Dr. Boogie: I don't know how to quote so I'll quickly reference.
Muramasa: By fanciful I meant storybook-like (which the game suggests since it's a story being read by a little girl (I think? I didn't make it past halfway of the bunny guy). By "Dark and Gritty" I meant your average FPS with a TOTALLY DARK AND GRITTY STORYLINE SINCE THAT'S WHAT TEENAGE BOYS THINK IS MATURE GRRRR!!.
Gothic: I don't know why I wrote that. I regretted it since I put it down.
Whip: Yeah, but it's never been as good as in Super Castlevania. That game had the best control scheme in the entire series. The whip could be spun, dragged for a shield, and, best of all, it could be used in all eight directions. I don't know why they gave that up. They had figured out to separate the sub-weapon (there are six main buttons on the SNES pad so somebody realized that there was no reason to keep the sub-weapon on Up + Attack anymore (they only did it on the NES since it only had two buttons (not counting Start and Select) only to get rid of it again for no reason.
Oh! This post hasn't actually addressed the whip comment and instead turned to praising Super Castlevania.
I don't like the later whip games (or non-whip) since they feel so stiff (battle-wise) compared to the greatness of Super Castlevania. It's one of the reasons I like OOE. The Beam Glyph feels like I've gotten back my precious whip in some way (even if still not as awesome as Super Castlevania). It feels the closest to combining the battle style of Super (and a little Bloodlines/Rondo of Blood) with the movement of the IGA games.
IGA: Oops. I meant that it's the only game that he directed (apparently produced) that I like as a game (Must have lost a few words there). I do have a soft spot for the guy. His games are really good at setting an atmosphere. As games they fail to work for me. There is so many bad backtracking, easy enemies, bad placement of said enemies (Ex: Why are there plants in the library in SOTN?), and confusing systems (the souls were a nice idea but they aren't as good as plain old sub-weapons plus it made people do this:
http://castlevaniasoul.ytmnd.com/) that I can't take it.
On an unfair note, I think the Castlevania games aren't as good as the Metroid games at that style of gameplay, probably due to their lack of polish. The only exception is OOE and that's because it isn't really a Metroidvania game. The first 2/3 of the game are basically levels ( the exploring is fairly light) and Dracula's Castle is practically level-based (there is very little exploring. It looks explorable but in actuality it is a series of levels with no map screen change. You do it in this order (using the bosses as the order name): Wallman, BlackMore, Death or Eligor, Dracula. It's structure is actually more Demon's Crest (Capcom will never make a 2, will they?) than Metroid.
Alphabet on Manliness: No offense to Maddox, but Dawn of Sorrow was also on that list and that game is boring. As for SOTN it doesn't really deserve it's place in gaming history. It's a nice experience but it isn't as good a game as Super Metroid (not surprising, since IGA only made SOTN that way since he missed Metroid). It does a worse job than Metroid in nearly every way.