Older games that aged well. (strictly talking about graphics)

[Sombra Negra]

sonic (1991) still looks pretty sweet to my eyes. it's probably a combination of nostalgia and a bad memory but the sprites always look good to me.

X3 reunion (2005) still looks alright, too.

Spoiler

 

[Sparrowsabre7]

Any and all of the Rogue Squadrons. Project Zero II (bought it for xbox recently and was surprised how good it looks. Resident Evil 4 and REmake hold up well, in fact REmake perhaps more so. Smash Bros Melee.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Aye I agree about Fire Emblem looking better as 2D than 3D. Also what the 3D version the fight scene were slow compare to the 2D version so it feel less dynamic.

OT- Does F-Zero GX count?
For a Gamecube game, the graphic is fantastic!

Also I think Golden Sun 1 and 2 still hold out pretty well.

 

[Carnage95]

I'm a bit disappointed that no one has yet to mention Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura. It still looks fantastic even to this day.

 

[AlternatePFG]

Wind Waker looks just as good now as it did when it came out. Really beautiful game, it was a really wise move for Nintendo to do it cel-shaded. Still hoping for a re-release one of these days though, kind of hard to get.

 

[IrateDonnie]

Oddworld Strangers Wrath even six years later the cut-scenes still look better than a lot of newer games.

 

[babinro]

Anything with a cell shading or cartoon style will stand the test of time. Zelda Wind Waker, Vieutiful Joe, Tales of Symphonia, Warcraft 2, Diablo 2, etc.

Pretty much every NES and SNES title looks nice so long as they don't try to emulate reality or 3D.

 

[Tallim]

Heroes of Might and Magic III/IV for me. Both games had absolutely gorgeous graphics, especially so with the third installment. I really miss the old sprite graphics.

Yeah 3 looks really good still. Especially if you get the resolution patch so you can fit massive maps on your screen and make use of all those lovely pixels we didn't have when it first came out.


In a similar vein Planescape Torment still looks brilliant, even better with the resolution patch so you can see lot's more on screen.

 

[ultimateownage]

Most of the games right at the end of the 2D era have aged great.

 

[Mafoobula]

Chrono Cross, some of the best graphics and aesthetics the PS1 had to offer, as well as Legend of Dragoon. Paper Mario for the N64 looked alright, but I guess it isn't hard to make that art style look good. Half-Life, Half-Life, Half-Life. Starcraft was pretty sweet too.
Going back to the 8- and 16-bit eras, Mario ALWAYS looked good. The Sonic games were alright, but 3 had more polish than the others. Ninja Gaiden, Kirby, Contra, Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger, Terranigma, Seiken Densetsu 3 (Legend of Mana 3, never officially released State-side), the list goes on.
Honestly, I think the SNES games that DON'T look good would make for a far shorter list.

 

[Dangernick42]

Battlefront II still stands up for me, except for the Jedi, but I never use them anyway.

 

[EvilPicnic]

I think any game with a strong enough art style has the potential to still look good, graphically, but 2D games from the time when 3D graphics were just being introduced stand up best imo.

I'm playing through Baldur's Gate (again) at the moment. It's modded to hell (BGTutu and resolution increase from 640x480 to 1920x1200) and it looks absolutely beautiful. The combination of 2D sprites and matte painted backgrounds has aged incredibly well, and I would imagine the other Infinity engine games (PS:T and IWD) would look similarly great.

 

[KnightOfHearts]

There are quite a few ps2 games that have aged very well in my opinion.

Snake eater
Resident Evil 4
Devil May cry 3
Final fantasy 12
Kingdom hearts
Valkyrie Profile 2

For me; castlevania: symphony of the night and Valkyrie profile 1 still look very nice to me.

 

[CommanderKirov]

Team Fortress 2, Half Life 2...

And yep that's about it.

 

[AlexKasper]

Legend of Zelda Wind Waker's graphics aged pretty well.

 

[Tharwen]

I spent about 4 hours playing Dark Cloud yesterday, and it still looks fairly pretty. I keep finding new things that I just wouldn't expect in a 10-year-old game (simple dynamic shadows, water reflections, procedural generation), and the polygon count is quite high too.

 

[Restoshamankk]

Ninja Gaiden

 

[kiwi_poo]

I'm seriously the first one to mention Freelancer?

 

[Crazy]

Doom is still pretty sweet, along with Pong and Pac Man.