Deciding whether a beloved game still holds up without nostalgia

I replayed the opening hours of a game I adored as a teenager and realized how much my memory had edited out: long loading screens, awkward menus, and stretches where nothing interesting happens. Yet the music and the level design still work on me. When people recommend an old favorite, how much should they discount the friction that newer players will feel? I don't want to call something timeless just because I remember playing it on a rainy weekend twenty years ago.