I like both LoI and CoD quite a bit. I do find it strange that CoD has larger areas but slower movement speed, especially considering that LoI had the Wolf's Foot. I don't understand why CoD didn't have an item or ID ability to increase run speed; it seems like a very strange decision to me.
For LoI, I like that the game forced you to use items in real time. I think the real time menus were actually pretty well-designed and something that is rarely brought up when talking about the game. I like that you got powered up purely by items that you found rather than having a level system because it gave more weight to exploration. I think the game is really fun to speed run/do efficient 100% map runs of, especially due to the way the teleporting works in LoI. Joachim mode was a great addition. Music is fantastic, of course. The story is... there. I think it gets more flak than it deserves. Combat+enemy design could use some work; I think the game might have been served better by having Leon permanently acquire each sub-weapon in order to make your overall pool of moves at any given point in the game larger. Level design isn't bad but it's not great either.
CoD had a better narrative, or at least more engaging characters. Also has good music as is typical. I liked the ID system a lot, and that's surprising because I usually don't like monster-raising systems much. On the subject of stealing... with MOST enemies, stealing is not a problem. It's just that there are a handful of enemies where stealing is an absolute chore, which is a shame. I think that the obvious solution would be to to have made it so that perfect guarding a melee attack instantly opens up a steal opportunity. CoD is more linear in terms of level design but it doesn't really take advantage of that linearity to do anything interesting, which is a shame, and worse still, its obstacles are less about skill and more about what IDs you have. There's more enemy variety in this game, which is good. Unlike LoI, where you could get most items the first time you visit an area, in CoD you have to backtrack a bit more. While the inclusion of fixed teleport points helps A LOT (the game would be torture without them, let's be honest) the backtracking does make the movement speed issue worse.
I can't help but feel that CoD had more missed opportunities compared to LoI in terms of gameplay, mostly with respect to level design. Here's an example. In CoD's first area, you have only two noteworthy level obstacles beyond combat. One is that you need to hang left instead of right at the start or you will need to backtrack for the fairy ID to get the key item in order to open a door. The other is that you need to break a pillar that the fairy ID will point out to you. In CoD's second area, there are multiple places that lead to dead ends (you don't have the IDs you need) and there's a room where you have to shoot things with a cannon. In LoI's hub, you go through a quick tutorial that requires you to learn basic platforming and combat moves. In the area most people will do first (HoSR), you have to hunt down switches in order to proceed. You have to find a hidden room, navigate spike traps, use some basic timing to get through a room with a pressure switch and wall of electricity, then avoid lasers to get to the boss room. Along the way, you can also play bowling with some enemies and do a simple puzzle involving statues on the second floor for optional items. What's interesting is that CoD actually has a bowling section in it as well, but... it takes no skill to execute, unlike in LoI. You just need the right ID ability. You can tell that a lot more effort went into designing the ID system than the levels that the ID system was going to take place in.
Uh, this sounds like I'm hating on the game, but I'm really not. I like CoD a lot. The ID system is a ton of fun and the characters are entertaining. It's definitely got some problems that tend to feed into each other, though.