Yeah it's mostly nostalgia and selection bias speaking. Easy to remember all the flaws of games you have played recently and compare them to the handful of classics you can remember from the 90s.

There was so so so much trial and error in games in the 90s, with some you basically had to press different inputs to even figure out what does what. No QoL features, really poor save systems that forced you to play the same section over and over, terrible voice acting, crappy B-movie plotlines (this hasn't changed that much tbf but there are some amazingly written games too at least to somewhat counterbalance that) etc.