I guess... I recently did a from-scratch emulation setup for Oracle of Seasons that took like 15 minutes... while I'm probably saving 10+ hours during actual gameplay via save states and fast-forwarding.
Saving mechanisms make the whole thing again interesting .
I do remember wondering how anyone could ever finish Sonic on the Mega Drive. I think I once played a whole evening on NYE and didn't even get half through.
I'd note that most consoles' libraries haven't aged particularly well - e.g. by my determination there were four NES games worth my time, eight GBA games, six N64 games, zero PSP games, zero Vita games, etc. (And most of these only tolerable with the aforementioned save states and fast-forwarding, if I had to play them in real time the list would be even shorter.)
mmhh... really that bad?
I would hope that at least some of the classics would hold up to modern expectations, although certainly not all, or even most.
Even if you don't want a PC setup, retro hardware is just... not very good. The Analogue pocket blows away original Nintendo hardware for gameboy games: https://www.analogue.co/pocket
Okay, that seems cool .
Simple enough, with enough options.
HDMI and DVI are electrically compatible! A $10 cable or $5 adapter will let you plug any modern console into your monitor! Though you'd have to figure something else out for sound output...
I'm actually right now connecting my work laptop via a HDMI-to-DVI cable , but I just don't want to talk about this option .