? sounds like the same deal to me. the developer has a certain player and you are stuck using it, this time it just happens to be randomly generated instead of planned out. not every game needs a personalized character creation option.

@Alurit: and when your article's title is, "Final Fantasy 9, The Best Final Fantasy" this is more than personal objectivity. this is Gamespot itself, through a third party, stating a fact and backing it up with an article.

to avoid this there needs to be a distinction that this is only a certain author's opinion and not "news" broadcasted by Gamespot. why of course there is a disclaimer/joke interjected at the end, but that joke still goes out of the way to state 9 is the best.

this was a very fun game all those years ago but i would not say it is the best in the series. hasn't gamespot already had articles about 7 stating that it is the best? these people need to learn how to insert "in my opinion" and "i believe".

@jport7: that's got to be joke right?

especially considering i played it on my PC in 2003 through ePSXe. and this is an updated version while the others were just regular PS1 quality.

one tip for PC beginners; make copies of your save files and treat it just like a quick-save option.

though not very "quick" trying to quit the game, alt-tab and copy/paste files every time over and over again. once you've gotten the knack of the game and become more immersed it's more fun just to go on and accept your loses when they happen.