I'm curious, my playthroughs of both the original and the remake were so long ago - but does D-pad movement buy the player anything? I agree it's rather silly that it's not an option, but I don't remember being hampered by the control scheme in any way.
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It doesn't add anything unless you have the muscle memory for the dpad movement over joystick for 8 direction input. I just find it awkward, and can't switch directions as fast. The corner zones also feel a little off compared to the cardinal directions, but this is likely just my muscle memory hampering me and not the game itself.
I feel like my issues with it are definitely nit-picky, and I can definitely see others enjoying the game and not caring whatsoever. I guess I just find it frustrating that a $79.99 CAD remake doesn't allow for both input methods.
For example I know my partner enjoyed playing with the joystick. And in other games like cuphead that give you the option he still played with the joystick instead of the dpad. Perhaps I'm just a little stubborn :p
About the only rationale I can think of is the joystick being better then the joycons dpad for movement, particularly when inputting two directions at once. I personally use a pro controller so I don't personally suffer from that in games where I use dpad, but I assume most people just stuck with joycons outside of the more "hardcore" switch owners.