Even more butthurt rant
I was explaining the point about the time which, no matter how much you claim "butthurt", is true. Times change, and it requires developers to get increasingly creative. I'm sorry you can't understand that.
Instead of actually dismissing your entire response, I'll respond to it:
Sorry but all I'm seeing is a butthurt rant who is just making excuses with the whole "the time being different" worn out argument.
It's worn out, but it doesn't make it false. Time DOES change, and fanbase DOES change with it. You can't simply expect that something that worked 10 years ago will work again today if you're not original with it.
Fact remains that HOD is getting flake for being to similar to its predecessor CVSOTN while CV3 is not.
[Worn out time argument, that even being worn out doesn't make it false]
Besides as I explained above, it's not "similar" (you like decreasing the "copypasta" factor to make your point). It's copypasta. Juste's character design is Alucard wearing red with a whip. The castle's design looks like SotN's. Equipment format feels like SotN's. Two Castle concept from SotN (and they managed to make it SHITTIER on HoD). Save Room like SotN's. Teleport room like SotN's. I'm not even meaning that "It looks like SotN" in an "Aria of Sorrow" sense, where the system is the same, but the looks is different. I mean that it is copypasta. If they could have added the spinning coffin to the save room, they would.
Maxim mode feels more original than the game itself.
Juste is only aesthetically simiar to Alucard in face, hair, and the fact that he has a dash when he runs.
Fairly enough, he could dash foward, which I found pretty nifty. Still, it's like I'm playing with Alucard wielding a whip. Why not make him into Alucard with a whip at once? At least Mirror of Fate was more honest with this issue.
And it's not so much Juste himself, but the whole game screams "SOTN!" on your face. The issue is the game, not only Juste.
Everything else about the guy is different right down to the to his clothes to his whip wielding and witch related spells.
The game could've more of this "different right down to..." and less of "copypasta from SotN", don't you agree? The elements lifted directly from SotN overshadow the "different" things. There are many different things, but many similar ones , and more than enough copypasta ones. The copypasta ones, unfortunatelly, are game-defining elements. This is the problem.
There is enough of a change to him to hardly call it a simple "copy and paste".
Yeah, so lets call him "Richter Belmont that looks like Alucard, but can't slide jump". Now thinking about it... He DOES feel like a Richter-Alucard fusion straight from some bad fanfiction!
Well, as I said above, the problem is not only with Juste. The game's whole aesthetic drips SotN.
Soma is more close to a copy and paste of Alucard than he is given his gameplay aspect of swords and dark dracula related magic collecting.
Yeah! Remember how Alucard could collect EVERY SINGLE SOUL from his enemies, and use three at the same time PLUS his equipment, pratically changing the gameplay drastically in some of these combinations? Remember how Alucard had an overhead arching attack using heavy swords that could catch overhead enemies? And that time when Alucard could use firearms?
I will grant you this, but you're ignoring that the problem is the aesthetic, and not so much the gameplay. Juste was a Belmont that could equip things, and forgetting Simon's limited equip system on CVII, and Nathan, he was the first to actually be a Belmont that could equip things and make for a cool twist.
The problem here is AESTHETIC. A Metroidvania's formula, on its base, speaks about equiping your character to explore an giant map. There is not much you can do about it besides changing its aesthetic and improving level design. This is where HoD failed critically.
It has a second castle that is just like the first, with minor changing details, and an uglier palette. If you ask about Order of Ecclesia, people say that the game is good, but some things that detract from it are the copypasta levels. Now, imagine a game where an ENTIRE second castle is a copypasta.
And the aesthetics... Well, no need to mention.
You forgot that they added speelbooks, that was new.
Alucard had his fair share of magic, in many forms, that make the spellbook system look like a "rehash" of the same thing, to me.