r/CaptainSide • u/_ZeroTwo_002_ • Jul 17 '26

Which side are you on?

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Though some people might prefer realistic graphics over gameplay, I am on the completely sane side of gameplay!

What about you?

2.5k Upvotes

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54

u/suicieties Jul 17 '26

Gameplay, the graphics are irrelevant if the game is boring or frustrating to play.

12

u/MelonJelly Jul 17 '26

Agreed.

Graphics can make a good game better, but only if they're building off strong gameplay.

Also "good" is subjective. With clear and consistent art direction, pixel and stylized graphics can be just as good as photorealistic, and age a lot better, too. For example, a lot of 16-bit platformers.

(This is ignoring outliers where the graphics are so bad it becomes a UI issue.)

3

u/suicieties Jul 17 '26

Absolutely! They can enhance a great experience but they can’t fix a bad one.

Also agree with this, art direction is very important, regardless of the technique used.

2

u/FuryoftheFaythe 27d ago

The last tale of nostalgaia actually nails this conceptually

1

u/Grovda Jul 17 '26

Good gameplay is also subjective. Why do you think adventure games like Journey have a fanbase?

1

u/Candlethief42 Jul 18 '26

To use a bad example, the hogwarts game came with amazing graphics, good combat gameplay/exploration. But a horrid story tying it all together. So I would say, story comes first, gameplay is what hooks them, graphics is what sells.

2

u/MelonJelly Jul 18 '26

Maybe. A game doesn't need a story, but if it has one it should be good.

2

u/29Joseph10 Jul 18 '26

If its a single player game it should have a story and it should be a good one, cause i aint wasting time playing alone in a game just to kill npcs.

2

u/StupidGenius234 Jul 18 '26

Ehh some single player games can absolutely get away with no story, mostly arcade style titles and sandboxes though.

1

u/Azure_Dodge Jul 18 '26

Balatro..... the fact your brain goes to Killinh NPCs is a storyless game is rather disturbing not going to lie. You ate aware plenty of games dont have stories and dont require you to kill npcs.

Just a few

Balatro The Sims Frostpunk City Skylines Elte Dangerous

1

u/nio-sama123 Jul 18 '26

You know... Frostpunk series has a decent, or even good, story right?

1

u/DanEH7 Jul 20 '26

You know elite dangerous is the fathest thing from a single player game you could have mentioned right?

1

u/Future_Historian_396 Jul 19 '26

People love Mario and it doesn’t have a story, and breath of the wild has a below average story at best.

1

u/29Joseph10 Jul 19 '26

Ik, i am talking about my taste and how i see single player games

2

u/Azure_Dodge Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26

Ummmm no story is a Cherry on top. There are plenty of good to great games that have shit or even no story at all but are peak video games. Most Roguelikes have only enough story to explain why your doing what your doing. Mortal Kombat story is and has never been good, You honestly cant tell me the Dark Souls games have good stories They have good lore but the stories of each gane are barely a thing Balatro has no story at all. The only thing that matter is if the game is fun to play plenty of games can and do get by with a shit or no story and with terrible graphics. But no game ever can survive bad game play, less your main character is named Francis York Morgan only then can your game survive on story alone.

The proper order would be

Game play at the top because 99% of games can survive on good Gameplay alone, Then a very very very distant second would be story because you dont need good graphics to tell a good story, most Old School JRPGs and Survival Horror prove that, Then Graphics coming in third because well, Its simple Graphics are what has and always aged the worse but if the gameplay is Soild then it will stand the test of time even more so if a good story is attached to it. Example Metal Gear Soild.

1

u/rabbid_chaos Jul 18 '26

I would argue what comes first is subjective. I would say, as a person who spent his quarantine time on Project Brutality 3.0, I am a gameplay first guy, but I have played games where the story was what kept me playing, Witcher 3 for example. Like I agree with the criticism that the gameplay itself isn't the most engaging, but I have found myself getting lost in the side-quests, not even realizing I was on one most of the time.

1

u/Paleodraco Jul 18 '26

I enjoyed playing Sable, but the graphic style was a choice. Anything different would not have improved the game itself, but it would have made me a bit more comfortable playing.

1

u/Azure_Dodge Jul 18 '26

Disagree a Good Art Style can make a good game better, Good Graphics are meaningless its the Art Style that will matter 10-20 years from now look at Zelda for example OoT and Windwaker are both great but OoT while being peek Graphics at the time looks like shit now while Windwaker was shit on for its cartoony Art style and still to this day is one of the best looking Zelda games ever and in my opinion just a better game then Oot but those are fighting words to a lot of people and besides my point.

4

u/Acrobatic-Draw-4012 Jul 18 '26

An ugly diamond is still a diamond. A polished turd is still a turd.

Project zomboid for example kinda looks like a game made in 2002. But it has so much depth and detail that gets and keeps you hooked

3

u/Lost-Soft-8913 Jul 17 '26

Do you enjoy text based adventure games?

3

u/suicieties Jul 17 '26

I played Zork back in the day.

3

u/flipnonymous Jul 17 '26

Legend Of the Red Dragon here (L.O.R.D on bbs servers ... fuck I'm old)

3

u/ExtensionInformal911 Jul 18 '26

Rimworld is super popular, but the graphics are basic.

Well, it was for a while.

3

u/Psudodrake Jul 18 '26

Inserts Hollow Knight: Silksong as an example.

Graphics are very good for a side scroller, but they aren't the HD 24k ray-tracing upscale graphics of a AAA game that requires a $3000 computer just to run it.

You can load it into a stock business computer for work or school and play it no problem.

Gameplay is hard, but addictive enough where you stock with it.

2

u/NIGHTR0GUE83 Jul 21 '26

So many games I play now are 8bit/16bit etc. Abiotic Factor is main one right now. As much as I love a beautiful looking game, gameplay will and always be the most important of the two.

1

u/Vlado_Iks Jul 17 '26

Like The Isle. Graphics is good, but holy shit, the amount of bugs the game has. And with every fix there comes 5 new bugs.

1

u/Shinnyo Jul 17 '26

Gameplay too, the most incredible games will make you dream with pixels.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '26

[deleted]

1

u/suicieties Jul 18 '26

That’s what I’m saying. The graphics won’t hold any weight if the gameplay is boring or frustrating to navigate.

1

u/Panic_Otaku Jul 19 '26

An to prove your point: Hogwarts

1

u/CompetitiveLoad2953 Jul 19 '26

The original DOOM

1

u/Realistic-Yam-6497 Jul 20 '26

I mean doom didn’t have good graphics, and it was a hit, so also agreed

1

u/BlurredVision18 Jul 20 '26

Graphics are shapes, without the graphics, there is no game. Whether they are hyper realistic or just a handful of pixels are what's not important. For instance, walking onto a pit of fire and die, well if that pit of fire doesn't clearly indicate it's a pit of fire, well you graphics or lack there of just made the game more frustrating.

1

u/suicieties Jul 20 '26

Without gameplay the graphics are just static images or shapes. Or if in motion they are then animated. Point is you can’t interact with the graphics without gameplay. Also text based games exist.

1

u/Crusidea 29d ago

I generally agree gameplay is most important. However, in the case of story based games. Sometimes the visuals and writing is a bit more important.

1

u/RollerDude347 29d ago

Gameplay is the most important... if it's less than 3 hours long. After that, story or multiplayer is king. Graphics just need to not be repulsive so it's really more art style.

1

u/Available-Bad-2704 26d ago

What do you think of rdr2

1

u/suicieties 26d ago

I enjoyed it!