For me it was encapsulated by doom 3 for the most part. Games with strong dynamic shadows like splinter cell chaos theory and stalker with a mix of shiny specular effects is timeless for me. When I go back to these games the shadows still feel as good as they did when they came out and the lighting perfectly crafting the mood. A lot of modern games now even though their fidelity on paper is much better just always feel extremely flat to me and don’t pop out of the screen like they used to. It seems like they’re missing contrast and UE5 seems to make this even worse where all the games using it just look like mush
I don’t think they can really compare to godlike sprite art like 3rd Strike et al, but I have come to appreciate the current trend of super vibrant & detailed 3d models in fighting games. The last two Guilty Gears, Dragon Ball FighterZ, GBVS, & Street Fighter 6 are some of the best since they don’t aim for any sort of photorealism and embrace style. I absolutely love all the squishing & stretching of models ArcSys does to make super animations come to life