Check out the Zelda 1 Redux thread in the "Personal Projects" section of this forum. It uses a light touch to spruce up the graphics a bit in a way that I feel avoids the pitfalls mentioned in the above post.
but i have tried those 3 you mentioned, and i always revert to the vanilla LoZ1 (untill Redux gets finished!, animated tiles will help a lot, without changing the feel or the original graphics i think)
Thank you for the shoutout, guys

I'm glad other people share the same feeling as I do when I did the new sprites for Zelda 1.
For those interested, this are the sprites I did specifically for Zelda 1 Redux:
Bottom = Original, Top = New (Manhandalla has its eye-size reduced in the final patch)

Left = Original, Right = New

I tried to keep the original sprites' tone and basic design, and modified them based on that to better match their official artwork for each and every enemy/boss/NPC.
Huh, I actually have been checking up on that, but I thought it was an entirely new hack.
Thanks for clarifying!
The hacks Zelda 1 Redux (and Zelda 2) that I'm working on, are complete improvement hacks for both NES Zeldas that tries to address all of the archaic design and gameplay choices made by those games, and trying to bring them up to pair to more updated Zeldas, like ALttP, but also giving a lot of optional patches for people that don't like certain features, so they can customize their own ROM and experience either Zelda to best of their liking.
The changes are mostly gameplay-wise, while still maintaining the original graphics as much as possible.
However, for Zelda 1 Redux, I have also included 3 optional graphical patches.
My new custom graphics, posted above, are the default Redux graphics, but I have also added the original graphics as an optional patch, as well as another optional patch that brings over Link's Awakening-like graphics, with some elements of it modified to fit with the new gameplay changes (like breakable visible walls as in ALttP/LA).