Final Bout (PS1)

[Piccolo Daimaoh]

I thought I addressed that point. It's not a literal costume change like you see in today's games. The PS1's technology probably wasn't up to par enough to offer different colored and styled costumes for one person. It's the same reason you don't see in game transformations but instead separate Super Saiyan characters.

Costume changes aren't that revolutionary, Super Street Fighter II had them and that was way before the PS1 came out.

[VegettoEX]

I thought I addressed that point. It's not a literal costume change like you see in today's games. The PS1's technology probably wasn't up to par enough to offer different colored and styled costumes for one person. It's the same reason you don't see in game transformations but instead separate Super Saiyan characters.

Costume changes aren't that revolutionary, Super Street Fighter II had them and that was way before the PS1 came out.

Very different circumstance.

In those cases, it's literally nothing more than the coloring of the pixels on the character being changed. It was a memory work-around -- it allowed them to pit the same character versus the same character for starters (and still be able to differentiate them), and then in Mortal Kombat it allowed them to create an entirely "new" character (Scorpion vs Sub-Zero) by only using one digitized character and their inherent set of motions, and yet create something new by just switching up the colors.

It's not quite the same in a polygonal-based game. Sure, you can change the colors, but that's not the same as a new "costume" for the character. Yes, they will still only have the same animations and movements as the "original" costume, but it's still an entirely new design that must be created from scratch, rather than just consisting or differently-colored residuals from a main design.

And in Final Bout, they decided to make those "costumes" into "different" characters. Some of them have different move-sets and animations from each other.

[Xyex]

The moves of the two Gokus are similar, but not the same. If it was a "costume change" there would be an option to change Goku's costume after you've selected him.

No, actually. It's perfectly and entirely possible to have costume changes listed as separate characters. Just because the character is listed separately on the screen does not make them a unique character. Budokai 3 technically lists each character and costume separately on the screen (up/down to rotate characters, left/right to rotate costumes of said character) and underscores this by giving Piccolo a King Piccolo costume in the GH version (and intending to give Videl a Bulma alternate). Claiming that "it's a different character because it's got its own spot" would be the same as claiming that SSJ2 Goku and SSJ1 Goku are different characters in the Budokai 3 just because they look different.

[Vegeta Jr]

If the character plays differently then it's a different character simple as, Budokai 3 lists different costumes separately but it's only an aesthetic change. The character is the exact same character no matter what costume is chosen.