The most important aspect of a game?

What part of a videogame do you feel is the most important? Graphics? Story? Music? Characters? Gameplay? Replay value? Voice acting? etc...

I've always felt that music is by far the most powerful part of a game because it is, to me, the best way for the story to convey emotion and make the player feel those emotions. I'm a big RPG fan and this applies most to that area, since very few of the best RPGs are lacking a good soundtrack with at least a few memorable songs. Just a few examples would be Final fantasy VI's opera scene, VII's One wing angel, tons of chrono trigger, songs from secret of mana, and Star ocean (the original, don't know the others), and tales of phantasia. Yes, I do like the SNES, if you can't tell. That said, there are RPGs on other systems with good sountracks, such as Baldur's gate II and Oblivion, so this certainly isn't a console specific phenomenon.

The importance of music is definitely not limited by genre though. The original Diablo had a soundtrack that helped to scare the life out of the player, as do the resident evil games. The metal gear solid games all have stellar soundtracks that help bring the game's story to life and then some. The music from the original Halo and Quake II both did great jobs of getting you pumped to blow the crap out of something. I can think of several others but I won't drag on about them.

I think the fact that the least important part of a game is the graphics, to a fault. When we cross the uncanny valley, graphics will matter as then they will be able to convey emotions clearly as well, but until then, graphics are really the least important part of a game. If a game has a wretched soundtrack, storyline, or gameplay, it can ruin the experience provided by the game. Note that. Games should be an experience, not just a mindless run and gun where you blow things up from point A and B. They should make you -feel- something. Often modern games don't really pull this off but that is a different topic. The least important part of being able to experience a game is how it looks- the fact that I am still able to play games on dead consoles and get a little warm inside during certain scenes definitely says something about the importance of graphics in a game.

That's just my opinion- What is yours?

Controls - the layout, the responsiveness and the complexity. If a game doesn't feel responsive enough or I feel like I'm constantly 'button juggling', I'm usually pretty turned off from the game. The controls don't necessarily have to be intuitive, but I should be able to perform all actions without thinking about it after some practice.

Good examples - Old school Mario and Sonic (responsiveness), Skate (complexity and layout), Black & White (intuitive & simplicity)

Bad examples - Perfect Dark Zero (button juggling), Dungeon Siege (mage characters)(responsiveness)

Gamepla and Art Direction (sound & visual) come in a close second though
Story, technical graphics and sound are the least important to me. Although the latter do still have some value to me, especially in more action oriented games (eg. FlatOut destructables).

Theme. What does a game try to do? That's the ultimate factor.

How well it plays or looks or sounds are all important too, but only in support of a great theme, a great idea, a great concept.