I'm the lil bro.
I'm hooked on the brothers!
- Pronouns
- kit/he
HeartGold and SoulSilver are fine Johto experiences that hold up well on their own merit. There's plenty to be said for the two of them, with their additions of little things like walking Pokémon, expanded Apricorns, and being able to meet all the gym leaders outside of battles and more of that sort and with larger changes like the restoration of a number of Kanto areas. Yet... they miss the soul of the original games. They stand up well on their own, but, even with all the additions and all the changes, they missed the mark as remakes. It's hard to explicitly tease it out, especially from nostalgia, but some of the changes in music, some of the changes in the environment, it lost a certain charm from the original titles - particularly from Crystal, which really feels like it remains the definitive Johto experience.
Could not disagree with this take more. I kind of understand where you're coming from that the originals have a unique feel and it's why I go back to them, but I think HGSS is extremely charming. It's the first game that introduced following Pokémon, and it fleshed out the purpose of the legendaries within its storyline by comparison to all of the original games; plus, I feel the dialogue is generally better written now that it's been brushed up upon. I would only agree that the life was sucked out of Goldenrod City's theme, which definitely feels a bit more... generic mall-like now than it used to, but even in that case you can just turn on the classic music. And maaaybe the atmosphere when you first run into the legendary "dogs".
All-in-all HGSS to me is the better experience, with having more interactivity with your Pokémon than any game that came before it, updated graphics, and really nice music. Honestly, I'd say it's one of the best games in the series, if not the best.
I also think the Superstar Saga remake isn't that bad. I'm not sure it would be really superior to the original in every aspect, but I think it's quality of life improvements make it worthwhile to play instead of the original, not to mention the added content (even if it's... not up to par with the main game, to put it lightly). Someone else already went into more depth on this point so I won't make too fine a point of it.
As for the actual remake that I think is bad, what I'd answer with depends on if we're including ports that give new lighting systems/engines/etc. but keep the general feel of the game the same. If that's the case, Sonic Colors Ultimate is the winner here, no contest. It was botched, and it was botched badly. This actually goes for a lot of Sonic ports, but at least the others are still playable... And also couldn't trigger epilepsy pre-patch. If you're going to play Sonic Colors, just play the original Wii version (or play the DS version, which is actually a genuinely good "remake" of sorts). I'm not exactly Sonic Colors's biggest fan regardless, but y'know.
If we're not including that, that's hard to say because I don't play a lot of remakes. But also, generally speaking I don't have a lot of issues with remakes.