DO GRAPHICS MATTER?

This is a loaded question, but id like to try and answer it.

In short, there's no objective wright or wrong answer to this, as it depends on personal preference, but I think we can peel away a rational way to look at it without throwing it all to opinion.

In short, a games graphics can enhance the overall quality, and a good game made better, but you can not take a shoddy game and make it good by adding good graphics. Graphics serve to enhance the game, not build it. The essence of what makes a game appealing in the sense of what makes it a fun game isnt because of visual appeal. Still, in the same way that looking at a piece of artwork is pleasurable, or listening to a well-written composition, so do these things make a game all that much more pleasurable when you play them, and see the artwork or listen to the music.

Theres also distraction due to graphical errors, inconsistencies, and these can interfere with the gameplay. E.g. a graphical glitch can act as a hurdle by saying, causing a trap to be invisible which should be visible to the player. This is really sidetracking, I think, and doesnt deal with the question of whether aesthetically pleasing games have any bearing on the games quality.

The easiest way to look at this is through a case study, where you look at games that are generally considered fun, not fun, and are on both sides of the graphical camp in terms of games that are pretty, and games that arent. I.e. general consensus fun games that arent visually appealing, and bad ones that are, which reverts back to what I said about bad games not being redeemable through how beautiful they may or may not be. Also, take into consideration better art style, or more polygons, and how theyd affect the game.

I love the hand-drawn style of games like Astal for the Sega Saturn or Braid. These games visually appeal to me in the same way that anything else would on the same level. The games may hold more meaning to me by having the artistic merit, but not are not necessarily more fun. Meaning and fun are two mutually exclusive properties of games, but are often lumped together, which is a mistake. I think that this is probably the biggest take-home message here, in that "matter" is in a sense of how you ascribe what matters in the game; whether or not it is meaningful, or fun, which graphics affect one but not necessarily the other. Then, how do you derive fun? Are meaningful games fun? Are fun games meaningful? Ask yourself that, they arent always the same thing,

Technical "beauty" and art direction are totally different. Astal isnt technically impressive by todays standards, but is still a relevantly beautiful game. On the flip side, the rendering of a gritty war zone in Call of Duty may be technically impressive, but we generally wouldnt consider a war zone to be a piece of art in person, which leads to something else to mention.

How do we judge art? How do we judge beauty? Why are these things meaningful to us? What aspect of art appeals to human beings and our appreciation of it?

When art depicts reality, we are usually awestruck by the design, impressed that one can symbolize reality through "art".

If an artist were to sketch a lifelike image of someone thats unattractive, most people would probably admire the similarities, no matter the subject, the same thing applies to video games - right?

I just streamed my thoughts here, there's probably a lot of incohesiveness around my post, jumbled thoughts, fragments, puzzle pieces, I dont know what you want to call them. I just think that the bigger picture is not confuse meaning and fun, and how art not necessarily affects a games meaning, but how it can put a spike through the gameplay in terms of how it affects you actually playing the game. If you can nail these things down, then I think youve answered the question.

Graphics matter in rpg maker, yes, of course. But less use of rtp is great.