No online play meant game had to be played with people sitting next to you. You had to socialize;
No updates meant games had to be finished when sold, none of the early access or battle pass bullshit;
Games were made hard to artificially give longer play time but this resulted in sense of achievement when you beat the game;
Booklets were actually awesome because you had lore in your hands which was written in a way not to spoil the game but hyped you to play further so you could get to that content.
Sure for the most part it’s nostalgia, but technology brought as many, if not more, bad things as it did with good things. We’ve seen games get much better than old games and we’ve seen them much worse.