The point is that we may disagree on them being problems at all.
Your core argument is something along the lines of "Castlevania is THIS. LoS did THIS, but before doing THIS it also did THAT and THAT and since THAT isn't what Castlevania has been till now, then it's a problem". But with such a mindset, how does the game even improve? How can we expand and continue the franchise if nothing new can be done?
People were making your exact same arguments when SotN was released. People were bitching about Alucard not using a whip-like weapon. People were bitching about Alucard not being a Belmont. People were bitching about the music. People were bitching about it borrowing from Metroid.
The exact. Same. Arguments.
It's odd how most franchises benefit from seeing their developers trying new things; yet Castlevania does not. Instead of going "wow, this game brought us something new!", fans are often "why the hell this game isn't like every other?". Then people wonder why Castlevania is possibly the least successfull popular saga in videogame history. Sure, for us fans the "core elements" are enough to be happy of almost every release (the last few years of IGA have been more than "meh" to me, but that doesn't change the fact that I liked basically every game with the Castlevania name on it), but for a new fan? For a neutral observer? The only observation they can make is that the series is stale in the games that follow its original form, and very close to terrible in the games that divert from that formula (hello, Judgement).
Sure, let's have 120406070000990 games set in Transilvania where you got to kill Dracula with a Belmont or Alucard and fully take place in a castle. Don't be surprised if Castlevania goes extinct.
There is positively no problem with the first stages of LoS. In past Castlevania games, games that lasted 2 to 5 hours, you spent a couple minutes in the wild to get to the castle. In LoS you spend 3 hours in the wild, but the game is 20 hours long. They didn't take ANYTHING that is Castlevania out of the game. They added something more. They experimented. They tried to expand the mythos. They set the game in a very different age (CV's "core" gothic horror works best in the 1400-1800 period, this is a medieval episode, no wonder it has a somewhat fantasy feel).
If it is a problem that the game tried to be faithful and yet attempt to bring something new to the saga, then we may as well start begging for HD remakes of the old games on PSN and be done with it. I respect your perspective, but it's the same kind of formulaic approach to the saga that has been suffocating it for 15 years. Castlevania has a lot of potential. Its scope and lore and dept and legacy vastly overshadow games like God of War or even Resident Evil and Devil May Cry, and YET Castlevania has a tiny fraction of the popularity of those games. Stop to ask yourself why. Is Castlevania worse or less appealing than those games? Or was it held down for too long by conservative design? Once again, one could see IGA as the guy who kept CV on life support (and as someone who likes the handheld games, the temptation would be strong), but you need to ask yourself if the games could have been more than that if someone dared a bit more.
And the fact that you consider it problematic that LoS has outdoor areas, and feel that that is a betrayal to the saga, while you're perfectly fine about the 2035 games simply tell us that you have different priorities in what makes a Castlevania game. But once again, if 3 hours of woods and ruins disconnect you more from the lore of the saga than an episode set 30 years in the future where Dracula reincarnates in a college student who fights enemies that would be at home in something like One Piece, then you need to accept that I can't credit your judgement of objectiveness. You have your preferences, and I massively disagree with them, and neither of us can claim to be closer to the true essence of the saga.
But until our mentality is to dismiss anything that isn't a reskin of the same game we've been playing for 20 years, we're always gonna get that, and eventually the fanbase will be so small that we will be knowing each other by name. Personally I'm done with being conservative. If tomorrow we get a phenomenal game set in 500 A.D. where a Belmont ancestor travels to the Middle East to investigate the origins of a plague that is decimating Europe and eventually finding out the undead are behind it, I'll be fine with it being Castlevania. I'll be fine if it deals with fighting mummies in a pyramid instead of vampires in a castle, as long as the horror elements are conserved, as long as it ties to the overarching story - maybe by telling us how vampires came to be, or foreshadowing Dracula, or setting up the Belmont legacy, or whatever as long as it does bring something new to the saga - and as long as it plays like a Castlevania game, I'll be fine.
