On pleasing old school fans while keeping market penetration

Case in point: Old school Castlevanias offered an unique blend of hardcore 2D action and gothic aesthetics that lost its market penetration by the 90's in a major part due to its difficulty. Koji Igarashi revitalized the series by mixing "metroidvania" gameplay and RPG style of customization, which suffered great criticism from old school fans. The series went through a complete 3D reboot that successfully increased market penetration but in the proccess they've lost the majority of the appeal to Castlevania fans, indicating it may have gone too far on the accessibility.



This topic IS NOT on how to reach Lords of Shadow market penetration as far as IGAvanias are concerned, it is assumed that such endeavor compromises too many essentials, leading to generic game design. Instead, it is focused on how to craft a middle ground that can please both old school and metroidvania fans alike. In other words, this topic is on how to keep IGAvania style accessibility while still providing what old school Castlevania fans enjoy.


IGAvanias often suffer heavy criticism by old school Castlevania fans because RPG lvls/power ups disrupts the "tango" that happens between the player and enemies, effectivelly dumbing down the gameplay for the masses. While I love DoS/Aria/SotN, there's no way to fix this issue there. Only PoR and OoE managed to correct this problem with Hard Mode with lvl caps, BUT...



Unfortunately, OoE ends up devaluating its own Hard Mode Lv.1 Cap due to some of its design choices. For one, the short and linear lvl design is BAD for replay value. But the worst offender is the boss design. IMO it betrays what Castlevania is about in the 1st place:



Many bosses are so rigidly scripted, requiring very specific actions from the player without any freedom of movement/custom tactic AT ALL. Bosses like the crab, that Shadow and the giant horse are TERRIBLE for replay value because once you learn their patterns, every subsequent fight with them will play out the exact same way, you just go through the motions without any thought. Notions like "spacing" and the classic "tango" are COMPLETELY killed on these fights. Very, very unfortunate.



So in the end, PoR is the only IGAvania that defeats this legitimate old school criticism. Unfortunately, players are required to finish the game in normal mode before they can even play Hard Mode Lv.1 Cap. Considering all this, my bullet points:



- Hard Mode with LVL Caps should be available from the start, there's no benefit for not doing so, it only keeps old school fans from enjoying the game by not making this available;



- Boss designs that kills player movement or choice of actions should be used sparingly or avoided if possible, it greatly detracts from replay value, kills player/enemy dynamics ("Tangovania") and doesn't necessarily accomplish anything that more traditional boss designs can offer;



- Old school "self contained stage" design doesn't require the exclusion of metroidvania style of exploration as can be observed in PoR (Portraits as warps to stages). In fact I imagine it wouldn't be too hard to program a main menu option for a "stage to stage attack mode" which serves the exact same functionality as old school Castlevanias, warping you to the next stage as soon as you finish the previous one.
 On the other hand, OoE had that linear level design and stage progression that pleases old school fans BUT at expense of metroidvania exploration. As mentioned above, this compromise isn't required at all.


So what do you guys think about this?

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On the 1st point, I understand IGA puts more effort into making Normal mode the best experience, but is that really worth puting off old school and hardcore fans when the solution is so simple? 

Personally, OoE was the biggest let down I had with any IGAvania for the reasons mentioned above. Intially, it leaves a big impression due to aesthetics but that soon fades out in relation to the glaring issues it has. Out of the 3 DS games, DoS had the best Castle but as we know, it's 1 of the most hated by old school fans not only due to its exclusive metroidvania level design but also for being the most grindy. I feel that most of PoR complaints are mainly related to aesthetics (that anime style), which means most gameplay decisions were well thought out.

DoS also had that poor, forced touch-screen functionality, it's grindy and even though it offers Hard Mode, thes difficulty is still irrelevant considering there's no clean LVL Cap Hard mode. I wouldn't mind the grindy aspect IF I had something challenging to use all that stuff in. At least Soul grinding is optional.

OoE had 3 forced button shortcuts (when most people just wanted 2), a greater emphasis on spells over melee (a serious letdown for many), fetch quests to unlock basic buyable items in shops, etc...on top of the forced issues mentioned above.

PoR had Dual Crushes/Character switching, but we're not forced to use those aside from a couple "push the blocks" situations that you only had to do once.  1 of the coolest things about the Castle+contained levels structure in this game is that it allowed for some wicked levels like Nation of Fools inside the metroidvania exploration. And it remains as the only IGAvania where we can choose between male/female protagonist on the main quest (on the fly nonetheless).