Retro Gaming: Is it purely Nostalgia?

I'll be honest. I don't play current gen games that often. I'm more drawn back to older Gens... Mostly from NES to PS2... Now, I'm not sure if it's Nostalgia or if it's something else.
I guess the FPS craze that is going around with current gen games like Halo, Battlefield, Call of Duty, etc. has turned me off from current gen gaming. I know the Arkham games are good, but I haven't had the Bat-Disposition to sit and play them... The Last of Us, Uncharted, hell even the New Tomb Raider that everyone raves about hasn't attracted me enough to get the game and play it. I'm being drawn back to older gens... I think the two current Gen games I revisit every now and then are:


and



I know these games are old, but I just keep coming back to them. In RDR's case, I like the world better than GTA IV's Liberty City... I still need to play GTA V... But there's a couple of games I need to tackle before it. Now, part of the appeal to me of RDR's world I think it stems back from my love of JRPG games from the 16 and 32 bit era. Traveling the world map through various expanses of empty land while doing the occasional random battle... I feel more "at home" than on IV's Liberty City... (I can get just fine in III's Liberty City) Then again, I love to pop in the GTA games to drive around aimlessly... just to cure boredom.
MGS 4 is mostly not cause of the story that I revisit it, but just to mess with the enemy soldiers... (a nice pastime in older MGS games as well)

Then again, I still pop in the SNES to play Super Mario World... This freaked me out and it's actually true!!

Why go back to SMW? I mean there's Mario 64, Sunshine, NSMB, etc... but I go back to this one (and All-stars to play SMB 3)
Of course that with JRPGs I love to visit IV,V,VI,VII,Tactics,VIII,X,X,XII and games without Final or Fantasy in the title... Wish I had Suikoden II to revisit...


is still my most played Fighting game... We can be on ULTRA IV, but I still return to SUPER II...

WHY IS THIS?

I guess we can chalk it up to Nostalgia being the main reason. I can say that many of these did not need a 2 hour unskippable in-game tutorial, but that is for everything on the 8 and 16-bit era.

Oh! I think I got the reason: CHEAT DEVICES!! current Gen games do not have Cheat Devices... Now don't get me wrong. It's not that I NEED Cheat devices, but sometimes they can spice up the gameplay. Or help you reduce time on future replays... All power-ups being spreadshot in CONTRA, or having the Level 7 card from the start in MGS... Nononononono, Level 99 and infinite money for everyone in Final Fantasy VI cause screw you grinding!! Or simply make Battletoads a beatable 2 player game... Instead modern games give you achievements for the stupidest of things.

Yay Modern Gaming!!

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not some elitist game snob/hipster with the belief that Retro Gaming is so much better than modern gaming. I just tend to gravitate towards the older stuff...