I would second this - while I'm more likely to play HGSS and I think they're some of the best in the series, I personally think that the omission of Kris is one of the worst things to have happened in a remake so far. I grew up with the second generation - all the fun battles, glitches, stories, and experiences that I started out with were in Johto. So, in line with that, I was extremely pleased to see that HGSS were such faithful remakes of the original games, but so deeply let down with the very strange overwrite of the first female player character, especially since I liked her so much.
Kris is still my favorite female player character and is
very important and dear to me. I was
deeply angered by HGSS swapping her out for a ditzy Mario cosplayer, and that combined with the retconning out of Green (my second favorite female protagonist) as a possible Gen 1 protagonist due to the Mt. Silver battle, will forever make HGSS leave a bad taste in my mouth. As many good things HGSS did, and despite them being the best and most-polished remakes overall, they also felt like a giant middle finger to the female heroes of Kanto and Johto, so it's still tough for me to rank them over the original Crystal. Kris and Green deserve
far more respect and recognition than they get. >:(
(This is also why seeing Gold in Pokémon Generations felt like a dagger going through me. I can accept Red being treated as the canon hero of Gen 1 due to RBY having no female protagonist, even if I still dislike it due to FRLG's girl existing, but I will NOT accept the same for Gold. Unlike Red, his debut generation *does* have a female protagonist, and while she was only in Crystal and not GS, it should be obvious that Crystal overrides GS as the "canon" version of Gen 2. Otherwise, Eusine and much of the Legendary Dogs' lore wouldn't exist either, which few people would argue for.)
As for the graphical integrity of the game, I think that a major factor was the coloration. Crystal corrects a lot of sprites' color errors and has more saturated colors overall, and appears brighter and sharper as a result. The original Johto games were a step up from Gen I, but didn't use their technology to full capacity in many ways.
Crystal clearly benefited from being a GBC-only release instead of a backwards-compatible "black cartridge" release like GS (and Yellow). They were able to do more with Crystal graphically and mechanically thanks to the bigger cart and stronger capabilities of the GBC.
I don't know why, but it felt like sprites became fuzzier and more washed out in the GBA era. Very few of the first 251 saw their sprites improve from Crystal to RSE/FRLG, IMO, and Emerald's animations frankly looked like crap compared to Crystal's. Very stiff and overly pixelated with none of the personality and charm.
The colors and sharpness improved again with the Gen 4/5 sprites, but the issue of stiff, pixelated animations was still there (and Gen 5 also had terrible blurry backsprites). With the 3DS era, we've gone right back to Pokémon looking blurry and washed-out with stiff, generic animation. Even the N64 graphics of the Stadium games feel brighter and more lively than those of Gens 6 and 7, let alone what Colosseum/XD had on the Gamecube.
The one thing that I think this VC release could improve upon is localizing some of the features that never made it into the English version of Crystal. They could bring back the Pokémon Communication Center, even if it's non-functional; allow the GS Ball event to occur in-game; and perhaps tweak small localization errors like the Odd Egg's shiny rate. So far VC releases have been almost 100% direct ports, leaving even major glitches in-tact, but this one could be made better with just a couple tiny changes.
From what I've read, the GS Ball event will be making a return, but in a somewhat more watered-down form. However, I've also read that the PCC and online features aren't coming back. :(
I do want to note that the article does say "Alas, it's unclear whether or not Nintendo can overcome the problems that currently keep Game Boy Advance games off the 3DS's Virtual Console." So I wouldn't count it out completely yet, though I'll concede that the likelihood is extremely slim.
In that case I do hope that we get more VC releases on the Switch. I'm not sure if it has the right hardware to do so, but there may be ways to just use one screen of the Switch to display both screens of DS games or something, since it's a touch screen - though I don't think my dream of every generation on one console could happen, since I doubt it can efficiently emulate the sixth and seventh generations. Oh well!
With the 3DS nearing its EOL, it's probably too late to put in the effort towards GBA VC, anyways. Better to save that for the latest and greatest hardware, especially since it actually has the power to emulate GBA games.
