I could make a similar argument about Final Fantasy 5, for that matter.

If it had been made a year later those incredibly low res sprites could have been replaced with 3D models, or at least higher res sprites.
Yeah, the second one still looks fantastic. A big step forward from the first.

Ah, Zelda 2 and the first Dragon Warrior... two of my favorites. They have such a different feel from the rest of their respective series' and yet, they have such a classic vibe.

Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines. It was pretty broken on release, received one or two official patches and then was left to fend for itself due to Troika Games shutting down. Thanks to modders most of the bugs have been fixed, cut content has been restored (including one full level!) and there are a few complete overhaul-ish mods available for it now.

Freespace 2, with the FSO project (this could include Freespace 1 with the fsport mod in it). Also Descent and especially Descent 2 with D2X. Stunning games.

Total War Medieval II with all the available mods.

Total Annihilation. Unbelievable mods/total conversions.

These don't seem to have aged at all, or gotten better like fine wine, Evil Genius and Snatcher.

Neverwinter Nights, due to all the high quality community content that wasn't available at release. Vanilla NWN can look rather bland and ugly (especially the PC and NPC clothes), and the official campaign is nothing to write home about, but now there are excellent user made campaigns with better stories, better writing and more interesting area design, as well as models, tilesets and other hackpacks that look much better than the default stuff.

The same goes for Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures which thanks to its dedicated community now also allows for creating and playing adventures in different settings like sci-fi, noir, superhero, oriental, wild west etc.

Of course, both games are still old by today's standards, but IMO you can have much more fun playing them today compared to back then.

Hmmm this makes it rather unfair overall.

Consider you're recommending a game that got updates and patches; This could be a game with modding and community support vs say a game that would have none of that (like a SNES game). Official patches might be allowed, but newer iterations of a game (Baulders Gate Enhanced Edition) should probably not be considered...

Example take Morrowind; Add some of the really large mods that replace nearly all the meshes/texture with super high quality ones and adds tons of graphical effects, and they might challenge newer triple A games in quality and looks.

Rather perhaps you should take a mental image and then compare it against the actual game (of old) and see if the game looks better than you remember (without extras).

With that in mind I'll have to go with Xixit, a game colorful, musical, fun, addicting, and overall a wonderful experience. No patches, mod support or updates, and no chance of sale either :(

As for strictly console i'd have to say Tetris. It's simple and all the same things Xixit was on the list. (Although a number of games, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, etc could have easily fit in here too)

Yep. I second both if these. I'll throw in Imperialism as well.

Not a game but a franchise, Winning Eleven / Pro Evolution Soccer got better from iteration to next iteration until FIFA had to start mimicking them and vice versa.

REDVWIN

Do official re-works count? Because I fell in love with Baldur's Gate again because the enhanced version is a massive... well, enhancement in the graphics and overall gameplay department.

I'd suggest Dungeon Keeper 2. There have been some attempts recently to "pay homage", or be a "spiritual successor" to it. They've simply not been as good as the original (sequel). DK1 was unfortunately too low on graphics quality to fit in here, but I'd say DK2 is still better than anything that's tried to follow it on.

Cryostasis. The game is horribly optimised. I first played it about a year after release using a fairly good PC; I had to set everything to low -- I even had to lower the resolution -- in order to just get a reasonable frame rate.

Given that the average gaming computer is a lot more powerful than it was back then, it's easier to Brute force the game into running on high with a smooth frame rate.

Sadly, the game isn't available for purchase anywhere anymore...

oblivion
a fully modded and kitted out oblivion is a ( unstable) thing of beauty that in no way resembles the original game anymore