Ok fair enough.
What I mean when I say graphics, sounds, frankly even the use of colors or the amount of text available in games now compared to OoT allow for them to be better is, a competency of possibility.
I’m not saying Doom, OoT are bad because they’re old. Many older games are best because within their limits whether be by tech, self-imposed by genre, or keeping the game focused, they reach the heights of what they are trying to do.
This is less a binary view of good or bad. But finding some likeness in not only the area of video games, but video games in a genre, or for lack of critical language accepted around games ‘scrathing a similar itch’.
Maybe some of the disagreement comes down to how we view these games. OoT for example is a game I experience by playing a slightly touched-up from while co-oping (passing the controller) with a friend online. Near as I can tell it wanted to be a swashbuckling adventure, with the use of items, and exploring the theme of ‘coming of age’. Now leaving behind the coming of age theme, but more widely having a theme tying a swashbuckling adventure with the use of items, nearly every other Zelda game I’ve play, every Ys game has scratched the itch more successfully. The combat feels tighter and more engaging (a la that Sequalitus video from a million moons ago) the navigation feels better, the lack or more bolstered audio culminated in something that grabbed my heart strings more. I’m incredibly bias again the N64/PS1 era of things. The look, the sounds, the controls/responsive-ness of those pioneer 3D games never satisfied me, and I feel it doesn’t take much to make a ‘better’ game. To play close to the root of the game though I think the level design, and enemies are all either incredibly boring or overly difficult. Like playing ping pong with gannon to me feels like one of the lamest moments in a game I’ve ever suffered through.
To extract further though the sum of the more quantifiable parts, graphics, sound, etc can be a factor that’s easier to see as a boon when talking more positive about games from that era. For me my favorite game from then (that I played much later) was MGS1. Yes I’m a vanilla taste person. But in so many ways the audio holds that game back. Brilliant vocal performances, but no boss themes, you can hear the audio compression because they didn’t have sound booths to record in, or even… quiet rooms. The graphics look surreal by today’s standards. But a lot of the design, items, fights, etc hold up. (Sniper wolf, and the difficulty curve are knock backs). But yes the series wasn’t a linear progression of quality. I love about half of the MGS games all for different reasons and tolerate the others while knowing say 4 is just less than any of the others in every aspect.
Doom is… a weird case here. When I say I think Doom has been surpassed, it feels obvious in my head. It was an FPS where you can really even move the gun up or down. Sure it was great but come on! If you want a game where you can go PEW PEW PEW, pretty much any random FPS now does it better. I wasn’t thinking tough. A lot of high level DOOM players are in it for more the speed component of some kind of bizarre Pac-Man like quality, or pathing while being shot and growled at, that I don’t think many games since have really tried to adopt until the term ‘boomer shooter’ came about semi-recently. OR as @LaurelSoup pointed out the ever-expanding community aspect of new content, and probably the connection and communication therewhithin. So, ya that was something objective lost along the way.
But I also want to address this ‘linar’ idea. No art does not progress in an linar fashion. Nor does direct comparisons often offer the most academic or interesting thoughts of what a piece, or body of any set of works can offer. For who among us could truly say the Mona Lisa is better than Hentai Girls? Citizen Kane better than Gex:Enter the Geko? No. But as certainly up through I’d say around the 360/PS3 era every generation had more techicncal potential to work with, I believe the games that reached the heights of those limitations were pushing things forward and making games better.
But the Cannon exists, and as things become either settled into memory at the forefront of what’s ready to be talked about we do often group into Mediums and Genres, time periods. “What was the best FPS of 2006?” I think we by and large move forward, not in a linear fashion, but though refinement, trying new things seeing what works, then rinse repeat, and seeing the oddities that shove games in a new direction. I would rather play a random PS5 game than a random MSX game to put it to an extreme.
I can also somewhat argue against this, as videogames have somewhat settled into design via marketing buzzwords. With a set of ideas or mechanics tied to an overly defined genre, maybe mixed with another, and add an aesthetic choice then spit out a game. Less do we see people trying new mechanics or ideas. Basically devs saying “I’m gonna make one of those” over and over, and that has halted the general progress I’m talking about, and has led to in general older games being better than many newer entries.
