Current Events > IYO: What's the least important part of a video game?

(+) Yeah! (+)

What's your thoughts?
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The title
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the "press start" screen
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Graphics

The graphics are the least important

But usually if the graphics are bad it's a sign that the developer is lazy and the game itself isn't going to be any good
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Audio. I can forgive just about anything music related, or mute it altogether. Bad voice acting can be so bad its good.
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Ilishe posted...

Audio. I can forgive just about anything music related, or mute it altogether. Bad voice acting can be so bad its good.

Listen to the soundtrack of the NES game Rock and Bullwinkle...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEtU-s4S3rM
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Since you added other, that adds a whole world of completely pointless factors like if it has a title screen or if the button prompts are colored.
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Yeah, I kinda had those coming -.-
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Audio, not even a debate. Sure, bad music can hurt but I can't even understand people who say a game is their favorite because it has a good OST.
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I primarily play strategy and racing games, so I mostly fall into Carmack's school of storytelling: a plot is expected to be there but it's not important
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DoomSwell posted...

Audio, not even a debate. Sure, bad music can hurt but I can't even understand people who say a game is their favorite because it has a good OST.

Final Fantasy 8's soundtrack is so good that it actually convinced some people into thinking it's a good game.

graphics least important with story 2nd least.

Well, actually I'd take awful story + ok graphics over ok story + awful graphics... but once a certain minimum level of graphics quality is reached I think improving it beyond that is the least important
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It really depends on the game but I'd go with story. It's the only one listed there that can be totally ignored and still have a great game that's great to play.

Obviously story based games rely on them but they still need the rest of the stuff there to be good in order for that story to be an enjoyable experience.
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In general, I'd say audio is the least important. Good audio really stands out but otherwise, we mostly forget about it unless we sit there and analyze which effects were used.

I can't tell you about all the different audio differences in different RPGs. I happen to like the Morrowind theme but as far as TES goes, a lot of the sound effects and stuff blend together.
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The loading screens.
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Replayability. A good game can be a one-and-done deal. That said, a good game would be good enough that I would want to play it again sometime later even if I had no incentive to.
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Mystere posted...

DoomSwell posted...

Audio, not even a debate. Sure, bad music can hurt but I can't even understand people who say a game is their favorite because it has a good OST.

Final Fantasy 8's soundtrack is so good that it actually convinced some people into thinking it's a good game.

I could debate you into the ground over this but I don't have the incentive.

Just know that you're wrong.
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Outta those five options, replayability. Easy
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Replayabilty. There's so many games out there I don't need to play one a million times. As long as it's a satisfying game, I'm content if I play through it once and move on to a new game.
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Other - Boring answer, but it depends entirely on the game.

The gameplay in visual novels generally doesn't matter, that's all the story.

Rhythm games need good audio far more than they do good graphics.

Some games thrive almost entirely on the art. El Shaddai comes to mind.

Of course, most games ride on the gameplay, in which most other qualities can be ignored if it's fun enough.
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Other: the unused sprites

But if you want me to rank them in importance, it would usually go:

Gameplay
Story
Audio
Replayability
Visuals (artistry, designs, etc)
The unimportant things about graphics that you mentioned above, like resolution and framerate and all that nonsense
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The thing with graphics is, is that the game absolutely needs to at least look "okay" with no stutter and stuff.

Art/design isn't that important though, since it's just artistic choice compared to game optimization. Sometimes developers spend too much on pretty graphics but the game suffers in other areas or if they cheap out, it's generally a lazy experience.
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Ilishe posted...

Mystere posted...

DoomSwell posted...

Audio, not even a debate. Sure, bad music can hurt but I can't even understand people who say a game is their favorite because it has a good OST.

Final Fantasy 8's soundtrack is so good that it actually convinced some people into thinking it's a good game.

I could debate you into the ground over this but I don't have the incentive.

Just know that you're wrong.

Triple Triad alone is better than the rest of Final Fantasy 8.

The thing with graphics is, is that the game absolutely needs to at least look "okay" with no stutter and stuff.

Art/design isn't that important though, since it's just artistic choice compared to game optimization. Sometimes developers spend too much on pretty graphics but the game suffers in other areas or if they cheap out, it's generally a lazy experience.

TBH, a steady framerate doesn't even belong in the graphics category. It belongs in the understood "game actually works" category that obviously trumps the others.
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Replayability is the only thing on that list that often hurts how games are designed. Instead of delivering a satisfying experience in a single playthrough, lots of games will artificially withhold perks or story beats, force you to replay and grind through levels you've already seen. When a game is filled with microtransactions, publishers usually want to force replays too, so that players have more chances to buy into the microtransactions. It turns into this nasty thing where games are designed to last until the player is exhausted, rather than until the player is fulfilled.

When you can replay a game and still enjoy it, that's good of course. But replayability for its own sake is something I value little, and sometimes dislike. And naturally it suits some types of games better than others.
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Replayability is the only thing on that list that often hurts how games are designed. Instead of delivering a satisfying experience in a single playthrough, lots of games will artificially withhold perks or story beats, force you to replay and grind through levels you've already seen.

Battle Network 4.
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TheOnionKnight posted...

Replayability is the only thing on that list that often hurts how games are designed. Instead of delivering a satisfying experience in a single playthrough, lots of games will artificially withhold perks or story beats, force you to replay and grind through levels you've already seen.

you know, I never even really thought about this as part of "replayability". And thinking about why, it's probably because I don't own many (any?) games that really do this. But ultimately, a system that locks certain things until your second playthrough, or third, or whatever, means nothing in terms of replayability to me. They make you want to replay it, sure, but that's different from making replaying it fun which is what I consider replayability.

To me, replayability is based a lot around freedom and available choices. If a game is extremely heavily scripted, its replayability is low since you've seen everything already the first time.
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Creativity.