Well, Sonic Mania went the opposite direction, increasing color palette and sprites count, but it also give it its charm.
In fact, I’m still jealous of Sonic Mania walk and run cycle sprites count, which is 2x of Sonic Master System, 1, 2 and pico sonic, and 1.5x of Sonic 3! PICO-8 having limited resolution and color palette, most games stand out thanks to leveled-up animation.
But due to limitations of spritesheet (and my own ability to draw many sprites), I had to stick to Sonic 1 run cycle and art style; which ended up quite nice in the end.