Wouldnt that make them average and the standard just be lower though??

I loved Commandos in my school days, I also have recently gone back to it and it has not aged well. As much as I still have nostalgia for it just wouldn't be that enjoyable by someone who doesn't have that nostalgia. Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun, just recently released, a game that is heavily inspired by games like Commandos (could even call it a rip-off), but ultimately improves the experience in every single way and makes it a great game by todays standards. Give Commandos and Shadow Tactics to 100 random people who have played neither and 99 of them will tell you that Shaow Tactics is more enjoyable.

This same thing applies to almost every old game. While sure there won't be as faithful modern games for every old game. The love of those old games are purely nostalgia driven. Sure I can't think of a game that 100% faithfully represents the original Thief games, but you know why? Because those games are not good by todays standards. Their mechanics are outdated and generally not enjoyable. While not the same gameplay mechanics most modern stealth games will give a more enjoyable experience than the original Thief games ever could.

Grim Fandango, while a charming game with a great atmosphere and characters, the gameplay is awful by todays standards. Give that game to someone today and tell them to beat it without a walkthrough with it's moon logic puzzles. They will get frustrated and go play something more enjoyable instead.

I could go on with this for almost every game. There are so few old games that actually are an amazing experience by todays standards and don't have a better modern alternative.

But are most of them still great? I doubt it. Hence his point stands.

Most games from any era are terrible by any standard.

The games that are considered the absolute best from the olden days, like SMB1/3, F6/7, Chrono Trigger, Donkey Kong Country, Super Metroid, Ocarina of Time, Castlevania Symphony of the Night, ect. absolutely hold up today.

I actually find that I still prefer N64 shooters like Goldeneye and Perfect Dark to the Xbox/PS2 generation of shooters like Halo

I recently played Super Metroid and Final Fantasy VI for the first time and they were both better than the large majority of the games that I have played that came out this gen. Many older games aged very well and are better than any game in their respective series that have come afterwards, like these two.

Super Mario World is perfection and still holds up (probably better than many PS1/PS2 era games etc... Weirdly enough SNES games aged much better than pre PS3/Wii era

Really well written piece. This is the kind of insight I was hoping for inbetween the kneejerk reaction comments. Also do you happen to have a source or where I could find the read about puzzle design and Tetris? It sounds like an interesting read.

Well plenty games are 'improved' versions of older games. I love the quicksave option in JRPG's like Tales games now, who in the past didn't had the experience playing a JRPG and have to hear you had to leave in 5 minutes while in the middle of lenghty cutscenes or dungeon...

Why is that weird?

2d images haven't changed while 3d models have. But look at Mario kart for SNES nfor example. That's trying to be 3d and it's fucking terrible compared to today's MK.

Not true in the slightest.