I don't think this ever happend to me. I started on the GBA and to this day every single RPG I played on there holds up - might be specific to the genre. I never played much else.
Yeah, I am not sure I can relate either. My favourite games on the NES and SNES when I was a kid are still games I sometimes replay and enjoy today.
Closest thing to the comic I could find would be Ecco the Dolphin, maybe. I had the PC version, and I finished it a few times back then, I was stubborn and a bit bored. Not that long ago I tried returning to it, and maybe try the second game... And wow, it feels like a chore to play.
But even back then, it was not a game I liked that much. I liked how it looked, the creatures you'd meet and the crazy plot, but gameplay already felt tedious and stupidly unforgiving.
Since you said “up there for sure”, I guess that’s fine. My promise of riot has now simmered into measured acceptance.
Like you’re at a restaurant waiting for your food. A waiter comes by and you think it’s your order and you start to get excited, but they move in a slightly different angle from you which instantly alerts you that it’s not your order. So now you have to temper your reactions and pretend that you were not fooled that your order was coming to you. This leads to you carefully measuring your movements and reactions in the event someone in the restaurant was observing you, so as not to impress upon them that you, a stranger, were deceived and instead were merely adjusting your posture while you waited patiently. That’s the level of measured acceptance I have right now.
More seriously though - That’s a game I wanted to try out but never played. On my “next play” list I had Advance Wars on it, so I’ll toss FF Tactics on there to give it a go. I liked Fire Emblem on 3DS, and having not really played SRPGs before I did enjoy FE. Figure FF Tactics might be interesting and fun, so def will give it a go!
You might want to know that FF Tactics and FF Tactics Advance are different games entirely, unlike FF V and FF V Advance for example. They couldn't even keep a consistent naming scheme for ports/new games within the FF franchise.
Now, depending on who you ask, only one of these two is good. I firmly believe FF Tactics Advance is the better game, most ofher people will sing the praise of FF Tactics.
Having played both, just between you and me: FF Tactics has so much jank, I couldn't finish it despite FF Tactics Advance remaining in my Top 10 since release. It has an awesome story, but there are just so many battles you simply have to restart over and over because the NPC you should be protecting dies before you get a single turn in. And don't even get me started on the two occasions you get prompted to save your game inbetween two missions - soft-locking your game if you cannot win the second one.
And, SRPG fans are firmly separated by perma-death. Some think the genre needs it and FF Tactics has it. Others, including me, dislike perma-death and FF Tactics Advance doesn't have it (with few exceptions).