I’m somewhere between the second and third option. I love character customization, but it definitely depends on the game. For example, I don’t need it in something like Mario Kart, but it’s very important for me in games like Harvest Moon or Animal Crossing. I feel like I’m those games, self-expression is ver important. I want my character to represent me as a person. That isn’t necessarily important in games like Mario Kart, where you are just primarily racing as different Mario characters. I am more drawn to games, however, that do have some sort of character customization. I like the life simulation games, which most of time, do allow you to customize your own character.
How important is it for the games you play to feature character creation/customisation of some kind?
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I think it depends on the game!
If it's a story based game where the main character is actually a character, then I don't need to customize them at all. I don't want to pretend that I'm Ellie or Abby in the Last of Us 2 or Max in Life is Strange - I want them to be stand alone characters that I'm experiencing the story of. (That being said I'd never say no to getting to choose maybe an outfit or two for a character to wear!)
If it's a game where the character is meant to represent me (Animal Crossing, Pokemon, Monster Hunter Stories, Story of Seasons, etc) then it becomes more important to me. If the story is going to give me a relatively blank slate character and expect me to either self insert as the character or create my own character for the story, then I want to actually be able to customize them.
It's frustrating in the Friends of Mineral Town remake in particular that I am supposed to be creating my little farmer to start my new life! And then... she's not really customizable. At all. I don't get to play around with her outfits (she's got a few to cycle through but that's it), or even really her hair from what I recall? Which absolutely takes me out of the game a little bit. For games like Pokemon half the fun (for me, anyways!!) is visiting the shops in new locations so I can dress up my character lol. When that's done poorly (Looking at you, Pokemon Shield!! Give me more dresses
) it can make me feel less motivated about playing the game. 
If it's a story based game where the main character is actually a character, then I don't need to customize them at all. I don't want to pretend that I'm Ellie or Abby in the Last of Us 2 or Max in Life is Strange - I want them to be stand alone characters that I'm experiencing the story of. (That being said I'd never say no to getting to choose maybe an outfit or two for a character to wear!)
If it's a game where the character is meant to represent me (Animal Crossing, Pokemon, Monster Hunter Stories, Story of Seasons, etc) then it becomes more important to me. If the story is going to give me a relatively blank slate character and expect me to either self insert as the character or create my own character for the story, then I want to actually be able to customize them.
It's frustrating in the Friends of Mineral Town remake in particular that I am supposed to be creating my little farmer to start my new life! And then... she's not really customizable. At all. I don't get to play around with her outfits (she's got a few to cycle through but that's it), or even really her hair from what I recall? Which absolutely takes me out of the game a little bit. For games like Pokemon half the fun (for me, anyways!!) is visiting the shops in new locations so I can dress up my character lol. When that's done poorly (Looking at you, Pokemon Shield!! Give me more dresses
) it can make me feel less motivated about playing the game. 
Orius
The People's Champion
It adds flavor to a game for me. I do love my customizations, but if I'm playing a franchise game like some Marvel mmo, I wouldn't wanna play as Random Newbie #42. I wanna be Spider-Man.
Of course, with that kind of game, there also comes costume-customization options.
Of course, with that kind of game, there also comes costume-customization options.
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While I enjoy having the option to be able to choose how my character looks in any game I own, it's not a deal breaker if a game doesn't have any clothing options or anything of the sorts for my characters if it's a game I know I'll be enjoying.
