Really appreciate your opinion here. What an incredible game, I have been meaning to replay it and this post is inspiring me to do so sooner than later.
Aria of Sorrow and this game have the best Castlevania art style. I thought the cartoon-y shift with the other 2 DS games was a big mistake, it just made the series fall into visual obscurity with anime styles. And a series like this benefits from the dark weight of the art style, especially when the low-poly pixels in game don't convey the same amount of detail the drawings can. They really nailed these two games, they're works of art in many ways.
My thoughts exactly. I'll never understand. I also felt that the overall environment wasn't very dark and mysterious, it seemed to follow the art style in the that same generic direction. And of course DS touch screen gimmicks and poor pattern recognition are painful during big battles.