After one of my recent Reddit experiments failed, it called my attention to the fact that there's a significant subset of 'Vaniers (yeah let's call them that) who feel the shift to make all Castlevania games more like Metroid games is where it all started going bad.
Interesting. I was always under the impression SotN was near-universally loved as an improvement to the series. How does CVD feel about the hate?
While I do think SotN and OoE are the crown pinnacles of the non-linear games, and are fantastic games in their own right, I've been guilty of saying time and again that SotN is where it went bad for me. But that's not entirely honest because SotN is a great game, it's just a huge departure. There are three points where I think Castlevania got further from itself and never looked back.
1) After Super Castlevania IV, the tone of the games shifted dramatically and lost the Hammer Horror feel entirely.
2) When SotN came out, it was pretty much nothing but non-linear games after that point, save for a small selection such as Legends, Chronicles, Dracula X Chronicles and Adventure Rebirth.
3) The point where I really feel the series just fully went downhill was when they were relegated to handhelds only for GBA and DS. Had they stuck with consoles, I think I could have embraced them more. Around this time, the PS2 games were released and honestly, that's the worst the series has ever gotten for me. I'll take Lords of Shadow any day over the PS2 games. I can see the appeal for people, but they bore me to death with how repetitive they are.
TL;DR, SotN was the beginning of the end for me, but the PS2 games were where it hit rock bottom for me.