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Anime Graphics, Gameplay and Story

Lemming42

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This shows up quite a lot on videogame forums, but I don't remember it ever showing up on the codex. Should be interesting to see what people here think.

You have to put Graphics, Gameplay and Story in order of importance to reflect what you feel should be the priority of videogames. Also to avoid confusion, "Graphics" is an umbrella term referring to art direction as well as technical quality.

I'll start. Gameplay > Graphics > Story
 

chestburster

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Story comes in first (using the word in a broad sense, it should also refer to the whole "experience" the designer is trying to convey: e.g. a Mars space mission simulation can have no traditional "story" to speak of, yet is created to portrait what exploring Mars should make a person feel)

--> Graphics should support story

--> Gameplay: if "gameplay" is used broadly to refer to interactive mechanisms to convey the "story," then gameplay should be as important as graphics;
but if "gameplay" refers to the usual fun core feedback loop (as in, dis game is a "shooter" because in it you point your cursor over some target and press mouse, target dies/explodes and you feel some satisfaction), then I don't care about gameplay. I don't need a Pavlovian machine.
 

80Maxwell08

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I'll go with Gameplay > Story > Graphics because writing does mean something to me. Also if a game is trying to have a story and it's utterly horrible it destroys a lot of the enjoyment I have going forward. Grandia 3's story made me hate that game so much despite how much fun I had playing it for hours but so much crap about "the power of love" made me drop it.
 
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Xu Fugui

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Gameplay > Innovation/Creativity (not the buzzword kind) > Story > Ambience > Polish > Audio Design/Soundtrack > AI > Wholesomeness > Graphics
 

Athelas

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Gameplay > Story > Graphics

Of course, I'm of the firm belief that 'story' should be part of gameplay (through things like C&C as well as having as few cutscenes as possible).
 

warpig

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Gameplay>Aesthetics*>Story

*Artstyle/music/sound, I don't care about the technical quality of graphics as long as it's not below certain level. Wanted to use the word "atmosphere" but this is a broader term and story and gameplay also contribute to the atmosphere or "feel" of the game
 

Unkillable Cat

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Graphics is the No. 1 method to get people's attention and encourage them to play your game. I'm sorry, but that's the cold, sad truth of it.

And with games being games, gameplay is also vital. The graphics hook you, the gameplay reels you in.

If the gameplay is good enough, there may not even be a reason to have a story. Sometimes storyless games come out as classics. Sometimes a game becomes a timeless classic because of it, but sadly the story often detracts from the game and drags it down.

So my order is the same one of the thread title - Graphics, Gameplay and Story.

Note that this doesn't make me a graphics whore - I just call things as they are. But I do enjoy every game that manages to successfully break up the sequence... as few as they may be.
 

Metro

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The question is what you feel is important not what sells. Gameplay >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> whatever else.
 

chestburster

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If the gameplay is good enough,

Define "good" gameplay.

Is it a system in which you can gain a lot of satisfaction by achieving a win state (hence Roger Ebert condemned games as never being art because you always "win" a game), or is it a good interactive mechanism that allows you to better experience a story (the mechanism itself may be mundane, annoying or depressing, depending on the requirement of the story)?
 

Dexter

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I'll be honest and say:

Graphics > Gameplay > Story

I'm thinking that everyone that doesn't put graphics first is disingenuous in these "Polls", since video games are mainly a visual medium and represented through their visuals foremostly.

For instance if the latest Batman game still looked like this:


I would be far away from
:d1p:

And if "graphics" didn't matter most games would still look like that:
6a00d83452989a69e2011570ee9fe6970b-800wi


Or that:
02+Mystery+House.JPG


Now that doesn't mean that "graphics" are the all-important factor and make a game good or that they can't differ e.g. what makes a 3D shooter good "graphics wise" is different from a painterly 2D Adventure and similar.

Gameplay is obviously second because there are enough examples of games without any or only the excuse of a story that are still fucking fun. e.g. Mario and similar or all the early Shooters, basically:
"Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important."
 

DalekFlay

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Gameplay->Nonlinearirty->Setting->RPG systems->Lore->Art Design->Story->Controls/Interface->Technical Graphics
 

Night Goat

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Story > Gameplay > Graphics

It's hard for me to stay interested in a game if the story is negligible or bad, even if the gameplay and graphics are good. I can tolerate bad gameplay to a certain extent, if the story is keeping me interested, but it has to be a damn good story or I'd just be better off reading a book instead. Good graphics are nice, but I'm used to doing without.
 
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Xu Fugui

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I'm thinking that everyone that doesn't put graphics first is disingenuous in these "Polls", since video games are mainly a visual medium and represented through their visuals foremostly.
I'm thinking that anyone who puts graphics first can't like games very much. There have been plenty of games that blew all their dev time on graphics that sucked ass when you actually played them. Those are the absolute worst IMO, because all those great visuals are wasted on a crappy core.

Even the worst looking programmer art or even just a simple menu system can make for a very fun game if the dev behind it is autistic enough to give a game like that depth. Aurora and Dwarf Fortress are great, Uplink had no art to speak of and yet it was a good and atmospheric game. Starflight has minimal graphics by today's standards yet I enjoyed it much more than Mass Effect and Star Control 2 combined. ZAngband and ADOM are probably some of my most played games andI don't use any tilesets so that's pretty much no graphics there. Recently Prospector has been eating up my time instead of my untouched installations of Baldur's Gate 2 and Mars: War Logs that I intended to play. Heck, I also planned to get into Civ V but I just can't drop Civ II and III for the new one because they are just too much fun and Civ III can look pretty atrocious at times.

For you the visuals might be why you play but I can assure you that my outspoken preferences are very genuine.
 

Dexter

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Hey assholes, stop determining "truth" for the rest of us. Projection like a motherfucker.
It is universal truth that graphics matter over anything else for a visual medium (and without visual representation the medium wouldn't be possible in the first place), the single most important factor in getting games to evolve and their increase in popularity as well as what one is able to do with the "gameplay" and "story" in the first place have been increasing technological jumps in computer graphics and the methods to display them over the years, from the very first "cathode ray tube" creations that a few scientists got to enjoy to today where Virtual Reality might finally become a possibility.

From being able to draw specific lines on a monitor, to monochrome representations, to the first colors, increase in bits, first possibilities of drawing out actual images and similar as backgrounds, the first animations, 3D graphics and so on...

Even the first CRPGs wouldn't have been possible without these improvements over times:
Dnd8won.png


People who put anything else first are probably confused or have a highly different/very limited definition as to what "graphics" entails to something like "DirectX Versions" or "improved water effects" when "graphics" decide literally every single thing being rendered out to your display device, be it even Cartoony/Animation style or Isometric/Pre-Rendered 2D art. A lot of people on many forums are thinking solely in "console generations" or little incremental upgrades when that is a very small part of the bigger picture in regards to computer graphics and what they enable a game to be or be able to do.

Even the worst looking programmer art or even just a simple menu system can make for a very fun game if the dev behind it is autistic enough to give a game like that depth. Aurora and Dwarf Fortress are great, Uplink had no art to speak of and yet it was a good and atmospheric game. Starflight has minimal graphics by today's standards yet I enjoyed it much more than Mass Effect and Star Control 2 combined. ZAngband and ADOM are probably some of my most played games andI don't use any tilesets so that's pretty much no graphics there. Recently Prospector has been eating up my time instead of my untouched installations of Baldur's Gate 2 and Mars: War Logs that I intended to play. Heck, I also planned to get into Civ V but I just can't drop Civ II and III for the new one because they are just too much fun and Civ III can look pretty atrocious at times.

For you the visuals might be why you play but I can assure you that my outspoken preferences are very genuine.
And that's all great and comes in where game mechanics enter the picture. I love Civ II+III too, more than IV or V and played many of the games you listed (although I really need to catch up on Star Control 2), but as said above none of them would exist in the first place without improvements in graphics and processing power over time. Civilization would have been a thing of sheer impossibility even 5-10 years before its time without the inherent improvements (and that's likely also part of the reason why you are playing Civ II+III in the first place instead of the first). Just because a few Unreal Engine 4 games will inevitably end up sucking ass won't invalidate that basic truth.

It's all relative and perception changes over time though, for instance I can remember a time when still playing things like Cauldron on a ZX Spectrum:
cauldron-ii-the-pumpkin-strikes-back_2.gif


And I came upon the depiction of Prince of Persia in a PC magazine:
Prince+of+Persia.gif


It literally blew me away since I didn't know such a thing was possible and looked like the best thing I had ever seen, like put together by some sort of dark magic. I returned to said article many times the coming weeks dreaming of a time I'd be able to play something like that.

Also there's different cut-off points for different people.
 
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Machocruz

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People who put anything else first are probably confused or have a highly different/very limited definition as to what "graphics" entails to something like "DirectX Versions" or "improved water effects" or something when that is a very small part of the bigger picture.
Which is, I assume, the context in which the OP is asking about graphics. i.e. how attractive or impressive the game looks. So being that I've put at least 3 times as much time into Dwarf Fortress, in ASCII, than any other game I've played, 90% of which look more attractive and impressive, the objective truth of my situation is that play weighs more than visuals. Tell your ego to get out of the way, and this should be quite easy to understand.
 

Tehdagah

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It's hard to put graphics in first place because most good games have mediocre/poor graphics.

(...) For instance if the latest Batman game still looked like this:


I would be far away from
:d1p:

Well, the latest Batman game had 7 years old graphics.
 

Jick Magger

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Gameplay>Art Design>Music>Story>Graphics (in the most literal sense)
Story and graphics are not as much of an issue for me so long as the art and sound design is able to carry a consistent and powerful tone and atmosphere. Hotline Miami's story is borderline incomprehensible and actually mocks you for trying to find any depth to it, but what makes the game so memorable is its fast paced, frenetic gameplay along with its stylish and ultra-violent art direction and amazing soundtrack.
 
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Night Goat

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It is universal truth that graphics matter over anything else for a visual medium (and without visual representation the medium wouldn't be possible in the first place), the single most important factor in getting games to evolve and their increase in popularity as well as what one is able to do with the "gameplay" and "story" in the first place have been increasing technological jumps in computer graphics and the methods to display them over the years, from the very first "cathode ray tube" creations that a few scientists got to enjoy to today where Virtual Reality might finally become a possibility.
:nocountryforshitposters:
By your logic, a modern AAA corridor shooter is better than any classic RPG. Shouldn't you be on IGN or something?
 

Metro

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It is universal truth that graphics matter over anything else for a visual medium (and without visual representation the medium wouldn't be possible in the first place), the single most important factor in getting games to evolve and their increase in popularity as well as what one is able to do with the "gameplay" and "story" in the first place have been increasing technological jumps in computer graphics and the methods to display them over the years, from the very first "cathode ray tube" creations that a few scientists got to enjoy to today where Virtual Reality might finally become a possibility.
:nocountryforshitposters:
By your logic, a modern AAA corridor shooter is better than any classic RPG. Shouldn't you be on IGN or something?
:nocountryforshitposters:
Says the story-fag? I believe his point is that Hotline Miami has fun gameplay but the story is largely unimportant.
 
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