Spriting Competition: Giving The "Mania Treatment"

[GamerInGeorgia]

When you say "Don't Recolour The Sprites"

Are you saying that we should get the OG sprites and edit them to be more mania like?

That's exactly what you shouldn't do. You need to recreate the sprites in a more modern way (like more colors, detail, shading, etc.). Though if you edit the original sprite to a point where you can't tell that it was edited, then that should be fine.