cubbienathan nice post. i think we have approached this problem of how to enjoy da classics from a similar perspective. i get extremely hung up on little details like the scrolling issue that you mentioned and worry that i’m not experiencing the game as it was intended, and also i’ve encountered my share of technical headaches akin to what you describe. troubleshooting them by browsing help threads and wondering how in the heck no one has had my seemingly commonplace problem before may actually be my least favorite way to spend my leisure time. and i’ve also decided at points that i’m just going consoles only, both to sidestep the need to troubleshoot and to get a “pure” experience. to this end i did play the NTSC-J versions of earthbound, FFIV, Zelda II and some others, on original hardware, but these days i find that doing so is no longer important to me.
i learned some things along the way that have aided my…ability to enjoy games, as dumb as that sounds. these are for me only, i think. the first is that the technical headache of basically anything that’s not plug and play is almost never worth it for me. to cite a couple examples, i made great efforts to play the original Zelda on the (Japanese) Famicom I bought before learning that you can’t get an “authentic” experience unless you have a Japanese CRT because the “channel” the Famicom wants to display on is actually somewhere “between” two channels that display on a US TV, so you get a fuzzy image; i set up a Raspberry Pi but certain games like Lufia II always froze. again, just to give some examples.
the other thing that has helped me, and this was gleaned mostly from just posting here, is learning that there’s no “definitive” version of any game, given how in the case of JRPGs (my favorite genre) in particular, so much was left to chance in the case of the script and its translation, if i’m playing in English; arbitrary decisions to tweak the gameplay or aesthetic for overseas audiences (or remasters; as in the FFIV pacing case you describe) can fundamentally alter the gameplay experience, in a way that I might like (or might not, and might also not reflect the developer’s original vision); and there are often bugs that the developer would certainly have addressed, had they been able.
these days where i net out is just having a large library of games in openemu on my computer, which gives me access to a lot of options for pre-patched roms and ability to try out different visual settings in a plug-and-play format, and save states, which i’ve found are huge for my ability to enjoy any game. i consider “remasters” available on Switch if they’re well-regarded and i like the way they look, especially if it’s for a game i can’t easily emulate (anything ps2 or later basically). that’s basically my approach these days, even as i still find myself drawn to, say, MISTer or a modded ps1.
again these are just my ruminations having had some of the same headaches that you have had; not in any way trying to give advice or anything
i would be interested to hear more about your specific experience with FFIV, and in particular the pacing question. i got pretty far into it on a SFC but eventually stopped playing because of the super high encounter rate. i’ve often thought about revisiting it and the remaster, with its auto battle, seems like a good opportunity, but what in particular did they do to speed things up so that you’re not getting time with the party members? would welcome anything else you want to share