In many RPGs (and games that borrow mechanics from the RPG genre), you can customize your characters' abilities to some extent. However, there is one thing that differentiates different games, and that's whether the customization is done early on or later on.

For example:
* AD&D based games generally have you do all your customization at the start. If we take Baldur's Gate, for example, you choose your stats, class, and the majority of your weapon proficiencies at the start of the game. After this, there's very little you can do to further customize your characters; fighters look like fighters and mages like mages from the beginning of the game. (There's dual classing, but that requires a specific race choice and you need to have very high stats to do this, so without stats increasing during the game you basically have to plan for this from the start.) This approach is seen commonly in games with rigid class systems (like Final Fantasy 1, not like Final Fantasy 5).
* On the other hand, you have cases like Nox Archaist, where the customization is done later. At the start, you choose a race for your main character, which gives you a minor stat boost, but that's it. Leveling up gives you more stat boosts (to the point where, by level 3, your total stat sum is more than double what it is at the start), and there's a small number of skills that can rise from use. Essentially, every character starts out the same, but will specialize later on.
* There's some games where characters aren't inherently that different, but where the ones you recruit may already have specialized some; many SaGa games would fit in this category. (The Alliance Alive (and, from what I understand, Romancing SaGa 3) gives characters different immutable stats, but otherwise most characters can use and get good with any weapon type and everyone can learn magic (although TAA limits who can learn Sorcery).)
* SaGa 1 and 2 are an odd case. You choose a race at the start, which has major effects (the fundamental rules of stat growth change based on race), but there's a lot of customization that can be done within that race. You might start SaGa 2 with 4 identical robots, for example, but they might be very different in terms of stats and abilities by the end game (especially if you're playing the DS version which makes robot mages feasible).

So, any thoughts? Do you have a preference for when the customization should be? Should the choices be made at the start, or later on?

While I can enjoy either format of customization, I do want to point out that to do customization at the beginning of the game means that a person should be at least somewhat familiar with the rules and settings of the game.

For example, when I originally started Neverwinter Nights in the early 2000s I had no background with any of the D&D mechanics. This lack of understanding allowed me to create a Paladin character that was utterly useless in terms of actually hitting the opponents. Of course, after the first failure I learned from it and had a better experience as a Sorcerer for the next character. Later playthroughs would take advantage of min/maxing stats and would become far more enjoyable.

This type of gameplay is great if one has the time to really sink into the mechanics or have it already understood. I also like how some games have good prebuilt characters so that one can get into the action without having to have that understanding at the beginning.

As far as personal preference goes, I prefer having more options the farther into the game you get so that you can have more of a unique playthrough if desired. As you previously mentioned, AD&D based games are fairly limited in that regard. Cthulhu Saves the World is interesting in that level ups will often give you a binary choice for modifying or adding new abilities, For example, one version may be better for a single enemy and the other, better for multi. These choices add up during the game so that you can end up with a very different build than what someone else may choose.

Some games may also allow respec's, which I have mixed feelings on. It is good for when one is trying to learn the mechanics, however.

I think such an approach isn't so bad if the number of choices is minimized, like only choosing a race or class, or even choosing just a class. (The original Final Fantasy has the player choosing just a class and name for each of the 4 light warriors; while the game suffers from balance issues, any reasonably balanced party should be feasible.)

The problem in D&D games is that:
* You have to choose more than a class. At minimum, you roll stats and may be able to re-allocate them (or max them out if playing a Gold Box game). In later games, you have to choose things like weapon proficiencies (which is a blind choice, and which I find only works well in games where raising one skill doesn't make other skills harder to raise), and later on, Skills and Feats (which are better than weapon proficiencies, but can still lead to bad builds). Final Fantasy doesn't do that; one class per character, and that's it.
* Your stats are generated at the start of the game, and they don't change at all. Contrast this to Final Fantasy, where level 1 stats are always the same for a given class, and stats improve at level up. In fact, stat increases at level up do along way toward making the starting stats less important; they may affect the early game, but the effect is contained to that part of the game.

I've mentioned Final Fantasy as a good example, but (aside from some class balance issues) there's one other issue, and that's with spells.
* At each spell level, there are 4 white magic and 4 black magic spells.
* Each character can only ever learn 3 spells per level. Once those spells are learned, the character is stuck with them. (Remakes did add the ability to throw away spells to make room for others, which helps, but note that you do not get the gil cost of the spell you discarded back, and high level spells can be quite expensive (though eventually you have more gil than you could realistically spend).)
* Not all of the spells are useful. For example, there's only one enemy that can inflect silence status (and it's not a boss), so the spell that cures silence is pretty useless (not to mention you can't use it while silenced). There's also the fact that some spells are bugged; for example, one spell that's supposed to make an enemy easier to hit does nothing, and the upgrade that's supposed to make all enemies easier to hit makes them harder to hit. (At least the remakes fixed those.) Worth noting: "Learning the mechanics" is something that I will sometimes be doing even after I've beaten the game several times, perhaps even on the hardest difficulty. I enjoy it when games let me easily experiment like this, which is why I like respec systems or systems designed so that respec isn't needed.

Indeed. That's very accurate and games like Final Fantasy 3 and 5 or "newer" games like Bravely Default that are built and balanced around respecing character builds can be very fun.

My mixed feelings are more with games like Valdis Story where the respecing feels more as an add-on in case you ruin your build. Of course one can take advantage of this to do a build type for part of the game and then switch over to another build as more options become available, but this sometimes feels like it is against the spirit of the game if it hasn't been balanced that way. This doesn't make the playthorugh any less valid, but it's just my personal feeling that choices made should matter.

On a slightly different topic, I believe you've mentioned playing SaGa 2 & 3 DS. What's your opinion on them in comparison to other SaGa games like Romacing SaGa and SaGa Froniter?

Really depends on the game. If it's replayable, have a lot upfront. If it's not, late game or none at all (just give out all the implemented abilities and let the action economy sort it out).

It is rather difficult to make that comparison, as the Game Boy SaGas are quite different from later games in the series. For example, they're all quite linear; SaGa 1 and 3 only have small side areas, while SaGa 2 has one optional large dungeon and no others. (Well, technically you have to enter the one in SaGa 2, but the item you need is right there at the entrance, along with a fairy with a warning.) On the other hand, if you liked SaGa Frontier's use of multiple races with different growth systems, you'll like the early SaGas.

If we take SaGa 2 DS, for example:
* The mechanics aren't changed drastically from the original SaGa 2 (Final Fantasy Legend 2), so if you've played that, things will be quite familiar. Even the damage formulas are the same for the most part.
* 4 races: Humans, Espers, Robots, and Monsters. At the start of the game, you choose a race and name for each of 4 characters; that's your party for the game. (In other words, this is a create-a-party RPG, not one where you have a fixed party or go around talking to NPCs to recruit them.)
* Humans and Espers gain stats based off their actions at the end of battle. Unfortunately, the stat growth is slower than I would like. (At least the game has weapons that don't depend on the user's stats that you can use.)
* Robots get all their stats from equipment.
* Monsters can transform into other monster types by eating meat.
* Almost every item or ability has a limited number of uses. There is no way to restore item uses, while abilities regain their uses when you stay at the inn.
* (Exception to the above: When a robot equips or unequips an item, it will lose half its uses; however, when you go to the inn, the uses will recover to half their maximum.)
* Only espers and monsters have abilities. Espers start with 1 (a spell that hits all enemies; quite useful, even if a bit weak) and can get up to 4, at which point the last one has a chance of being replaced after each battle (though you can re-order them if you just learned one you want to keep). Monsters have different abilities for each form.
* (Note that humans have nothing that recovers at the inn; this makes them rather expensive to use over the course of the game. Robots have an up front cost (especially if you're using more than 2), but don't need maintenance the way humans do. In the remake, there's an arena where you can win items.)
* There are no arts. Each weapon has only one attack, unless you use threads (only in the remake) to link attacks together. (Note that using any threads at all will make the final boss fight harder and longer, to the point where it may be one of the harder ones in the series. (It's also the only SaGa final boss that expects constant use of multi-target healing.))
* Worth noting: After each battle, your party is not healed fully, unlike later games in the series. Dead characters are revived at 1 HP, but can't be revived with healing magic during battle. There's nothing like LP, so you don't need to worry about the character dying for good if killed too much. (Be aware, however, that petrification doesn't go away at the end of battle.)
* The game universe consists of a bunch of worlds, with a pillar connecting them. To go from one world to the next, you need to collect a certain number of relics; only then will you be able to proceed to the next world. (SaGa 1 does something similar, except that SaGa 1 has only one such treasure per world, and the tower is an actual dungeon unlike SaGa 2's pillar.)

(I'll describe SaGa 3 DS later, but note that, unlike SaGa 2 DS, it redid the game mechanics in some rather drastic ways.)

ban spammer

Character customization and choices should come early and often.

This is one of the reasons I like the d20 (D&D3e/Pathfinder branch) and can't stand Fifth Edition on the tabletop. And cRPGs that are "choose class, that's it" are not as fun usually as those that you can change direction or prioritize certain things at different times during development. A game without respeccing had better either be short, or allow you to be come so OP that your choices eventually won't have mattered (ie, or gain all abilities). There's no room for such lock-in nowadays. Randomized stats/rolled stats work in a tabletop RPG that inspired those games because you have a person (presumably a friend) making the game, and it's a shared group experience to tell a story, where low-stat-characters can be a fun story. In video games, stats shouldn't be randomized like that except as an optional extra challenge, because it's going to be a fixed (or largely fixed) experience that can't very well cope with outlier characters, and can't make the story very easily "roll with the punches". Says the ACTUAL spammer who pretty much never participates constructively in any conversation here. This heuristic has good merit to it.

SaGa 3 (Game Boy):
* There are huge differences between the original and remake versions.
* In the original Game Boy version, each character has a level, and you increase your level by gaining experience. (You've probably played some games that use this mechanic, but this is the only SaGa to do so. Note that Kawazu, who was involved in the rest of the series, was not involved in this game, and it shows. Also, note that this mechanic is absent in the remake.)
* Each character is initially a human or esper. Humans are good at weapons, and espers are good at magic. The character's stats in these races increase at higher levels. It is not possible to turn a human into an esper or vice versa.
* Enemies sometimes (less frequently than I would like) drop meat or parts. By installing them, the character's race can be changed, which can cause the character to change to other forms (beast, monster, cyborg, and robot are the available races). Beasts change form at level up, cyborgs get stats from equipment (like SaGa 2 robots, but not as flexible), while robots get stats from buyable consumables (like SaGa 1 humans).
* Like in SaGa 2, there are no arts to lean. Only normal attacks, spells, and (for non-human/esper characters) talents.
* On the other hand, there's no weapon durability. Spells require MP to cast (a lot like JP from later SaGas, but you may be familiar with MP from other RPGs. Nothing like SaGa 2's Muse Points).
* There are multiple world maps to explore. In particular, there's time travel.
* Around midway through the game, there is a point of no return, after which the time travel mechanic disappears.

(I'll discuss the DS remake later, as it differs in some rather fundamental aspects.) The problem comes when there are too many irreversible choices during the game. It's the sort of thing that caused me to quit Lords of Xulima; too many irreversible choices.

I think I like SaGa 2's character development; you choose a race at character creation, but each race has different ways they can be developed (especially with the remake's additions). My one complaint is that human/esper stat growth is too slow; fix that and the game would be even better.

Definitely ongoing development for me. As others have said, early customization requires familiarity with the game, to know just what will be useful and allow you to play it as you'd like. It may work better for party-based games with sufficiently large parties, I say 6+, that allow having enough to fill the available roles, but it will still easily catch you with wrong irreversible choices unless you really know the game already.
Initial customization should likely offer some early boosts, making the character a bit better (or a bit less bad, being so low level) at a few things in the early stages, but then allowing further development according to the player's preferences and the game's requirements as they become known.

I agree with others that up-front builds work best for those that know the game or where minimum advancement occurs. Games with lots of advancement and/or where the average player won't know the rules, like new video games, I think work best with development over time. That allows the player to see what works and what doesn't in a game, what they like and don't, and shape their guy accordingly.

Might and Magic 9 is a game we don't speak of, like Ultima 9. It's so bad we pretend it doesn't exist. However, I'll mention it here as perhaps the one thing I do like about that game was their character development. All previous games were like most D&D games where you chose a class at start and played that the whole game. MM9 did something different though. At creation you only chose "might" or "magic" characters.... just two choices. Much later you were given a split choice. Might could become a warrior or rogue. Magic could become a priest or wizard. Later, you were given a final split choice. Warriors became rangers or paladins, rogues became gladiators or assassins. Priests became clerics or druids, and mages became archmages or liches.

I didn't like MM9 but I thought the development system here was clever. It allowed you to fine tune your characters after learning how the game worked. That's a system I'd use in a game that had classes. That said, A better system altogether would probably not have classes, and simply give players a buffet of choices to customize as you will. Deus Ex 1 did that, letting you choose one binary option each upgrade offered.

I was thinking about this recently. I have 2 CRPG's that have been pretty highly rated on my backlog (Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer, and Pathfinder: Kingmaker) but the character creation process is a bit intimidating to say the least. I was thinking about how easy it was to start ARPGs, where not only can I usually just pick a class and run, I can respec if needed so I don't cripple myself with mistakes early on.

I thought Tyranny did it pretty well. You do have that segment in the beginning where you make a lot of decisions, but as far as character build - you can't really cripple yourself. The decisions you make are all narrative rather than mechanical, and it more or less lets you jump in and enjoy.

I don't want to invest 15 hours into a Pathfinder run to find out that I screwed up my build, and I don't really enjoy hunting around for build guides to follow. So I'm pretty firmly in the camp of customizing as the character advances.

For me, I prefer most of the development to be based on ongoing decisions, as it allows to compensate for initial bad choices. In some games it is especially hard to know beforehand which skills/traits are most valuable.

For skill/attribute points, ideally any combination should be useful as long as you can learn a corresponding playstyle, but in practice this is not the case. Most players recognize that spreading the points around too much is bad, but how much is too much in a particular game?

E.g. in Legend of Grimrock 2, in the beginning of the game minotaurs can choose a special starting trait among these choices:
"Head Hunter" - gives +1 to strength for every skull the character finds and carries
"Rage" - gives +10 to strength when the character has less than 20% health remaining
It's hard to guess which of these is more valuable at the beginning: can characters last at less than 20% of health in combat long enough for the rage to make a difference, versus how many skulls will there be to find in the game?