I disagree. Some old games are still amazing. Donkey Kong Country is still a fantastic platformer that looks and sounds great.
When I was a little kid, Super Mario 64 blew my mind. Have you played it lately? It has aged poorly. It's like a movie that once had cutting edge CG in 1997 being viewed today. That may be an issue with that generation though; I find few N64/PS1 games are as good as I remember them being.
It's hard for me to recommend that someone play SM64 over Sunshine, Galaxy, or Odyssey.
Well you're entitled to your opinion but I disagree.
Sure plenty of games are less fun when you go back to them because the nostalgia is gone, or the inability to load quickly or because you didn't know better
But that just means the game wasn't actually that good.
I guess the difference is I never really cared about graphics. I don't get "The shooting is fantastic and the story is amazing but the graphics are old so it's not a fun game. I prefer this brand new game with terrible shooting and a shit story that looks great for the next 2 years" To me that's madness.
But If you do care about graphics then you will hate older games.
All the examples I can think of are Bioware here so I feel a little guilty lol but look at Neverwinter Nights, Dragon Age Origins and Mass Effect. Even on release their graphics were dated and yet they are still superior to most RPGs being released today.
I don't look back and go "Man look how bad the 2002 3D graphics are" I go "Maybe I'll be a fucking gnome this time!"
I wasn't saying it was all about graphics. SM64 has stiff controls compared to modern platformers. It was revolutionary at the time, but now it just feels frustrating. The game also feels bloated and really loses steam by the last area (Tick Tock Clock is just... tedious to play, imo).
When part of the appeal was "Hey, look how well it does [x]" and [x] has been done miles better in newer products, it's hard to go back. SM64 was great back in the day; it's just less so now.
I play plenty of games with dated graphics. I don't know what kind of people you're hanging around that play games that feel terrible, but look good.