Did anyone find late 90's-early 2000's graphics beautiful and artistic in their own ways?
This is the era where developers had found ways and the technology to create a video game that is detailed enough to make it pleasing to the eyes, but also not quite close to reality yet. I find them very beautiful and the reason why is probably what i would call image coherency. It gave off that same feeling as if you watch animations instead of movies.
Ie: just look at the 1st image of solid snake from mgs2. It's clearly unrealistic, the character model is low poly, lighting is not the best, u can see the pixelated rain textures, far from how a realistic rainfall should've looked like. But since nothing is realistic, it created a coherent image as if all the low poly props, pixelated textures, and the primitive lighting exist in the same universe, which in turn immersed you to the virtual world that is created.
Games these days are obsessed with making a product as close as reality as possible, but in that pursuit of realism, there will always be loss of image coherency which make the overall presentation uncanny. There's always part in modern games where sometimes it look absolutely stunning and life like, but other parts where it's just kind of uncanny.