Why High Graphics and Realistic games sucks

[DragonRouge]

The_Liquid_Laser said:

DragonRouge said:

The "graphics at the expense of gameplay" dichotomy, is false for the most part. Visual presentation and gameplay mechanics design are two different jobs done by different people actually. It could make sense for low budget games with limited amount of staff, but in that case, what cutting edge graphics technology could you afford?

Every former fan of the Final Fantasy series knows this dichotomy is real.  Final Fantasy games used to be excellent all around: graphics, gameplay, music, world building, story, etc...  Then Final Fantasy 13 released.  Visually it's one of the most impressive games on the PS3, and the music is excellent too.  Gameplay, world building and story are all noticeably lacking compared to earlier Final Fantasy titles.  They didn't even have towns.  That is a severe cutback.

Budgets are limited.  Companies choose how many to hire for each job to work on their games.  Currently for AAA games it is common for artists and animators to take more of the games budget than all the rest of the staff combined.  It did not used to be this way.

The "FFXIII has bad gameplay and design" is highly debatable, and the decisions made in that regard could have been more related to their goal of appealing to the western market than because of budget priorities.

Yes, budgets are limited, the point still stands. A game having great graphics doesn't mean that it has crap gameplay of that there was a consciuos decision to sacrifice gamaplay design for shiny visuals. That is more of a perception from a prejudice some people have, which for some strange reasons, hate cinematic elements in video games.