I was going to say exactly this, but you nailed it.
The 90s game style saw more powerful chips and higher color depths as a chance to do realistic art and skeuomorphic interfaces.[1] I'm sure they looked good to people then, but the reason they look so dated now is that realism as a design goal is better accomplished with modern graphics technologies than anything they had available then. Anything that still looks "good" does so because it was able to carve out a stylistic niche that didn't depend on having a more realistic interface as the end goal.
Pixel art games look timeless (to me) precisely because their limitations meant that designers had to find a style that worked for the particular game. To be sure, there are 80s games with bad art, but I think on the whole the older art was better (and is now more iconic) because the limitations pushed creativity.
I still love to play low-res games (including new ones like VVVVVV[2]), but most of them are in an older art style than John's games, which (if I'm being honest) look (visually) kind of crappy to me.
[1] The poor font rendering in most 90s games doesn't help matters either.
The 90s game style saw more powerful chips and higher color depths as a chance to do realistic art and skeuomorphic interfaces.[1] I'm sure they looked good to people then, but the reason they look so dated now is that realism as a design goal is better accomplished with modern graphics technologies than anything they had available then. Anything that still looks "good" does so because it was able to carve out a stylistic niche that didn't depend on having a more realistic interface as the end goal.
Pixel art games look timeless (to me) precisely because their limitations meant that designers had to find a style that worked for the particular game. To be sure, there are 80s games with bad art, but I think on the whole the older art was better (and is now more iconic) because the limitations pushed creativity.
I still love to play low-res games (including new ones like VVVVVV[2]), but most of them are in an older art style than John's games, which (if I'm being honest) look (visually) kind of crappy to me.
[1] The poor font rendering in most 90s games doesn't help matters either.
[2] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/VVVVVV_-...