Gameplay is definitely important for me, if not paramount. But graphics help give an undeniably important atmosphere or vibe to games, which can impact one’s overall feeling of the game quite a bit.
- For example, I only played AoE Online a few hours due to its cartoony style.
- Gameplay seemed pretty decent, but I couldn’t get over the cute, bouncy, bubbly graphics intended for, roughly, 10 year olds.
- Graphics created an atmosphere for the game that I didn’t care for and didn’t want to play as an adult.
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And is why cute profile icons in AoE2:DE events don’t do much for me, as indicated by this thread:
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I enjoy Civ games, but have never been a huge fan of their cartoony style or overly cartoony advisers and political leaders. It hurts the atmosphere and detracts from the game for me… so much so that I only own Civ 6 because it was given out for free on the Epic Game Store last year, and is partly why I don’t play it very much. (I wonder how many of the 25K players you mention got it for free, too, or at a very steep discount during a holiday sale?) The big reason I don’t play it much is that it sucks up so much of your time! lol
I wouldn’t want to play Uncharted games if they were 8-bit pixelated games made in 1985 and I was trying to play them for the first time in 2021, if all gameplay was intact and only the graphics were different.
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All that said, from what I’ve seen of AoE4 so far, the graphics don’t feel too cartoony for me, personally. I would definitely prefer them more realistic, for sure. But it seems less cartoony than Civilization games, and is above the ‘too cartoony’ threshold I have in my mind. I sympathize with players who have a lower tolerance for cartoony graphics. I can relate, but in the case of AoE4, fortunately, I think I’m okay