[Dr. Boogie]

You say that Dawn of Sorrow was this great, well-made game, then complain about how someone not familiar with the series would mistake it for SOTN. First off, I assure you that if the screenshots up for comparison had included some of the closeup artwork of the character, even a layman would be able to tell the difference between SotN and DoS. More importantly, though, my response to that is "So what?"

As you said, they're both great great games. It sounds like you're suggesting that people shouldn't be excited about the next 2D Castlevania unless it looks radically different. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that same argument could be used against the old Castlevania formula as well. Rondo of Blood plays almost exactly the same as Castlevania III, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be looking forward to the next old school Castlevania.

In fact, that reasoning pretty much precludes all the Castlevania games except for the experimental 3D ones, and if those are all a person is playing... well, they won't much care for the series.