I'm greatly pleased with the look of this game. They captured the "dark journey" feeling of the early 'vanias. Rondo of Blood was the first Castlevania not delivering in this area. Why? Because of Maria. They destroyed both the gameplay and the creditability of the impending doom, dooming Castlevania itself single-handedly in the process. Remember Dracula's Curse? That game was about 4 damned souls (Trevor hated by people, Grant enslaved as a monster, Alucard who is angst incarnated, etc) in a hopeless quest to defeat evil. Even Bloodlines, with its motorized armors and skeleton soldiers, is able to convey a powerful sense of evil, mostly when you are beheading harpies while making your way through a demonic tower of Pisa. As much as I enjoyed games like Aria of Sorrow in terms of solid gameplay, these games are much like "a bunch of people randomly trapped in a castle" than "I'm in a hopeless quest to defeat evil, ocasionally with revenge in mind". You might say I'm "mood hungry" after years of japo-silliness, as properly pointed above.