I've mentioned visual clutter as the last, because it neatly ties to the atmosphere's difference between StB and DS. While I don't like them in DS from gameplay perspective, all those fancy graphics have their place as a way to set the mood. Right from the opening menu you will instantly see the difference between both titles. StB has muted colors, Aya is in a grayscale, it feels almost ominous and for me personally brings to mind archives in terms overall feeling. DS keeps the "grain" effect, but otherwise goes in completely different direction, full of light, almost too bright, and colorful. You can easily see that this is something ongoing, something full of action and life. The Aya's portrait itself is different. DS uses MoF design with few tweaks, but the portrait is completely redrawn. It uses somewhat newer ZUN style and it looks as if Aya was in the middle of observing the situation, her legs indicate movement, she has a camera ready and looks at something that viewer can't see (once in level select, it will turn into her looking at the decisive photo instead). Reporting in DS is ongoing and Aya is commenting on it. In StB the portrait from PoFV is reused. This time Aya seems less dynamic in her position, probably standing still, there is no camera to be seen, her notebook is open and she looks directly at the viewer. Reporting in StB is already done, now Aya, based on her notes, shares with you interesting tidbits. It feels like you are quite close to her... But I digress. StB Aya has, somewhat surprisingly, a somewhat bigger repertoire of emotions displayed (8 vs 6), which is nice. Also, StB uses simpler (not much, but still) Aya's design, something that keeps characterising StB overall.
As I've talked already before, DS has many more things being displayed, animated in the background and moving somewhere, giving it a sense of rush. Even in level select there is a small news ticker-like display that lists controls, constantly turning around, that is absent in StB. More saturated colors in the background in DS, together with grain effect being colored, makes that piece of animation more pronounced too. In StB it's always black grain that even further mutes the already non-intense colors, thus easily turning into almost unnoticeable noise, as it probably should be. It ties well to the musical background too, but more on that later.
StB is very conservative in terms of bullets used. While there are spectacular patterns, many are made from the most basic circles of various sizes and some lasers. Talismans appear only in one Chen's spellcard and three Ran's spellcards, basic daggers are unused outside of level 7, same goes for kukris. There is not a single instance of stars. It's almost unbelievable how simple everything in StB is in terms of base components. There are few special things like Alice's dolls, Remilia's bats or Medicine's fog, but even those are not standing out. This simplicity, lack of singling out any single class of bullets as the "very important thing" adds to the relaxed, subdued atmosphere of StB, with focus put more on the pattern as a whole. DS on the other hand has quite many unique bullets that standout from the other, more traditional ones, that are used alongside them (although sometimes, like in Murasa's case, the bullet is standard, white, big orb, but has special graphics to accentuate it). It's likely that their inclusion is because ZUN had designed more bullets after 5 years and wanted to use them again. However, with how those special bullets grab your attention, they also contribute to the energic, busy feeling of DS.