Yep, this game has Horrible graphics...

And this is still far from gold version  

It really is a great picture. Everything looks so clean and beautiful as if it had just been raining. 

Graphics DO matter. Polygon counts do not.

I still regularly play games from the 16-bit era, and some of my favourite games are from then even if I didn't play the games until years after they were released, and as such the graphics were very "dated" in a purely technical sense.

To me, games are are made great by their feel and immersion more than anything else. Ninja Gaiden made you feel like a badass ninja, not some guy hitting "X" and "Y" to make pixels move. Rome: Total War made you feel like a Roman General (when your soldiers actually behave properly). Slick presentation and production values can add to that immensly. I want to SEE my cities growing and expanding, not just a slider telling me they are. I want to gaze across my empire. Basically, anything that makes you go "THIS IS JUST A GAME" and snaps immersion like a twig is a bad thing.

That being said, I find a lot of developers spend far too much time trying to make a game look "impressive" rather than looking "good" which hurts the game in the long run. Take Baldur's Gate 2 for example. It was never really all that impressive to look at, but it's graphics hold up surprising well 10 years later. On the other end of the spectrum is something like Final Fantasy 7 (Which I DO love), was technically brilliant back in the day but actually looks silly now, and arguably worse than the Super Nintendo games. Elemental seems to look really good, and I think it will stand up better than many games that try to go the realistic approach.

Of course, I'm one of those "Games are art" people, so I get all excited whenever I see a new and interesting art style for a game, and Elemental certainly delivers on that.

Adding to your argument, look at Vagrant story for the PS1 (released early 2000). Its devs took original ideas (for its time), concept artwork, a game engine, and the hardware of a PS1, stuck it under a tablecloth, waved thier hands and *poof* out came a brilliant game that still looks good almost 10 years later.

Having a unique visual style and graphics mixed with solid/fun gameplay can really set a game apart from the rest. If your to far removed you risk getting labeled an arthouse project.

I would like to agree with what is being said here, but when I look at King's Bounty: The Legend, I think it will age great too, especially considering the high quality of animations and various spell effects in combat, but Elemental art style so far looks devoid of content and details, like I said before realism is not the issue, nor that it is cartoonish, but what kind of cartoonish, I hope that is obvious to everyone.

Maybe it is too early to talk about this.

It's not too early to discuss the style of the game, but nitpicking details is a long ways off. Details and such are added as the game is polished, expecially for a Stardock game that's a TBS to begin with. If we get to the end of beta and nothing has changed, then it will be something to discuss, but as of now I think the graphics are great since for the first phase of beta none of them will even be displayed.

devoid of content and details: You mean the things that get added when a game gets out of alpha/beta?

Your arguement is poorly made and way too early in. Wait till march or so to complain, then you'll have a point.