I don't know if I'd agree about your dislike of the graphics being because of your own personal preference. The human brain has evolved to find certain harmonies of shapes/colors attractive while others are not. The author undoubtedly has a lot of grit—but, he's not an artist, and his game suffers because of that. Metroid has superior graphics because they had dedicated artists, and surely put a lot of time/thought into the look and feel of the game.

Also, the design scheme between different 'blocks' which make up the platforms in the game is not uniform, which makes the design feel much more disjointed.