A lot of people are using the fallacy that fun in their time=fun now. All generations were equally fun in their time. The fallacy is like when you see photos of 1920’s flappers, pictures of Henry VIII’s wives and conclude that women are more attractive now. The time in which we judge gives us the standards with which we judge. Nonetheless, we cannot help but judge from our present place in time.
Very little stands the test of time. Back in 2000, most Genesis and NES games were acceptable, but nowadays are not, due to the choppy movement and artificially raised difficulty. The original Ninja Gaiden is a case in point. Reasonably fun for the first few levels, but absolute torture near the end due to cheapness. I also experienced this with Super Metroid in the sense that frustration seems to be ‘built in’ to the formula of the game.
Earthworm Jim is another case of this. It was fine upon release, but too difficult now. But I blame the developers rather than myself. It still looks beautiful, and is skillfully programmed, but there is something very unclean about the design.
A few classics from the N64 era are still great, but I can see the dark hand of time stealing upon them. One of the things that surprised me about the Saturn is how much jank there is. Even a classic like Daytona has quite a bit- in addition to being unforgivably short. Strange that the original Outrun has aged better.
What shocks me is how unkind time has been to SNES games. I have a lot of nostalgia for it, but apart from the greats, most of it is just a waste of time.
Think about how far games came from 1983-2003. There seems to be a lot of revolutionary changes coming in the next few years. In all likelihood, the pool of games that stay great will continue to shrink.
Actually... I just am now interested in playing Brutal Doom. I never played it before albeit hearing good things about it.
I have been playing Doom for many years and I have never really understood the Brutal Doom hype. Afaik, it is just a gore mod. Don’t let it distract you from the thousands of user made levels out there like Scythe, Alien Vendetta and Ancient Aliens.