Say you come home and for some reason you see a cupcake sitting on your desk.  Throwing caution to the wind, you eat it, and it doesn't taste like a cupcake, it tastes like a banana muffin.  Now you like banana muffins, but you really wanted the cupcake.  Somebody comes in and asks you "hey, how was that?"  Instead of saying you liked it, which you did; you say it's awful because it wasn't a cupcake.  This is unfortunately how some reviews I've seen for Castlevania:  Harmony of Despair have been written, and in a world with ever increasing reboots, remakes and reimaginings, this is concerning.

Harmony of Despair is part of this year's Xbox Live "Summer of Arcade" lineup.  Instead of the usual Metroidvania formula, a whole new type of gameplay is used.  You are in a much smaller castle, made up of locations and enemies from all the pervious IGA-made titles.  Your choice of hero is also taken from the previous games, with fan favorites like Alucard and Soma, each sporting different abilities.  Your goal is to navigate your way through these mini mazes before time expires.  Along the way you will fight enemies, find treasure and get money to buy equipment at the store.  In a little twist, and probably the most annoying of all these changes, you can only access the menu at certain locations throughout the map.

Overall it's a cool formula, and makes for a pretty interesting game concept that we haven't run into much before.  The replay value is great, with speed runs obviously being the number one reason to go back and play a map you finished.  While most reviewers acknowledge this, a lot have ranked it lower because they're disappointed it's not a Metriodvania style game.

You know what, I'm upset too.  But I'm not going to knock the game for looking like a cupcake when it's really a muffin, because I also think muffins are delicious too.  Again, if someone asked me "hey, do you like that muffin?" I won't respond "no, it's not a cupcake."  That's absurd.  The people who wrote these reviews are essentially saying they would have liked the game better if it didn't have the "Castlevania" label on it.

We can go back a few years and look at Prince of Persia, the cel shaded reboot that strayed from the Sands of Time formula.  Reviewers who liked it were still harsh because it didn't follow "the formula."  There is another Summer of Arcade game coming up that is in the same boat:  Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light.  Just because it's not the "Tomb Raider formula," will reviewers who enjoy the game still be harsh on it?

My biggest upcoming concern is Metroid: Other M.  Kotaku already has an article up questioning if it will be bad.  Sure, we're all itching for a traditional Metroid game, but are reviewers going to express that opinion by deducting points, literal or not, from their review, even if they liked it?  Let me be clear:  if it's a bad game, that's fine, but don't take it out on something you enjoy because you wanted something else.  I don't like the direction Zelda has taken since Ocarina of Time because it's more action focused rather than puzzle focused, but if I were reviewing it I'd review it as a game, taking away any preconceived notions of what a Zelda game is.

Maybe I'm wrong and a name should represent a type of gameplay rather than the universe it's in, but then you look at a franchise like Mario and its most recent game, Super Mario Galaxy 2, which is nothing at all like Super Mario Bros., and not even close to the original Mario Bros.

All I'm asking is that reviewers don't start down a path where they rate games based on the previous titles in the series.  Again, if it's a bad game and you didn't like it, that's fine, say so, but if you liked it, use another piece of writing to express how you wanted the series to go rather than in the review.