GBA games were all a clone of the SOTN.
SOTN is really a reference to Kid Dracula.
All of these games and above makes no sense, and follows no Canon, I would just play "Circle of the moon", it seemed like the most decent of the clones, that made some sense. Not including the NDS or PS2 games.
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However, we are talking about exploration, not straight forward action. Their are many "Mellenium, apocolypse, games on the SNES, that plays like a modern day CV. As well as "Rondo Of Blood". I say ROB because the levels of SOTN, are all from ROB, but they extended the areas.
Also do not fret, SOTN is not really the first Castlevania to have a Metroid/Kid Icarus gameplay, there is the N64 games. However it is in 3d, does all the same thing that SOTN does but was an experiment, and follows the official timeline of the games.