Why is it that only arcade games have the depth, intricacy and quality that has yet to be rivalled? You see immense player expression without mechanical Darwinism, yet the difficulty is never self serving. Arcade games have pure fundamental gameplay, no mechanics because mechanics are a crutch by shitty modern devs who can't handle real gameplay. It's a work of art to find out the little exploits and tactics in arcade games, like the infinite punch in Final Fight. Modern games attempt this, but finding exploits and cheese strategies in those is just shallow and skin deep design.
Whenever an arcade game does debase itself to have a mechanic, it's always the highest quality and programmed by the most intelligent Japanese developers in history. A shame the world changed...