Thing is, as much as I love the 64 games, most people didn't. Those were probably THE BEST example of 2D CV brought to 3D, and everyone hated them. And one of the reasons people didn't like them was because the "combat sucked." So blame the CV community for having a 3D action-based Castlevania game that doesn't play like old school Cv games.
I completely disagree.
The N64 CV's did have bad combat, and this next detail is very important, for a 3D game. It failed to take the third dimension into account in a fluid and natural manner. It instead tried to shoe horn 2D combat into 3D space, adding tweaks to make it 'fit'. It, however, is exactly that; shoehorned. It wasn't birthed from 3D design thought.
You cannot blame the fanbase for disliking such a sloppy and poorly thought out combat system. Likewise, you cannot blame the fanbase for the developers failing to deliver a combat system that works much better than what we've been getting.
Lords of Shadow does have one thing right. The dynamic between direct, and area attacks. The balance is way off, and you might as well be hitting enemies with a plastic Halloween prop as it does so little damage, but the idea of splitting the attacks into two categories of use is exactly what is needed. 3D combat, with a whip type weapon, comes down to two main types of attack; single, and multi target.
A proper 3D Castlevania game needs to fill these two requirements at the base level. 2D Castlevania by default has a more limited targeting scope, without the ability for the enemy to be around you on all sides. Instead, only four directions need to be worried about. In a 3D game like Lords of Shadow, you have, and I'm guessing based on size of attack that I remember, about 16 directions a direct attack could strike in, that would hit a different opponent each time. This multiplication of available directions for the enemy, exponentially increases your need for additional abilities to cover more at once.
In the Classic games, the sub weapons usually covered the Up and Down gaps in your attacking options. In 3D, you need more than that, since your potential enemy locations, based on direction, grew to a much higher number.
This is why the N64 CV's felt flat in combat. They didn't account for the added directions, and situations caused by them. Your ability to strike multiple targets in your range was severely limited, to the point of impracticality. This led to difficulty dealing with multiple targets, especially at close range.
To be clear, you don't need combos to fulfill 3D combat. You just need enough diverse options to cover single, and multi target combat situations effectively.