Do you think some pre-7th gen games still look nice?

[the_lonely_gamer_123]

Smeags said:
Honestly, there's a plethora of 16-bit games that still (and will always) look fantastic.

It's the 5th (N64/PSX/Saturn) that certainly hasn't held up well, and to a lesser extent the 6th (GCN/PS2/Xbox) compared to what we see now-a-days.

For the 5th gen, it's ironically the 2D styled games that hold up best today. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Yoshi's Story, Suidoken, Paper Mario... while the more technically "impressive" games of that era (Ocarina of Time, Perfect Dark, Conker's Bad Fury Day) haven't aged nearly as well from a graphical standpoint.

The 6th gen holds up much nicer, and there's certainly a lot of games that "look nice" to this day. However, there's only a few that can still hold their own against today's graphical juggernauts, and that's only because of their creative art directions that used the power behind the console in creative ways. Viewtiful Joe, Okami, The Wind Waker... these are some games that can be played by anyone today and not lose a beat (well, there's always a lack of widescreen, but other than that...).

This. The 5th gen looks terrible to me now, and this is sad because I grew up with that generation of game. Games like Super Mario 64, Super Smash Bros, Mario Kart 64, GoldenEye 007 all feel dated to me because of the early 3D graphics in those games. However, SNES games seem to run like a dream, the sprites look nice and the games run smoothly. I whine like a little bitch when playing Super Mario 64, but I don't whine when playing Super Mario World or a 2D 5th gen game such as Paper Mario, as you just mentioned.