dawn of sorrow is the remake of aria for ds, it's the same game with dual screen feature thrown in.
I'll agree that Circle of the Moon was the best I've tried on a hand held until ecclesia came about (I so wanna say it brought the sexy back,
, but it brought more classic aspects of castlevania back which they kind of abandoned in portait) Never the less, I liked the portait as well, even though I primarily played the girl over the guy (what can I say casting spells was significantly more fun).
I have no comment on the older ones since I never got into bloodlines because I felt that controls were too ridgid, but the other console castlevania that I believe is considered to be the best ever made is the one for PS1 with alucard and inverted castle (if you get the good ending).
Speaking of metroidvania, There were metroid games that I've played extensively, but hell I'm starting to think they were for GBA... hmm I think that may be the case, since I only remember metroid hunter on ds for sure.