I would argue it's the opposite. I think critics' and consumers' standards have become much more lax over the last two generations.

And it has nothing to do with Nintendo or Sony or Microsoft. I just think video games reached a creative and artistic peak in the 1990s, on all platforms.

Depends on the game. Mario 64 and Link to the Past are still some of the best games ever made. Ocarina of Time on the other hand has not aged very well and I do not understand the obsession with calling it the best game of all time. It's not even the best game in the series.

You can say this about any old game, idk why your only picking on Nintendo games.

Difference is if OoT released today it wouldn't have been as original. On the other hand, today's gaming landscape wouldn't be the same without Ocarina. What it would look like without Nintendo at large I can't even begin to imagine.

Because I can't remember any other games that were rated highly

F**king loopholes... Just pretend the loophole didn't exist.

You can't time travel without loopholes. ;)

I would agree. Most of the titles back in the day are highly overrated, and at times goggles need to be taken off. There are great titles, but most get smashed by 7th gen games and even 6th gen. SMB1 was fun for a while but I can't play it anymore (yes I did speed runs already with and without shortcuts). There are very few exceptions to what I would consider genius and great. For example, SMB3 will remain my favorite SMB of all time as far as 2D goes because it was so ground breaking (SMB2 was just a reskinned doki doki panic, although I did play real SMB2 and it was quite challenging). River City Ransom is in my top 20 of all time because of how great they did the beat em up rpg which is an almost non existent genre, and the closest thing to it is Scott Pilgrim. Most of the past games I can't touch. OOT=highly overrated and if you have read my past posts I have good reason for it as it was barely ground breaking when compared to Majora's Mask (now THAT is greatness). I tried OOT on emulator and couldn't get into it. Timeless classic would be Shadow of the Ninja from the NES (especially on 2 player). An adventure game that would be better than most Zelda games but overlooked would be The Magic of Scheherazade (go play it now!).

Now current and prior gen games still hold their own and surpass these "timeless" classics. For example tropical freeze, Yakuza series, God Hand, Guacamelee, Outland, The Witcher series, inFamous series, any major fighting game now trashes the old ones out the water (Umvc3, BlazBlue, SF3 third strike, etc), Gta series from PS2 and forward (except 4), Resogun (as far as a shmup goes), Einhander, rpgs goes to ps1 with ff7-9, xenogears, legend of dragoon (among MANY others), then to compete with Zelda you have Brave Fencer Musashi, Alundra, and current Y's series (Y's is my personal favorite since original computers-gaming since 1985).

I could name many more but it would take me a while. The point is that yes, starting from the ps1/n64/dreamcast era up to now, there are games comparable and in most cases better than what existed back then, and the whole thing with timeless classics belonging to nintendo is just a misconception and Scheherazade (most of you never hear of it, let alone played it), as well as River City Ransom prove it. How many remember Backstreet Brawler? In the platform genre nintendo does seem ahead of the curve as you can see by my example of the newest donkey kong, although Indies have been able to match them more and more as well as improving the formula (as shown with guacamelee and outland, but don't forget lbp has only gone through improving with more advanced physics). When you take off the goggles for a second you realize that current and just a few gens ago, there are gems which blow the old school out the water on every system, including (and especially) PC. If not nintendo, other companies would have still done it. This gen is too young to determine anything, but ps3, 360, PC and Wii did bring games that have nothing to envy from the old school: Gears of War, God of War, Mad World, Ni No Kuni, Xenoblade, LBP, Alan Wake, Heavy Rain, DKCR, InFamous, Minecraft, State of Decay, TellTale's The Walking Dead, SMB Galaxy, The Witcher, Uncharted, Assassin's Creed, LBP, Borderlands, Bioshock, Dishonored, Far Cry (except for 2), Red Dead Redemption, etc, etc. The list of games we have now is not only considerably bigger, but as good and in most instances better than what we had in every aspect. Heck I mentioned every genre in this list just about (will throw Sine Mora in there just because lol). So to answer your question YES, we had lower standards. You say Metroid and Super Metroid, I say Castlevania: Symphony of the Night...your argument just became invalid :p.

Those games were good for their time. It wouldn't be fair to compare those games to the games of today.

Two different eras two different expectations.