It's gratuitous just for the fact that it can be. I saw, as I stated, cliche and your same typical tropes all over again. Yes, there was an awesome and dark quest involving a demon baby, and a abusive father, and blah blah blah, and it was well written, but did it do anything to stand out from many an RPG before it? No, not really. It has plenty of cliche and typical fantasy tropes that have been seen in many an RPG before it. Yes, patches have made it better, but it's in no way the most graphically masterful game around, far from it in fact.
But is it the best looking game out there? Not at all, and especially wasn't when it first came out. It's a good game, but not nearly as wonderful as some on here would like to think. Now let me preface this with the fact that i do like the game.