Graphics quality is the sum of the quality of the modeling, rendering, layout, and animation. It is subservient to aesthetic - a game's graphics are technical in nature, while the aesthetic is emotional. Technically, however, I think this game was very good.
The animation in this game (imo) managed to feel (overall) quite natural, everything seemed to work well and smoothly. I noticed no major graphical glitches - no real clipping, no jarringly mismatched textures, no aberrant or distracting components.
Elements were clearly and easily identifiable and there weren't any real visual display problems - meaning the layout lacked major flaws common to games nowadays. The actual placement and framing of scenes was amazing overall, as well.
For the rendering, this was, hands down, the best game of it's style I've seen. There was just the right amount of detail to achieve the aesthetic desired. There were a lot of
good technical choices made here.
I suppose the modeling and rendering could have been better for the walkers, but the modeling of the main characters at least was amazing.
I normally hate games of this style because it is fuck-as-shit hard to do well - It is a technically difficult style. It's an aesthetic that makes the graphics terribly easy to muck up. This game managed to do it well. If you want to see the perfect example of a game with great aesthetics but poor graphics, look at, say, Psychonauts or Viewtiful Joe.
Graphics are about making the right choices and using the right technology to get your presentation as close to perfect as you can. I think that, technically, The Walking Dead did a really good job at that.
You are the one who seems unable to understand the difference. Statement's like
The game's comic book art-style helped to mask the poor graphics
?
Seriously?
The art-style can't "mask" poor graphics, because it determines what "good graphics" are, because good graphics (from a game perspective) are /solely/ about how effectively that art style is reached. Graphical quality is determined by your goals, and your technical ability to reach them.
Here's the way to tell the difference between a game with good graphics and one with poor:
If you look at it 10 years later, does it look dated? Is it less effective? Is it, in extreme cases, painful to play, because the flaws are easily visible?
Then it is a game with poor graphics. It may have an amazing aesthetic, but you can see all the ways in which it failed to live up to that aesthetic, by comparing it to better alternatives. You can see where the made technical concessions.
A game like, for example, Chrono Trigger? The games graphics are amazing. They support the aesthetic flawlessly, and it doesn't get any worse, by comparison, as the years go by.
I honestly don't think that's going to be the case, here. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think this is one of those games where I'm going to look back on it in a dozen years and think to myself that it looks terrible. Maybe I will, maybe I'm wrong, but I think this is the best technically executed example of this style I've seen to date (and if you've got examples of games in this style with better graphics, please let me know).