I recently came across a colorization that turns the original black and white/green version of Pokémon Red for the GameBoy into a proper GameBoy Color title. This sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole, but the sheer number of hacks that have been made over the course of several decades is slightly overwhelming, so I'd love to get a decent first selection by hearing which are your favorites that have improved or transformed console and handheld games in meaningful or entertaining ways.
Thanks in advance!
Hands down my favorite lately is Shadowrun (SNES) - the addition of SNES Mouse support. It makes the game so, so much better. That's been huge for me, since the game is a point-and-click adventure. It's such a quality-of-life improvement. If the mouse existed and was common when Shadowrun was written, I have to hope that they would have thought to allow it.
Also, obviously there's a huge community of SMW hacks, and pretty much anything well-reviewed on SMW Central, I'm liable to enjoy.
In line with yours, there's Pokemon UItra Violet, a great hack of Fire Red for GBA. Also Pokemon Naranja, another Fire Red hack that's based on the Orange Archipelago.
I had never even heard of this game, but reading the description on Wikipedia, it sounds absolutely fascinating. Thanks for the recommendation, I'll definitely give it a go!
It's a really fun game - and if you want a more typical action-RPG vibe, you should also seek out the Genesis Shadowrun game. The games are very different, but both are true to the Shadowrun experience.