I hate to bump so old a topic, but I hate even more to make redundant ones, so...

I actually first shipped over to EoFF out of nostalgia of when I was younger and went to FF boards. I primarily spend time on Castlevania message boards though, as it's one of my all time favourite series. Growing up with a wonderful action platformer, and also growing up with RPGs, when the series took a more RPG slant with Symphony of the Night, it was really a dream come true. I'm not going to wax nostalgic here, or tell how great a game it is, when there's hardly a person to even say it was mediocre, but, the more recent Castlevanias...
I actually enjoyed the N64 ones a lot, as they stayed true to a platforming root, while being rather interesting in an action depart, and thematic changes. I also love the GBA games, for continuing SotN's legacy, but the PS2 games, I cannot stand. Not only was the story so unforgivably awful, portrayed with voice acting to make the Resident Evil cast feel shame, but the gameplay was stale, room after room of beat-em-up style gaming. It was more reminiscent of a medieval Final Fight than Castlevania. Lament of Innocence was a first try to fix the foray into rocky, 3D terrain for the series, so it was understandable, but all the pitfalls of it were not only ignored in making Curse of Darkness, but intensified.
I haven't beaten Curse of Darkness to this day, simply because I am in a place where to progress, I have to climb a tower. Fifty, that is FIVE ZERO floors, each floor being one room, where to go on, I have to tediously kill every enemy in the room. What director in their right mind would give a green light on something like that?

I guess to sum up my rant, I must say that Castlevania and 3D Action are like John Lennon and Yoko Ono. It simply doesn't work