Not in fantasy and science fiction. A sufficiently intriguing setting and/oror story premise can make up for other shortcomings. I honestly couldn't tell most of the human characters from Lord of the Rings apart (nor could I tell Merriweather and Pippin apart, nor could i tell the dwarves from The Hobbit apart) but I still loved the movies anyway. There weren't any recurring characters in The Twilight Zone (unless you count the narrator). And 2001 A Space Odyssey is widely recognized as one of the best movies of all time despite having some of the most opaque and incomprehensible storytelling of all time. Plus, some of the best writers in history were rather poor storytellers, but made up for it by having good stories to tell; Tolkien, Dickens, and Lovecraft concocted some of the most wonderful stories ever told and then set them down on paper in a fashion that was only barely readable.