Actually your movie example is pretty great. I was the past week on the Berlinale Movie Festival in Berlin. This year the retrospective had SF-movies as a theme, and as I like SF I watched a lot of old movies. Himmelskibet is a hundred years old movie, black and white and silent. But it impressed me with it's special effects. Yes you heard right. The ghost for example were pretty well looking transparent figures. I doubt that with modern computer technology they could be made much better. All it took was using the technology of the time very carefully and out a lot of effort into it.

And yes, a lot of movies aged well. Mostly not because of their special effects, but because of superior storytelling and structure. I take a Vertigo, a Modern Times, a Metropolis over most movies of today.

they're awesome but not 100% pure games u know wut im sayin?

I went through a binge of buying older PS1 games a few year back that as a kid with no money couldn't buy. I bought games i knew existed, knew they were good based on general consensus and mostly (aside from a demo here or there) had never played.

Some of them are now some of my favourite games ever. Whether due to their simple gameplay style and fun to finding a gem no one played. Basically Devil Dice, Vagrant Story and Star Gladiator. Plus games like Crash 2 you can play now without any issues of quality because it's that good.

Yet... if these games were made today. People would say Devil Dice is nothing but a puzzle game and would be £10 if that on PSN (not the £40 release it was in the 90s), people could complain Vagrant Story isn't an action RPG or open world (because that's all people seem to complain about now with RPGs) and Star Gladiator only had 10 characters, it should have 35.

... people are weird.

Okay I don't even have to get into Goldeneye/Perfect Dark and how terribly those have aged. But the other ones are probably some of the better examples of games that hold up.

SMB3/World, can make a decent case, and I'd still argue that if you were to give 100 random gamers who never played Mario, those two and New Super Mario Bros. U, they would enjoy the new one more, and not just because of the better graphics. However, this would be more of a close call and it is evident 2D platformers have not advanced as much other genres have.

Chrono Trigger is the only JRPG that really holds up. It doesn't require grinding, it doesn't drag on, it doesn't have random encounters. It can definitely be as or more enjoyable than modern turn based RPGs for new gamers. While I don't know how well the whole genre of turn based RPGs hold up compared to ones without turn based combat to new gamers without preconcieved notions of what RPGs are, it's incredibly difficult to judge from my perspective, and would be an entirely difficult discussion.

Donkey Kong Country, will be less enjoyable than Tropical Freeze for a new gamer. Has very similar gameplay, while far less variety and less creative level design.

Ocarina of Time, will be less enjoyable than any new Zelda game for a new gamer.

Castlevania Symphony of the Night, makes a good case, but not because of how well it holds up but because these kind of games don't really get made anymore. Somewhat similar to Super Metroid. Still new gamers would enjoy games like Dust: An Elysian Tail, Ori and the Blind Forest and Guacamelee more than those said games, but that might be a lot down to the presentation rather than game design.

Either way TLDR:

The best 3D games do not hold up by todays standards. The best 2D games without archaic mechanics, and without faithful modern sequels do, because more of such games today are only made by indie studies that have trouble competing with the best 2D big budget games of the past.

Well, why would we compare old games to today's standards? Even so, I spend more time playing old 3D games than I do playing the newer ones.

Well, 3D was sometimes in it's beginning and it is still evolving. First 3D-titles I counted back then as worse titles then that time 2D-titles,. but people enjoyed it because they were thrilled by the new tech. As they are today, look how many threads are about new tech, new graphic improvements of games and hardware.

2D has evolved too, first games were black-and white or 16 colors with fixed color-table. This looks bad for todays standards:

Hercules monochrom.

4 colors CGA.

16 colors.

256 colors. I couldn't find the same scene in that resolution.

Anyways, after 256 colors and with higher resolution where is still improvement, but beginning with 16 colors and even better with 256 it looks OK and no longer like total crap. And gameplay is in all variants pretty good, but in 256 colors you can enjoy the backgrounds.

So, I would say for 2D the point there it all was OK with VGA 256 color resolution. After that the graphic improved, but it impacted not very much the experience anymore. For 3D (besides more compting power) you needed more colors (to see the lighting pretty good, 16Bit-colors are a must) and more resolution. So 3D has much higher technical needs to look acceptable.

it depends on which game, and it depends on who made it. i would certainly take Super Mario Bros. over New Super Mario Bros. U even if it doesnt have HD graphics, modern platformer mechanics, or any of the fancy stuff. and thats because Nintendo has spread themselves pretty thin and made questionable games in the recent years.

but then theres GTA V which is understandably the best game in the series. the story was great, the gameplay was great, the controls and mechanics all felt great, it had online. nothing to complain about.

I think old 2D games still hold up very well, especially from the SNES and GBA gens. I mean, can anyone honestly say that Secret of Mama, Chrono Trigger, DKC, Megaman Zero and Drill Dozer have aged poorly? I'd also argue that Chrono Cross is as good or better than any other modern turn based JRPG.

3D games had to struggle with camera issues during the early days, which majorly hampers them in comparison to today's titles, but there are still certain design elements, and entire genres that have nearly disappeared today. The loss of the 3D platformer in modern times is a shame. What counts as platforming these days is basically just holding the left stick in the direction of a ledge to "jump." I feel like puzzle solving in action adventure games stopped being a real thing recently as well.

Also, Quake is still the reigning champion when it comes to fps's. I modern quake-like could probably surpass it, but fps design trends have gone in a totally different direction.

Examples please, seems like you're not connecting with most of the crowd.

I completely understand your line of reasoning but I think it places too much weight on the very first impressions of newer gamers.

Would a new gamer prefer Skyward Sword or Ocarina of Time? Maybe Skyward Sword at the very first glace since SS is very pretty and OOT looks dated. But check back in 30 minutes later. In the first few minutes of Ocarina you're already setting out to get a sword and shiled and dive into the first dungeon. 30 minutes into Skyward Sword, you're finding cats, learning how to slice sticks at different angles, and learning about Link's bond with his dumb bird.

As far as Mario goes, I'm pretty sure a lot of kids play and make Mario Maker levels. I still tend to see a lot of SMB3 and SMW levels though. Not only does the look and music from those games hold up extremely well, but they have a few different set of mechancis that allow for different things. The spinning propeller suit isn't inherently better than the cape or the raccoon suit. 

I also completely disagree with regards to the JRPG thing. I think that Final Fantasy 4-9 is categoryically better than Final Fantasy 15. Better characters. More engaging story. More engaging combat. More talented artists working on the game. Better music.