What is more important to you?

[Rynnec]

Saw this topic on another forum, and thought I'd copy paste it here.

Put these in order of your own personal importance, from most to least important:
Graphics
Music/Sound
Gameplay
Story
Voices
If you can think of any other aspect in video games you feel it should be brought up, do add it yourself

I'll kick things off by copying what I wrote in that thread:

Gameplay - Easily the most important
Music - More important than one might think. Music in an action or fighting game has to get the blood pumping, music in an RPG has to have nice emotion in it, etc.
Graphics/Story - equally important. The graphics have to be servicable (don't care if it's in 2D, 3D, Cel-shaded, or rendered) and the story has to be fun and/or enjoyable at the very least, with equally likable characters.
Voices - If the voices are good, great. If the voices are bad, give me the option to turn them off.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

The importance of story really depends on the type of game that you're playing. In a fighting game, I couldn't care less about the story, and while some games are certain exceptions with great stories, like MK9, it really doesn't take precedence over any other aspect of the game for me. With action games, good stories are welcome but I won't have a fit if there isn't really a great story to be had. If its something like an RPG where the gameplay is pretty much build around the central story, and you will be forced to do a lot of repetitive stuff and go on fetch quests and the like to progress through the story, than it better as fuck be interesting or I'm not going to feel like playing through more than a couple of hours of it (when you get down to it, most great RPGs keep you interested through their stories while their gameplay would feel tedious without the story to keep you distracted from performing repetitive tasks).

Voice acting more or less goes in line with the story. If its a game in which I don't give a shit about the story, then I likely won't care about the voice acting so long as its not horrendously annoying in a case that you're forced to listen to a ton of it without being able to skip any of it. If its a game that is heavy on story, though, and it actually has good writing, than it should have good voice-acting to support it.

Graphics aren't super important to me either, but they should at least look decent enough to the point that you can clearly distinguish individual things from one another in the game. There shouldn't be any blurriness or weird coloring or textures due to bad graphics. Overall, as long as the graphics are serviceable enough to the gameplay, than they are good enough for me (though it certainly doesn't hurt if the game as great graphics). Personally, I care far more about level design and how interesting the environments look from a creative standpoint than how many polygons the game supports.

Gameplay is EASILY, easily the most important thing to have in any game. Everything else about a game can be great but it'll still be shit if the gameplay is boring or broken. Ninja Gaiden Black is my favorite game of all time, and while it has great graphics for its time they are no longer as outstanding as they once were back when it was released. The voice-acting is sub-par in both languages and the story has some interesting merits to it but overall feels clunky and not well put together. That said, I can overlook all of that because of how amazing the gameplay is. It has aged so well over time and I still to this day find it to be the best action game ever made (and this is coming from someone who loves what he's played of DMC3 and Bayonetta). The game also has the most replay value for me, personally, out of any other game that I have ever played.

Another thing that I would add to a list of what's important in a game is atmosphere. Atmosphere doesn't necessarily just mean having environments that immerse the player and the like, but it goes in line with a game's overall level design. The game should have some sort of main vibe or tone that it goes for and that should be represented by its overall atmosphere. I suppose another way that I would put it is a game's level design. One might say that it is part of gameplay, and in a sense it certainly is, but I also feel that it deserves to be viewed on its own, because I separate gameplay itself into 2 parts: the mechanical side of it and the level design side of it. The gameplay mechanics are hugely important and the level design/atmosphere are equally as important because the mechanics wouldn't be nearly as fun if you were doing them in a bland setting with no good background or pieces of actual environment to interact with in some way.

That's basically what I see in terms of how important various aspects of a game are.

[Foggle]

Gameplay - It's a video game. A game. Gameplay. Why wouldn't this be the most important factor?

Music - Awesome music really elevates gameplay, IMO. If the gameplay is lacking but the soundtrack is amazing enough (see: Wet), I can still derive tons of enjoyment from the game. Bad music can make me hate entire levels that are otherwise fine.

Voices - Great voice acting definitely improves the experience for me. Story means absolutely nothing if the voice acting sucks (see: Heavy Rain). However, consideration should be given to when the game was made. It is much easier to forgive laughable acting (Resident Evil 1) and awful accents (Deus Ex) if the games are old enough.

Story - If the story is really good or cool, it totally makes the game more awesome. Bad stories don't bother me much unless I'm playing an RPG, though.

Graphics - Beautiful vistas and lifelike characters are definitely pluses, and technically broken graphics really sour a game experience, but I couldn't care less about polygon counts and shit like that.

[gunswordfist]

Graphics
Music/Sound/Voices
Gameplay/Controls
Story
Replay Value
Difficulty
Length

1. Gameplay/Controls:
I lumped controls in here because it makes or breaks gameplay. These are games that we're talking about so gameplay is top dog here.

2. Difficulty:
A game being too cheap or easy is for the most part a bad game in my book. Balanced difficulty that's challenging and relies on clever design instead of cheap mechanics is a major plus.

3. Length:
Too short and I either won't buy it or it'll be at the bottom of my list. Don't believe in this new "Short is sweet." the hardcores have been heralding. I cringe every time I hear someone talk about how they hope their games are short because they don't have time for long games. That's what the save feature is for. Games are only too long if they feel like they have unnecessary filler. I can play games have ridiculous length as long as they keep me hooked. Rant aside, 15 hours is my bare minimum for 3D games.

4. Replay Value:
Honestly, not that important. I do love coming back for New Game +s and addictive gameplay but that's it.

5. Music/Sound/Voices

6. Graphics

7. Story

[talonmalon333]

I think it's hard to rank, really, because games are different. I mean, sometimes I find it more important to be amazed by a brilliant looking world rather then tugging at a control stick.

It's not there, but for me, atmosphere wins overall.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Gameplay
Music/Sound
Voices
Story
Graphics

In that order.

Gameplay - If this isn't your #1, find a new hobby. I mean, come ON.

Music/sound - Atmosphere is very important to any game, and the soundtrack is what helps give any game its unique atmosphere. Plus, nothing can help a level feel better than having a kick ass tune playing while kicking ass through it.

Voices - This isn't really important to me, but I listed it because it can be detrimental to the actual game if used improperly. For instance, did anyone here play the TMNT 2K3 games last gen? Those voice clips will drive you insane and kills the entire experience. I don't care about good voice acting, I care about good usage of voice acting.

Story - As long as it's fun, I don't really care. Not all the important to me outside of RPGs. Though, I do prefer them to be good in execution or else why bother playing?

Graphics - I honestly don't give a rat's ass about graphics. I care more about art style. There are NES games I'd rather look at than some modern games simply because of their great usage of style. But graphics themselves are my least important aspect to enjoying a game.

[talonmalon333]

Gameplay - If this isn't your #1, find a new hobby. I mean, come ON.

There's more to games then just buttons.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Gameplay - If this isn't your #1, find a new hobby. I mean, come ON.

There's more to games then just buttons.

Nothing matters more than gameplay.

[gunswordfist]

Gameplay - If this isn't your #1, find a new hobby. I mean, come ON.

There's more to games then just buttons.

Time to get called out on your stupidity

[Geezer]

Gameplay - If this isn't your #1, find a new hobby. I mean, come ON.

There's more to games then just buttons.

Gameplay is more than just buttons, though.

[gunswordfist]

Gameplay - If this isn't your #1, find a new hobby. I mean, come ON.

There's more to games then just buttons.

Gameplay is more than just buttons, though.

Don't worry, we'll get talon some new flashcards

[talonmalon333]

Should have figured I'd get some responses. Thankfully not all of it needs responding cause gunswordfist doesn't matter, but for those who are curious...

Everything is important to me. Music, graphics, story, and gameplay all contribute to the "fun" factor. You can have good gameplay. But if there's nothing else appealing, I'm not interesting in just wiggling around the control stick and playing with buttons.

There's a reason I think atmosphere tops all these. It's THE lasting impression. SMG has such a beautiful atmosphere, combining a deep space theme with a Disney-like feeling, and that's why I prefer it over it's sequel, and any game in the series. Then there's something like TWW, where I just love the feeling of sailing. These little things are what make games what they are. And if they lack a great atmosphere, the gameplay and anything else will be simply forgotten.

Also, a category that needs to be mentioned is difficulty.

[Angus]

Difficulty, or ease of gameplay tops my list. This has come a long way since the arcade games of old. Checkpoints, save files, level replays, forgiving controls, skipping cut scenes, and the ability to recover from any point to complete the puzzle without having to start over (thanks Lucasfilm). If it's a puzzle based adventure game, it should be easy for casual gamers to complete, yet also provide additional challenges to reward skillful players and completists, but not so hard that you're required to master some special control sequence that has no relevance beyond the game itself, or have to enter cheat codes and consult walkthroughs the entire time.

And as with anime, the world immersion is key. Graphics, sound, music, voices should all support that.

Also a 50 dollar adventure game should have a nice lengthy story that can't be done in 10 hours.