Yes, because more often than not remasters or remakes fall short in certain areas compared to the original game.

For example, the soon to be released Tales of Symphonia Remastered will be 30fps across all platforms. Without knowledge of the original GC release, this might seem ok. But those who know that the original Gamecube version ran at 60fps can tell this is a downgrade from a 20 year old game.

Majora's Mask 3D might seem like a great game for those without experience with the original, but for those who know that one to the very core it's clear that the remake has changed many gameplay features for the worst (Zora swimming, boss changes, Deku hopping, etc). It is objectively a worse game than the original in a lot of ways.

Pikmin 3 Deluxe might seem like a sweet deal and an absolute win over the Wii U original, but with the loss of the pointing controls that the Wii U offered through its backwards compatibility with the Wii, it essentially lost the best and most comfortable way to play. Again, something we would not know without previous knowledge.

Darksiders II Deathinitive Edition butchers the original's color scheme and lightning, making it look a lot more washed out and taking away its visual identity.

These are just some examples, but I could go on forever.

I think it's vital to know the original game in order to prevent companies from pulling scams and being lazy. Remasters should always improve upon the original releases, and in order to make sure this holds true, we need to know our past as a industry.

Well... for some of those it doesn't seem like OG knowledge would be that important.  It's not tough to spot 30fps these days, and that is a disappointment for anything with 'Remastered' for the title.  I think the same would go for Darksiders II: "I didn't play the original, but there's something off about the art style here.  I try to tweak the gamma and my TV, but the picture still looks washed out."  

The gameplay ones are more of an interesting dilemma, but I suppose it'll depend on how one can articulate disliking a feature on its own (without comparison).  Someone could just play Majora's Mask 3D and say "the swimming seems to break the pacing here" or whatever the issue may be.  

Although I don't necessarily agree, I appreciate seeing your firm 'Yes' POV to the question.

Yes.

Because when I listen or read reviews, I expect to know differences between the original and the remaster, such as QoL improvements, new features, new additions to the story/campaign, etc.

Yes if you are looking to see differences from the old to the new. However, if a review is primarily comparing, you could argue that’s not really a review but more so of a comparison, when a review should be about the game as is. Not about it’s source material. 

No because it can easily create bias both ways, people over praising because they love the original so much and people being too harsh because they love the original too much.

Like everything, a healthy balance of all perspectives is what we need, not just one or the other.

No. Definitely not. Absolutely not.

Reviews offer different perspectives. And, as a reader, if you're trying to figure out if something is worth your money, you have to find the perspective that works for you. If I'm considering something like Live A Live where I haven't played the original, what I really want is the perspective of someone who is coming to the game fresh like I am. If it's something like Skyward Sword HD, I'm going to want to see if the game is worth it to someone who played the originals. So, its good to have reviews from multiple perspectives.

That being said from an editorial/professionalism standpoint, you should make sure reviews match up with the expectations of your audience, and the target audience of the developers. For instance, something like Mario 3D World is probably going for a pretty broad audience, and the Wii U sold so poorly that a lot of people are not going to have played it, so it makes more sense to review it as if it were something new and not pay too much attention to the Wii U version. On the other hand, something like the upcoming Mega Man Battle Network Collection is clearly targeting the nostalgia crowd most keenly, so it wouldn't make too sense to have the review done by someone who hadn't played any of the originals.

So, to put it another way, there's no ding against a newbie's/semi-newbie's professionalism to review a remake so long as the situation harmonizes with the dev's implicit goals.  It's just on me (or any reviewer) to do a good job explaining their pros/cons from the overall experience.  

My interpretation of DS Remake: "We're still using the skeleton that Visceral made over a decade ago (location, aliens, atmosphere), but refashioning it in exciting ways.  We're gutting out and re-doing certain areas, Isaac isn't a buckethead, yada yada yada.  We respect the source material, but this is also an EA Motive game open for old fans & newcomers."

Conversely, if I had an obvious bias against all pre-90's gaming it'd be wildly unfair to handle the Atari 50th Collection.

EDIT: Fair interpretation, broadly speaking?

Not exactly. I think you're coming at it from a different perspective than I am. I don't really care about fair vs unfair all that much, I'm thinking of what is useful for readers. My view is that the point of reviews is to help people decide whether to buy a game or not, although I recognize that's not why everyone reads them. I mentioned developers intentions, because theoretically the dev/publisher's are going to, to a large extent, define the potential market of the game, and therefore who would be interested in a review.

For example, using Atari 50th, based on the marketing and just what that game is, I would imagine that basically anyone who would consider buying it would be someone who at least sort of likes old Atari era games. Why would any of those people care in the least what someone who hates Atari-era games think of it? People like me who just don't like Atari style games don't need a review to help us decide whether or not we want to buy a collection of Atari games; I know I don't. So, who really has any use for that review?

In contrast, something like the FF7 remake/remaster/rewhatever you want to call it is going to interest people who played the original, but also probably a lot of people who hadn't. So, a review from either perspective might be useful to some part of the audience.

Every reviewer comes into a game with a different set of experiences. From their experience with different generations of consoles, to different manufacturers, different genres, etc. Whether they’ve played the original game might be one of the least relevant bits of information in the grand scheme of things.

That’s why you can never take any review or score as a definitive answer. If you care about things like review scores then it might be best to start following individual reviewers to see where their biases generally end up.

Yes, if the game is decades old. No, if it's something like TLOU. Because if it's something from the 90's, most of the sales will come from OGs. And OGs are in it for nostalgia, and to relive their youth. They're going to demand that the game lives up to the original etc. So if the reviewer has never played the original, they will be missing a key component. But if the game is only a five years old, then it doesn't matter, since the crowd won't care.

Both versions are pretty valid. A review from someone who's played the original will tell you how it has improved from the original title, whereas a review from someone who hasn't played the original is more likely to be less influenced by nostalgia when writing the review, and thus can be more objective.