Why are the characters important?
In any game (not just RPGs) you want your player to finish the game, and in RPGs part of the motivation to do so is likely the story. Without good characters (very likeable characters and those which make you want to punch them in the face) the story becomes irrelevant as the player will have no connection with the characters or their troubles.
Basically, without good character your player will likely not bother to finish the game at all.
So we need good graphics right?
Wrong, fantastic characters can be created through dialogue and this is quite often much more important than the fancy sprites. For proof of this look for some of the ancient RPGs that started off the genre, and think about how the developers managed to keep the characters important to the player, despite the tiny 8 colour graphics.
