The value of old games is that they were made without defined notions of what a game should be. They were exploring a new frontier. This was a nothing wrong in the game and gameplay was more fun to play and tinker around with it, it was well written full of creativity and mind-blowing stories . Anyone born in the 90s – early 2000s knows the feel.
Nowadays games now are full of remakes and mostly shitty nowadays requiring high graphics and modern PC. You can not see as much exploration into entirely new sorts of games, except sometimes in the space of very small indie teams, but that limits the scope of the creative effort. Even there, since marketability is heavily focused on the clearly visible aspects of the game that can be communicated in seconds, and modern game engines make it hard to rehash existing designs, innovation is limited. There is little financial reason to make a game that works in an unfamiliar way that would take more than three seconds for a player to understand.
Old games are simple and mostly one very important thing: finished, functioning programs. not half baked glorified soylent adware
Many new games aren't even being sold as functional products, but completely broken messes that don't work out of the box with a false promise that they'll be fixed later on because they're “services”. In literally any non-computing related industry this would be an unacceptable practice, yet it's been normalized in gaming and the rest of the tech world.
Yes, I am aware that it's a pain in the ass to get most old games and other software working on modern platforms, but it's not impossible. Today all the hindsight, foresight, cross-platform support and backwards compatibility in the world, yet new software is releasing more broken than ever.
I've gotten to the point where I genuinely prefer older video games due to one of the main things people look forward to in anything new... length.
Nowadays it's all about an 8hrs or more campaign at the very least, then there are other difficulty settings, collectables, etc... if you want to complete everything, you're in for a lot more run time, also there are these achievements too if you're a completionist like me.
Back then we'd have these 45min long titles that took us way longer to complete because they were difficult, didn't let you save, and/or took you back.
It was so satisfying though, going from not being able to finish the early levels, to dominating them, and then doing the same with the later levels, feeling your improvement, and then suddenly what felt impossible is something you can finish in less than 1hr.
Also, 100% completion took a lot less time usually, it usually came down to a few collectables that, once you knew what to do, you'd get aswell.
Programmers do the best they can with the tools available. Retro games have been produced despite technological limits.
The difference must be passion. A game that functions well and has an engaging story is entertaining. Outstanding games are produced with imagination that goes beyond graphical capacity. Its definitely tangible when a game was produced by a studio of creative individuals who made a unique experience for us to enjoy.
Retro games may look charming compared to VR immersion, but I'm still completely aware these games are a fantasy diversion no matter how realistic they appear. What matters is they're fun to play.