Have you ever gotten into a game because of its sprites?

[Helmo]

http://www.spriters-resource.com/game_bo...ce/iceage/

Goemar said a lot already and I need to go to bed so...

Graphics/Style are extremely important. Style more so than graphics, as graphics are stuff like shaders/polygon count and all the high tech stuff. A game with a great style will look good beyond it's years but a game with "cutting edge realistic graphics" will pale in comparison to future games.

Half of playing a game is staring at a screen like it or not.