Can graphics / art style 100% turn you off a good game?

In a way, at least for me, that is maybe a bit of an oxymoron.

Can a game be a good one if the graphics are really bad?

If yes, then clearly the graphics don't really matter.

If however, the graphics are an integral part, then to my mind, by definition, the game is bad.

Can one overlook bad graphics, and still enjoy a game? If so, then by definition, that is a great game regardless.

That said, graphics can be ill-suiting or off-putting, that's for sure. So I suppose they can spoil a game all on their own.

I'll have a fiver each way thanks. ;)

Interestingly, this is exactly the sort of style that would have turned me off a game


but I quite enjoyed it (except for the teeth-grindingly frustrating bugs)

This sentence is much better formulated than title of the topic.

And the answer is yes, of course it could.

Hello dtgreene!

I am quite sure the game on the right side is "Little Samson" on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).
It is a well made action game with impressive graphics for the NES era. I liked it.

Here is the game's info page on mobygames:
Little Samson on mobygames

Kind regards,
foxgog

"Style" or "vibe" is actually rather important to my enjoyment of a game, but I want to stress that this has almost nothing to do with graphical fidelity; I still find some rather old games (e.g. Hexen, Quake, Diablo, Baldur's Gate, System Shock 2) to be visually extremely appealing.

What I found turns me off of games is style that's aggressively cheery (bright primary colors, big spaces, few details, exaggerated gestures and facial expressions), or to "arts&crafts-y" - like that style where the nose of any character is a red triangle. God, I hate even looking at it, it looks so crude, like nobody even tried to make it look nice.

...I like detail, and subdued hues, and elegant lines, and actually visually pleasing abstraction (as, for example, Jugendstil has).

Anyway. My first priority for any game is immersion, which means the game's graphics need to facilitate that for me. So, if they're too distracting, make me think too much that this is a game (instead of a world), they can turn me off of otherwise good games. Well, in a way, if a game sports an art style that yanks me out of my immersion, it isn't a good game - for me, anyway.


edit: And I concur with the assessment that many "retro" styles don't really understand what made those graphics work: Back then, the artist had to create the most out of limited means - they strove to make something as good as possible with what they got, making every polygon and texture count. "Retro" often misunderstands this as "how can I make it look really poorly and low def with copious means?" - they're starting from the ass end, and work backwards from there, and the results often are not pretty.

Yes, it absolutely can. Shallow as it may seem, it does matter if a game is a match for me visually. Although, it doesn't mean the game has to have glorious cinematic 3D and high graphical fidelity. I've found various differing styles of 1D, 2D and 3D very appealing. And I do like games that don't require mega-huge sizes to install.

But if it's not to my taste, I'm afraid it passes before it has a chance to sell itself.

Bet you couldnt manage it tho.

I pretty much avoid games with an realistic aesthetic. The real world holds no appeal to me in the first place, and I often find that realistic-styled games tend to be paired with tedious mechanics and controls.

Are you trying the entirely fallacious "I'd like to see you do better" argument? Because that's an excuse, not a comeback.

But as a matter of fact, yes, I actually could draw better art than this.

Gotta agree that immersion is everything. I can forgive or tolerate certain weaknesses in a game if the immersion is good enough, but like with movies or books or even music, if something jars enough to wreck immersion, that is a big negative.

But I guess it depends on your own take on entertainment. For me, it is an escape, and anything visual or audio or intellectual that disrupts that, is bad. I've been known to give up on things if that gets too bad. I like to forget the real world for a while and get lost in something greatly imaginative, that isn't due to some chemical drug or too depressing etc.

Forgive me father, I have bumped a thread.

On the subject at hand, 100%? Probably not. But most of the way there. For example, there's that one Deus Ex game with what is affectionately known as the "Piss Filter". This "Stylistic choice" (Which I'm suprised made it past all stages of development) has indefinitely put me off even taking the game seriously.

As other posts said, the brown is real era has made it really hard to think about going back to games from that era.

The overly simple programmer art as "8 bit" is also an insult. Mark Ferrari's art was 8 bit too, but I can understand why you might be fooled into thinking otherwise. I'm not saying I'd be put off entirely, but even if there's not an artist on your team, one can put in more effort.

Isn't a massively large portion of the GoG catalogue extremely ugly old games from the 90s or even older?

I would expect this is one of the reasons why people actually come to GoG, to play those old ugly games. Can't imagine people can be too bothered about graphics then.

oh, so THIS is where that notification comes from.

no. im asking if you could actually do what you are complaining about as its very stylistic and whether or not you like it, it would have taken years of work, training etc to be able to consistently manage an output like that.

evidently you dont work in any form of creative role though - but maybe you should as you seem to know better than everybody else because you have a knee jerk opinion. well done. :)

Subjectivity aside, many of the games were the finest they could bear for their platforms. Then there's intentional stylistic choices.

Again, "can you do it?" is a lazy non-argument. You're championing mediocrity here, I know a lot of artists who could churn out this volume of art, significantly better, in very little time. If you're making a commercial product and your artwork looks like this after 'years of work', it's time for a new vocation.

Also I'm hardly the only one here to think this game's artwork is half-assed crap. Yeah yeah, all art is art and art is subjective, but sometimes you get the Mona Lisa, other times it's shit smeared on a canvas, doesn't take a professional to be able to tell the difference.