Something that bugs me, and this affects many franchise fandoms, is the heavy Mandela effect/misnostalgia.
That's not the Mandela effect. That's just referencing something other than the in-game sprites. If it were a case of Mandela, it would be the opposite of what you described. The desaturated models would truly have no basis in prior depictions, but a large portion of people think they used to look like that.
No I mean that the fanbase pretty much ignored art directly from devs except ironically, remake characters. They overrelied on the anime (this only really applies for Gen 1/2 mons since that was before GF sent ref model sheets), or "limited" sprites. And then when something isn't that, they get nettled.
While you'll find various definitions online, from how I understand it the Mandela Effect is an example of a false memory of something that never existed. So
DrPumpkinz is correct.
It's worse when devs try to actually be faithful, but because of the Mandela effect people just treat like a new foreign thing. One that comes to mind are the colors for XY models being based directly on Sugimori's post Gen 3 art, though people act like "the 3D medium did it for lots or cuz 3D sucks" when it didn't for those reasons. It's trash don't get me wrong, but don't act like this came out of the blue for your "narrative"
Especially when Entei is saturated...like its art
Now what you're describing is also an example of
false memory which the Mandela Effect falls under, but it's a different kind. Not sure if it has a definite term, but what you're describing is a large of number of people's perceiving something is incorrect based on their first exposure to the material not realizing there was a prior/alt version of the material that's being referenced thus is correct. It's more of a conflict of point of view.
Also, I wouldn't have used Entei because, looking at Entei's official art, sprites, and model I could barely tell a difference. If you want a batch of Pokemon this applies to here's
an Imgur of more notable models that differ from their sprites (and the model then being colored to better match the sprite). I'll just post some that I find notable:
Anyway, I don't think it's anything to get mad about. Even you noted that you prefer the more vibrant colors of the sprite, and the Imgur pics show they could have been done on the models. So it doesn't really matter whether they know the color palette is referencing the Sugimori official art or not, in the end they just don't like the more dull/faded/washed out appearance to their favorite Pokemon.
I also wouldn't be surprised if Sugimori didn't consider his drawing's color palette to be the official colors, he was just drawing the characters in a way that looked good. If you look at the 2D drawings of the Imgur Pokemon, despite them having the faded colors, they look perfectly fine due to the way he drew them (their pose, applying lighting & shading, etc).
BDSP is probably the first a remake is faithful to OG art for humans. FRLG and HGSS, Oras and LGPE especially drastically changed designs. Yet, despite people raving these characters, they rarely ever reference the original design in fanwork, outside Kris and Leaf, though that's for other reasons
*Looks confusingly left and right* Okay, where did this come from? We were discussing about people's personal preference to Pokemon's color palettes and suddenly you jumped to this. Like, okay, so not a lot of artists draw the human characters in their old designs. So? It's not like they're using designs made by the fandom and trying to push it as an official appearance, the new designs are just as official as the older ones, possibly even moreso. You can obviously prefer the older designs over the new ones, I too prefer some original designs such as Shelly & Wallace, but I'm not going to say that invalidates the newer designs. Heck, Pokemon Masters seems to be the closest we have to what GF considers the preferred designs and it doesn't strictly stick to one game's design aesthetic, default Brock is from FRLG while default Misty is from Let's Go (also Let's Go designs actually tried to stick closer to the original sprite designs moreso than FRLG); and that's not to mention it includes alt costumes both unique to the game and referencing other games & media depictions.
Fanbase nostalgia is fickle, and ultimately what hurts a lot of remakes, official for reception, or fanmade for accuracy. The fanbase is far more likely to flanderize stuff too. And then the company either pisses them off in doing something different, or caters to the misnostalgia. Or (rarely) is faithful to intentions of the past devs
It's a vicious cycle
I've read that paragraph a few times now and I don't quite understand what you're trying to say with it; I think you mixed a few thoughts together and they didn't come out quite right.
Like, have the remakes been hurt from them going with new designs? I don't think so, from what I can tell they sold just as well as the main games of that gen (it's usually the third versions which have lower sells). And no matter our complaining them using older designs for LGPE and BDSP doesn't seem to have hurt them at all either. And who past devs are they not being faithful to, themselves? I'll give you the fanbase does sometimes make mountains out of mole hills, but a lot of times it's also usually a vocal minority. The number of people complaining is VASTLY outnumbered by those who just don't care, many just want to play a fun Pokemon game.
I don't like BDSP because I don't think they change enough from the original or didn't incorporate the notable parts of Platinum, but that's a personal issue because there's a ton of new players who never played Gen IV so BDSP might as well be a completely new Pokemon game to them. Like I've been watching clips of the Hololive Vtubers playing through BDSP and they're having plenty fun and reacting to battles, story events, and Pokemon encounters/evolutions for the first time. It made me feel a bit nostalgic about my first time playing through Diamond. And they probably wouldn't be acting any different if they did change the designs or added more story elements, to them and the thousands of others who never played Gen IV before it doesn't matter. Those of us who did play the originals wish there was more and know what new players are missing out on, but we're the minority and it's not going to affect their sales in the slightest or the general positive reception of the game (cause, though it's the vanilla DP, it's still DP which were perfectly serviceable games).
Generally, people kinda don't seem to realize gameplay (or even story) elements in older games are limited in scope, either due to dev inexperience or limitations/rushing. When a remake is brought up, fans gravitate for sticking rigidly to it, which in Pokemon causes issues in terrain, world building, and scale. A city is NOT 6 people
This is basically where the "misnostalgia" or even mandela effect for some details set
GF unfortunately know that fans will be peeved if anything substantial (like blocky layouts) change. It's why every remake relatively is the same layout wise (FRLG's Sevii Islands are post game, but the maingame areas are similar), with a fresh coat of "paint" (QoL) for menus/battle mechanics
Can they make a full fledged remake with worlds as big and inspiring like the anime? Maybe
Will they? That depends on how open the fanbase is
... You think GF didn't update the maps & scope of cities & towns because they were worried about backlash from the fanbase?
GF doesn't give a flying mulch what the fanbase thinks when it comes to redesigning pretty much anything in the game. They keep the map the same because its easy and already done, anything they redesign is out of pure interest on their part. They didn't care what fans would have thought redesigning Mauville City, replacing the Abandoned Ship with Sea Mauville, or making New Mauville only a single room in ORAS, they did it because they wanted to do something interesting they thought of which consequently also affected something which already existed to be made shorter to match their new vision.
If they cared about what the fans thought ORAS and BDSP would have their Battle Frontiers and other third version additions which improved the quality of the game. If they cared they would remake the cities & towns to make them larger (or at least look it) & have more people. But they don't because that wasn't what interested them thus they just went with what was there because if it ain't broke don't fix it I guess (also a bit of nostalgia on their part could be at play; THEIR nostalgia, not the fans). And if GameFreak does make any changes they'll do it wholeheartedly not caring if it upset fans, infact they're probably not even thinking about that but more of what the player's experience would be exploring the city/town at the moment. Also any changes to the menus/battle mechanics are usually holdovers from the new main games of that gen, maybe their aesthetic slightly changed to match how it was in the original games the remakes are based on.
Also, let's remember in BDSP's case they stuck so close to the original games is because they were having a third party make it. But not a major third party, no, they got a smaller studio (that they were already working with, ILCA also helped making HOME) and pretty much just gave them the original DP blueprints and said "make these but in 3D, don't go off design without permission" and only really allowing for little changes even then. The decisions with BDSP wasn't done based on perceived fan reaction but rather they just wanted to get remakes of DP out there so that they can say it has been done and focus on their true interest: Legends: Arceus.