One thing one needs to consider, especially when looking at games you loved back in the day, is how powerful the "rose-tinted glasses" really are.

For example, one of the first 3D games i played back in the day was Final Fantasy 7. Just a week ago i saw parts of a Let's Play of that game. And my good, i remember the graphics way better looking *g*

Other examples for me are Might&Magic 6 and 7. I loved those games. But they have aged horribly.
Funny though that FF7 uses drawn background and 3D sprites, whereas M&M uses drawn spites in a 3D environment. An interesting contrast.

Ultima 9 might have been the first fully 3D game that i played. Back then it looked awesome, but my machine could not handle it. I never played it properly since then.

And then there is the game that was my ultimate vice back in the day. Everquest. Even back then i thought it was ugly in many places... One interesting effect was that you could really see the graphical evolutions. The original zones from release and the first two addons looked really bad. But the third addon brought a big upgrade to the graphics. It had new, optional, character models, and the landscapes in the new zones was a lot smoother.

Graphics start to become more reasonable a couple of years later. Morrowind can still look good nowadays with mods. Even though it's strange to be able to see Vivec from the starting location ;) Another example that holds up well enough in my opinion is Gothic 2.

But even for pixel art, i like at least some basic fidelity. I am not a fan of the "8-bit" style. Shovelknight for example is borderline, to be honest. But give me proper "16-bit" style any day.