Yeah, our memories have best DLSS, anti-aliasing and frame generation algorithms. ;)

3D was more gradual transition for me - I was accustomed to 3D worlds from the earlier, it's just that those worlds were either wireframe or flat shaded polygons (I don't recall Gouraud shaded games at that time) - it was texturing those polygons that really changed the game for me and made for that wow effect. So my actual wow moment was first Elder Scrolls, TES: Arena, back in 1994...while I've played Ultima Underworld, Wolfenstein 3D and Doom in previous years, and while undeniably they were all graphically mindblowing for their time, they were small in scope - it was Arena with massive 3D open world that made me realize what is possible and potentials of 3D graphics.

That is the thing developers should be craving for. I don't care if visuals take a hit to achieve this bc that's a generational leap! A huge change with how you interact inside the game world.

Making the pores more visible for the main character or having more pixels on the screen? I will leave that "leap" for those visual elitists

That's crazy as kids we don't tend to be picky or over analyze things. Any game in Nes was fun as long as it had cool characters from my favorite cartoons. I was blown away by n64 it was the first 3d system I saw. I was blown away by street fighter alpha on playstation I was in country where we didn't have access to n64 or playstation. When I saw golden eye, wave race, and Mario 64 I was blown away like never before.  I got a dreamcast but it didn't blow me away until mgs2 and gt3 they blew me away with the lighting it looked like movie, then the last game was resident evil 4. Graphics are stunning now but you get to 37-40 nothing really blows you away anymore .

You don't need to over-analyze things to perceive quality. I was 7 to 12 years old when I played 5th and 6th gen consoles. By that time I watched Harry Potter movies, X Men movies and Star War movies. Computer generated Imagery was mainstream already, and after watching a movie the models in videogames definitely looked uglier to my kids eyes

I still played and enjoyed games, but I can't remember having any sort wow factor with graphics until 7th gen 

Space Marines 2 recommended GPU is a 3070. Simon says graphics still are moving forward.

I find that, at least for me, it is combination of gameplay and actual graphics - as someone who grew up playing quite a few of actual 3D games at home, starting with C64 (which where all usually wireframe "rendered", with often atrocious frame rates in single digits), then Amiga 500 (which were usually flat-shaded, with, more often than not, bad framerates), seeing first textured games on PC in early 90s was a massive jump in buying into those worlds. The thing that is common for all those games was their first person nature - whether you were fighter pilot, space pirate or adventurer exploring ancient pyramid.

On the other side you had first person RPGs that had prerendered "3D" graphics (that were not 3D at all) that looked much, much nicer, but with fixed grid, which translated into "slide show" world, instead of continuous one of properly rendered 3D worlds. Seeing the two combined for the first time in Ultima Underworld was a mindblowing experience, as well as shooting Nazis in Wolfenstein 3D after that, all the way to TES Arena for full open world 3D RPG - that freedom of movement from first person POV, with visuals that finally started to resemble, however primitively, actual world, instead of colored polygons, was a real gamechanger.

But fast forward to somewhere around 2000, and give me isometric fully 3D real-time rendered RPG like Soulbringer, or even 2 years later, Neverwinter Nights, which was Bioware's next big thing, and I am utterly disappointed with their real-time 3D visuals compared to something like prerendered 3D Baldur's Gate 1/2, cause gameplay in those games is not dependent on having absolute 3D freedom, thus making those primitive real-time 3D visuals only detrimental to overall experience.

It still blows me away that I'm still relatively young and in my lifetime home console graphics have gone from this

To this

Just imagine where we'll be in another 30 years

Oh, colors and shaded polygons...you lucky, lucky bastard. ;)

This was my first encounter (not counting Battlezone and Star Wars arcades) with 3D graphics (Elite on C64, 1985):

If my memory serves me right, I think that ship being shot at consist of 8 polygons - not polygons really, there is no polygons at that time, just vector based calculations of wire-frames being drawn onto the screen.

Few years later, this was my first hands on with flat-shaded 3D game (though I salivated over SGI Dogfight ever since I saw it on Silicon Graphics workstation in some computer expo few years earlier) - Total Eclipse (Amiga, 1988):

I mean, even in arcades, SEGA's Virtua Racer in 1992 used only flat shaded polygons, and we'd have to wait for 93's Ridge Racer and Daytona USA for textured 3D arcades.

So naturally, when texture mapped 3D games made their splash with UU and W3D in 92, no matter how ugly they look from this perspective, there was a reason why so many minds were blown.

The bottom is ugly as hell with all the CA. Blurry as hell. Like looking at something without your glasses on. Why not compare it to other space games? Chorvs or even Rift Apart (well RA lets you turn off CA) Chorvs can have it but in motion so fast it's hard to notice. Side note Chorvs is what Starfox Reboot should be in many aspects with Gameplay. Not aesthetic.

A game that wows me despite being a few years old now is Nex Machina. Sure it's not top-of-the-line tech but I think of its inspirations like Robotron. Of course, Eugene Jarvis consulted on Nex Machina and there is so much happening on screen. Much like seeing Resogun vs Defender. Doom 1993 vs Doom Dark Ages.

I feel like red dead 2 is probably a much better comparison since it's not tech demo and probably the most game that stunned most people graphically