by Bill Todd

Created on: May 01, 2010

 Graphics are nice, but a pretty picture isn't what I bought a game for. Playability and replayability are what I look for, and I can think of a couple of games where playability is key and graphics aren't needed at all. 

 First up is Romance of the Three Kingdoms. I originally played this on the SNES and there are games still coming out for systems. At its heart, it's a numbers game. The graphics are only there to give the player something to look at, although all the player really needs to see is the map and the various numbers that represent the key elements of the game. This is because it's a turn based game.

 If playing in real time then you must have graphics as part of the package. Playing one turn at a time, though, you can get away with not needing them. Another case in point:

 Wizardry is an old game. Originally released for the NES, this is arguably the best, overall, RPG ever made for serious RPG-ers out there. The only purpose for the graphics at all were to tell you if you what you were standing in front of (wall, door, or monster). Everything else was numbers. It's a no frills game for people that want to play an RPG the way it should be played. No side-tracks, no personal stories, no glory when you set eyes above ground again, just entering the dungeon and seeing how far you could get without getting yourself killed. There were other versions of the game for later systems, but none of those could be compared with, or anywhere near as good, as the first one.

 Aerobiz was a business sim for SNES. You ran an airline and had to set up deals with airports around the world to land your planes there, then get people to ride in those airplanes. The graphics for this, again, really not needed. The numbers alone were more than able to tell you what you needed to know.

 In the end, though, some games need good graphics, others don't. It depends on the game, and I consider it a crying shame if someone passes on a game simply because it they feel it doesn't look good enough to play. Looks are the last thing you should look at. Unfortunately, in this day and age, it's usually the first thing everyone looks at.

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