huh? doesn't he say the same you do?

Graphics have to "complete the game", ergo the art must serve the games nature, which in Heavy Rain's or Mass Effect's case means it must be realistic for those games to work and realistic looking games need a lot of hardware power (or they end up unintentionally funny, breaking the immersion).

"Mother" works brilliantly with cartoony graphics and wouldn't work with "realistic" ones.

To me "graphics" consist of the three components - technical realization, art style, animation and if all go hand in hand you have a "graphically impressive game", like SMG for example, while many HD games only have technical powers and an unfitting art style and therefore aren't as impressive.

Mother 3 is a very serious game even more so than Heavy Rain, it's all about how you go about making your game.

I was making the point they don't have to be balls to the wall with power to make a visually pleasing game that gives the effect that you want, point being games like Indigo Prophecy from the Heavy Rain devs last gen.  I wasn't really debating anything other than power doesn't make a whole lot of difference its the talent of the people going into the project.

Games like Final Fantasy IV are visually pleasing to this day, have a lot of atmostphere, and pull off a lot of effects and feelings and it was the first FF game on the SNES and they had a while to refine that into FFVI.  The games give off the aura of a serious story, a living world, and the effect that it's pretty big and epic, no 3D required :P fast forward to FFXIII and while the battle system is pretty fun and its a really pretty game, I never get the moody feeling like I did with FFI-IX, and it's all about the team coming together on the right parts and having someone heading the project with a real vision in mind to make it all work.

I have to disagree. I never owned 1 single Nes or Snes title that emmersed me into feelings. Never. Not any FF game at all. I got the story, but in terms of feeling it was just thought not emotion. 

I firs tbecame emotional in a game with FF7. And that was due to the CGI not the speech bubbles in gameplay. I believe totally, that graphics are a huge part of the emotion. Imagine Armageddon when Brucie dies as words on a screen with a cartoon character? It wouldn't and doesnt work. 

I never once played Snes or Nes, or even PS1 and N64 for that matter to get a great emotion. The only real emotion was frustration when I didnt finish a level or boss. 

To be honest a few games in the N64/PS1 days showed me games were starting to get emotionally involving and were starting to offer the graphics to portray enough character emotion to make me feel for that character. 

Likely you didn't play the right games since not every single one of them are for emotion, FFIV really isn't about the same type of emotions like I was talking about with Eathbound and Mother 3, FFIV has a lot of thrills and that's what is portrayed well, FFVI on the otherhand is a lot about portraying dispair, while VII had a lot of sadness.

There's also the fact that the face of core games have changed a bit, at one point it was about the arcade experience at home, at another point a lot about gameplay over anything else, and especially this gen it seems to be about the cinematic movie experience brought to life with video games, with that you have a lot of people trying to inject games with emotion, but to be honest game stories rarely if ever stack up to those of the movies.

Another thing with graphics and giving off feelings, you have games like Monster Hunter, the games lack a lot of story, but damn the landscapes they create make you feel like a hunter out in the mountains hunting, you see a mountain in the distance and it gives the feeling of looking at beautiful landscape, also done on weaker hardware PSP/PS2/Wii, while Uncharted 2 gives many of the same effects.  And that's my whole point hardware doesn't dictate the feeling it's the developers and their talents that do.

please don't compare "lifelike graphics" we have nowadays with top notch actors! an actor is not good, or a scene believable, because he looks lifelike, most of them obviously do ;) , but because of his acting. and thats exactly why i think the opposite of what you say is true. if anything, the uncanny graphics and animations nowadays resemble a bad b-movie actors! scenes with not-so-lifelike characters that leave more to the imagination often touch me a lot more.

...and the first movies i cried at were bambi and dumbo (ok, i was a kid then, but still). there is no problem to deliver emotions over cartoony characters if you do it right.

I get your point, but I never cried at those things so, I dont really know what to say. 

Basically I never got emotional at any of those games from those eras. I guess I play games for differing reasons as I got older. 

But I'm just giving you my account as I grew up. It's only my opinion. So I hope noone feels like I was saying it as fact. :)

Don't forget about the days of silent film, which is essentially films with words on the screen like he stated and there's some stuff to pull up from those days as well, but the emotion had to come through from the actors and director, a team pulling together to portray real feelings and emotions.

so now its only wii owners that can appreciate great gameplay nowadays?

how about having great gameplay and great grafix instead.

I'm no noob to gaming but I still love good graphics. Do I think a game needs amazing graphics to be good? No. I like games with good graphics because it helps bring me into the world the developer has created. Now there are games like Super Mario Galaxy 2 that I think have good graphics art direction wise. I like good graphics but it doesn't make or break a game to me.

I enjoy the fact that visuals in games are being pushed and seeing technical advancements. It's why I own a PS3/360 and not a Wii.

Graphics are part of the pleasure I derive from gaming. Exploring a very detailed and realistic looking environment and studying the various effects and little touches the devs have incoporated into the title alone is entertaining.

The game also needs to be good of course. Personally, this gen, the games I've enjoyed the most have had both fantastic graphics and fantastic gameplay.

A game with terrible graphics on the HD consoles is usually a good indicator of the games quality. Production values tend to be lower when such an integral part of the game has been overlooked or not put together well.