For me, it is now.  Better controls, better graphics, and better battle systems.  

Edit

More games.  More variety of games.  More ways of playing.

Gaming is amazing today.  Way better than the 90s.  

Man, I lost my entire ps3, 360 and wii collection during an apartment move. I moved a lot as a teenager but even before the moving it's like with discs, you'd never think you'd loose a disc but it happens and then turns up in some box at some point.

I have a "bin" storage for a load of stuff dating back year and my OG playstation is in there with memory cards so they evtually made it to safety or some of them at least and some games but no all 30 games survived the years for some reason. My gameboy colour SHOULD be there but alas it was lent out and never returned. My PSP SHOULD be there but I left it some place and never recovered it. My VITA SHOULD be there but I traded it into gamestop to buy a few PS4 games when I was low on cash. My ps3 and 360 SHOULD be there but they lost there lives to a hammer in a drunken altercation. My DS survived but boy does it look rough like someone scarped it across gravel and kept poking it with a fork and not one psp game survived but empty boxes for some odd reason. Life happens, things get lost stolen, break or never returned and drunk people take shit at parties, even if you know them really well. 

This for me has by far been the worst gen in gaming ever. Particularly for AAA games.

Just wait. I swear there will be a massive boom right soon, the recovery period after covid is about to hit, just look at the amount of games announced. You may have to buy an Xboc to experience it fully or wait on PC but it's coming and it's going to hit very hard with not nearly enough time to play everything that releases. But it's odd you sat that in 2023 is considered by many to be one of the best years in gaming. 

Forum users are the minority lol

Y'all in a bubble just like ResetERA, doesnt matter how you feel about that, its reality.

Bamco has been resting on the Dragon Ball IP? What?

Not only your tastes, but it seems like you've been living under a rock since the 90s because we've had so many Dragon Ball games from Namco.

Sparking Zero - 2024
Breakers - 2022
Kakarot - 2020
Heroes World Mission - 2019
FighterZ - 2018
Xenoverse 2 - 2016
Fusions - 2016
Extreme Butoden - 2015
Xenoverse 1 - 2015
Battle of Z - 2014

(and the endless DLC that is coming to Xenoverse 2)

^ And thats only the last 10 years of worldwide releases and console releases - does not include the Japan exclusive, mobile, remasters/ports, etc releases.

That doesnt prove what you say, it proves what I say - a well known popular IP that is being made into different genres and different games. You know a series that actually sells and gets games made. Same as Tekken, Same as the Tales series.

No one cares for Soulcalibur, no one cares for Ace Combat, no one cares for Ridge racer (As sad as this may be)

No, there is no creative drought in the entire industry, you are just limited to your favorite companies and are angry that they arent investing in any new IPs, you want new IPs, there's plenty of new IPs out there.

Broaden your tastes in gaming.

Why bring up that insane asylum Reshitera? Nutcases post there same with neogaf. Two sides of extreme morons.

Because its the closest comparison to this site.

Gaming centric, old style forum community, and a majority userbase that is 30+ years old.

Yeah but unlike nutcase forums this forum doesn't have a mob rule mentality.

This place is nothing like ERA. To post on Era you have to swallow your morals and sacrifice a part of your soul, hide what's truly on your mind. You can speak your mind on MeoGAF but you have to sacrifice a part of your heart, you think you've got a nasty idea that you'd be reluctant to discuss and then ten other people show you what true hate actually is. Both are so amazingly vile places, ugh, my skin is crawling thinking about them.

Starting with 3 hearts in Zelda is a perfect way to annoy the player. It’s a consequence of the player messing up and maybe the player learns to be more careful in the future. Same with Adventures of Link, restarting in the entrance is a consequence of messing up. Consequences for poor actions are good design and something lacking in most of the games from the last 20 years. 

I haven’t played Battletoads in ages but as I remember it it wasn’t to punishing up until the motorcycle stage. And I’ll admit I’ve never made it past the motorcycle stage. But that was more an issue of never owning the game myself. 

And again I’m going to disagree with you on Metroid. The no in game mini map is a feature (specially in hindsight) that I hold to a high esteem. You want to know how both me and most of my friends played it the first time? With a pen and a stack of paper next to the TV and we drew our own map. That added to the experience and sense of wonder and discovery. I’m currently on a play through of it again on Nintendo Online, but nowadays I don’t need pen and paper I still remember where to go. 

I’ll add another game that you probably hate that I love and that is Simon’s Quest. The NPCs giving misleading information is a stroke of genius that I would dare developers do today in the age of arrows pointing at the objective and where to go.

But let us say this, I think you and me will not agree to much in this discussion.