First thing to pop into my mind is Metal Slug, which I don't remember as having any huge gameplay problems save for the huge cartoon bosses causing massive slowdown, which they eventually got past. But yeah, for every Metal Slug there's a bunch of Bug! and Clockwork Oranges out there too I suppose..

They made a clockwork orange game?

ARE YOU A BAD ENOUGH DUDE TO TOLCHOK FILTHY OLD SOOMKA?

Boy, it's been a while since I've heard the graphics aren't everything argument.

Importance of graphics quality is inversely proportional to quality of gameplay.

Nice when you get both though.

I don't know, there are a couple pretty cartoony and lush games I can think of from the 90s (albeit more towards the mid-90s) that were pretty legit in terms of gameplay quality. I'm thinking specifically of Ristar here, which while the action was a little one-note, had lovely graphics and played pretty well.

@Hooker and Solro
Higher graphics quality is better! I want the highest quality (and best art design) I can afford (time and money) in my games.

@Louddetective
Ristar actually looks ok on that front, compare how much the sprites deform in their overall shape in Cuphead to Ristar. Ristars sprites pretty much remains roughly the same rectangular shape as they animate, Cupheads go all over the place completely changing aspect and shape. I dont how Cuphead does collision (It doesnt have to be a simple hitbox) but its gonna be weird and unintuitive and flying in the face of decades of platformer collision conventions burned into most platformer players brains. Also the forground background, whats a platform, whats not, seems fine in Ristar, pretty much following the visual language of platformers at the time. ps. Im not saying follow convention and dont innovate, but if you *do* follow convention in certain basic things you get some player understanding for free, eg wasd to move mouse to look. etc, especially if the game your making already follows conventions in its overall design (eg platformer, fps, and not experimental nobi nobi boy or something)

@All
Just to clarify. Good graphics are good!
If your going to set about making a game, and not a film or work in some other medium, then your priority should be to make a good game that makes use of the mediums unique strengths. (If thats not your priority then perhaps youve chosen the wrong medium for your project) A lot of different element go into games, design, code, art, audio, writing. In order for the whole thing to work all those elements need to work together to serve the overall goal, which is make a good game.
The purpose of the graphics is to convey information visually to the player about what is going on in the game world, when making art that should always be your priority. They can look amazing or look like shit but if theyre not doing that then theyre hurting the gameplay which is the #1 priority.
Theres loads of examples of all 4 combos, shit / great graphics, works with / against gameplay. Cuphead *looks* to me (I havent played it) like great graphics working against gameplay.

*A

Have not played, going to wait for a sale. But have looked at quite a few streams and it does not look like there are any major flaws in the gameplay (assume that any experienced speedrunner would have mentioned it)