[FistfulOAwesome]

Anyway, it sounds like you just prefer the old school Castlevania games to the new ones.

You're probably right. I do enjoy the IGA produced games but I don't like them nearly as much as the older Castlevania titles or the Metroid Games. Hopefully one day the producers of the series will think of making a truly old-school game since we haven't seen one of those since Castlevania Chronicles on the Playstation (and that one sucked). The SOTN clones are Metroid style, (as far as I know) Judgment is a beat-em-upish fighter, and Kojima's new game does not bear unfair comparisons to God of War. It's time for the series to return to it's roots.

Also, you talked about the Dracula's Castle section of OoE being "practically no exploring" and having a more level-based feel to it. That particular area was almost identical in execution as the castle in SotN: a semi-linear path with some opportunities for exploration, limited by what abilities/glyphs the player has.

I disagree (on a fact!?). There aren't very many options to do the castle out-of-order. You have to make your way to Wallman to get to the underground area. Once you do that the only path divergence is to get the Cerberus Glyph (which is mandatory). Once you do that you make your way to the underground. That is mostly straight with the only path divergence being to go to the Rapidus Glyph. After that you get a real path divergence to either go to fight Death or Eligor (but it's mostly like being able to choose between Temples 2 and 3 or 4 and 5 in Ocarina of time. It doesn't really matter which one you choose since you'll have to do both anyway). Once you kill both those guys you make your way to the top where the final path divergence is to get the Flying glyph.

Compare that to SOTN (I can't find a FAQ that states all the different paths you could take but it's a lot (I should know. I've beaten that game several times) and I think you'll see (at least from my point of view) how different their Castle's are.

On a related sidenote: I actually like the castle better that way. Since you have all the major abilites and glyphs by the time you get there (minus Paries) you truly get to enjoy the castle since you don't have to think about backtracking.

Personally, I feel the exact opposite about the two series. I loved SotN, and I really enjoyed Super Metroid, but that series just didn't do it for me the same way Castlevania did using the same gameplay formula.

To each his own. I like Metroid more because it's more tightly designed (I don't feel like writing "In My Opinion" after everything I type. Obviously, since I wrote it, it's my opinion). The Castlevania games end up with me lost too often, especially the hell that is Harmony of Dissonance (strangely enough, it has my favorite atmosphere but my most hated gameplay). Shout out to Circle of the Moon, which is more tightly designed than any of IGA's games barring the level-based Ecclesia.

I do think I need to mention another thing that may get someone (not necessarily you) to like Castlevania over Metroid (despite my complaints they are basically the same type of game): Atmosphere. The Metroid games are based on alien planets while the Castlevania games are based in a Castle and thus have enviroments that with stone/metal/cement walls and hard, stone/cement/metal floors (generally. There are special areas like the underground). I guess what I'm saying is that the sights are definitely something that might twist a gamers opinion to one series over another (do you enjoy the alien sights of Metroid or the (fantastically) realistic Earth sites of the Castlevania games?)

In any case, a sequel to Demon's Crest is long overdue. At this point, Capcom could even do what they did with Bionic Commando, and have a remake of the game followed by a 3D sequel. I know I'd buy it.

Agreed. Considering how remake/sequel happy they are right now with their old series, I say there is a chance for revival (if people make enough noise). I do hope a remake or sequel would be more Rearmed (awesome!) and less BC (sucks!).