Hardly the only, but not always the case either. I'd put some of it down to rose-colored nostalgia, some to the given fact that so much today is buying a base framework game and then selling 276 'addons' to make it complete, and part to that back when systems didn't have the power they do now developers couldn't rely so much on all the flashy imagery and effects so they put more effort into the story and unique gameplay. A lot of smaller studio games pull that latter part off today still, but they're sometimes harder to find.

I mean there are certainly benefits...

I would argue modern games are much more fun when their publishers aren't trying to explore new ways to fuck you (which seems to be always).

just out of curiosity, what device is that?

I'm with you. In fact I'll say even retro operating systems were better (no bloat, no spyware, easy to understand/configure/mod/hack around), as well as retro Internet (no Javascript crap, no browser fingerprinting/tracking, simpler HTML, super easy webdev) and retro computing (no soldered-on components, PCs were more modular and easy to repair)... heck, planet earth in general was better back then. We've been on a downwards spiral since the 2000s. Everything sucks now.

100% . I only play PS1 games

I'd say there is a larger number of quality games in the retro section

I just finished playing the original FF7 for the first time in like two decades. I always secretly dreaded trying to play it again, worried that it wouldn't have aged that well as a game, or that my nostalgia was propping it up as a masterpiece when perhaps it wasn't.

It sucked me in and I ended up doing a 100% completion playthrough. The experience has shifted my thinking and now I'm more willing to replay older games. Just last week I found my old CD Keys and started up Diablo 2, the original, not the remaster. Now I've been sucked into that.

I personally am finding that mechanically, these older games have systems with lots of depth and creativity. They give you so many options and choices, and they rarely explain all of it so your kind of left to just.. experience it. I am sure this is not true for every retro game ( and ditto for some new games ) but it is something I have been feeling when playing older games.

Often, it's not really the "old games" but the "not the marketed shit". One of my favourite gems is Outward. It looks and feels a bit clunky, but you breathe love and passion for making games on every corner.