Santalune Forest made me do a double-take because it looked so much like Viridian Forest, though I don't think that's exactly what you're getting at. The same goes for favorite areas in any re-made game; I'm always impressed by what they manage to do with areas when they graphically upgrade them, even if I should be expecting the changes (FRLG a bit, but especially HGSS and ORAS). I would agree about the palaces. I would also say that any of the areas that changed the camera angle to show the landscape impressed me (even the stretch as you bike along route 7 in X/Y outside the daycare, looking across the water). I was also impressed by the Elite Four rooms in X and Y, especially compared with older games; though they're slow with all the animations and such, and I've hardly rechallenged them at all, they just showed me how far certain concepts have come since the simple rooms of RBY.
