I grew up largely in the PS1 era and have a nostalgia for the affine texture warping. I'm not going to necessarily defend it as good in its own right, but I think a lot of older games play into that same "temporary suspension of disbelief" we get with movies. When something is less realistic, we are forced to invest more of our own imagination into it, an I believe that in a lot of ways this can form a stronger connection. You see this a lot with the whole analog horror trope, it's the fear of the things hidden between the pixels that you're not seeing and lets your imagination run wild.

Striving for realism only has one of two results: success of failure. Success is hard, and the numerous, subtle failures pile up until it distracts you and separates you from the illusion it's trying to achieve.