I think that a much larger proportion of modern games are enjoyable as compared to twenty years ago.
I agree, they also used to release me-too games, clones, and hollow stuff back in the days. You can't help that.
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Today someone releases something that sells, and soon all the clones start to emerge from under the rocks. They are less willing to take any risks.
Er... yeah. Designs that really work will always (always have, always will) spawn clones and design evolutions. My reasoning for the statement quoted above is that over time these designs have been refined and are much better now. You're complaining about being able to save often? That's a bad thing?
Have you got any figures to back this statement up? Have you?
You can see some numbers here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_computer_and_video_games maybe there's not much difference in brute numbers, but the percentages is what matters. If you take into account the number of consoles sold, what was the avergae budget for a NES game compared to a PS2 one, price, and everything you will see that today they invest more and they need to sell more copies in order to make a profit, if to that you add there's more companies and games out there, you see what the problem is. And this is affecting not only the business side, but also the final games we get to play.
OK, seems like the length of the lists for each console is roughtly the same, except longer for PS2. Yes, some of the older systems have astronomical sales of a couple of titles, but we are (or should be) talking less about the extremes and more about the average game.
In fact, it would seem that overall the best-selling games are selling more now than they used to, with the top PS2 games in the tens of millions, PS1 approaching 10m, N64 just under that, SNES similar to N64, and NES (discounting the behemoth SMB) way under there at like 6-7m.
The graphics were more than anything else the reason I'd be excited about the game.
I think graphics are important, but there's two sides to it. One thing is graphical quality -technically speaking- (resolution, colors, number of polygons, filters, etc) and the other is graphical quality -artistically speaking- (styles, designs, innovation, variety). The industry seems so focused on the former, that's boring. For me an 'amazing looking game' is the one that has style, the one that seems unique. Not the one that's so high res and high poly and realistic but has no soul, that's boring. And you don't need the latest technology to show you've got style. That's the good thing.
I know, though, that the ones that are just getting into gaming see the industry as I saw it back in the NES days. That they can't stand NES just as I could never stand Atari. That happens. I'm not blaming anyone, it's a natural thing. Those kids will be ranting here 15 years from now complaining how the PS5 is not as good as the PS3 and I hope Derek Jr. is arround to ban the mothafuckers

J/K.
I think there are tons of games with a unique graphical style and tons more that attempt it. I could give you a list but I don't have time right now. I think you're right in that it's easier for a developer to get a technically good-looking game out there with very little in terms of art style, and I think that's because working with constraints in low-res forces one's hand to create a unique style. With the transition to higher resolutions and adding an extra dimension there is more that can go wrong and there are fewer limits constraining artistic style. I don't think there is an industry bias towards generic-looking games, I just think it's harder to make a strong visual style with this increased fidelity, hence you are seeing fewer games with a unique style. But they're out there.
edit: P.S. you're totally right about JRPGs though: tired, shitty, archaic 80s game designs that were never fun in the first place. The genre needs nuking from orbit