I don't understand why you talking about cropped Amiga games or GBA ports. I have no clue why the Amiga programmer mainly used a non full PAL screen for the games. Anyway, there are some neat games in PAL overscan for the miggy. Check The Settlers, Project X or Sensible World of Soccer with resolutions up to app. 360x284.
And if we are talking about the SotB details:
I still think that e.g. the clouds aren't well drawn in the Genesis/Mega Drive port. The black shaded edges around are way too thick. This gives you the impression that the game runs in a lower resolution as it really do. Later Mega Drive games like Flink look much better. Henk Nieborg is a graphic genius.
We get this kind of pandering a lot from non-PCE fans. "The bright PCE colors are neat for cutesy PCE games like Bonk". No one ever says "PCE colors are fine for Legend of Xanadu games". SotB PCE isn't colored anything like a Bonk game or NAI.
Only a few examples. The most PCE games are really colorful and i mainly like it. No matter if it's a cute platformer, RGP or 2D shooter. But it doesn't suite SotB, that's my opinion. The Turbo Duo Beast doesn't look like Bonk, but i still prefer the Amiga graphics/colors.
And to be honest: There are indeed awful (over) colored PCE games like Cadash or The Legendary Axe. Both are great titles in respect of the gameplay, but i can't stand this horrible color palette.