Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow: Castlevania Aria of Sorrow Kaizo

IPS patching required.

This is a Kaizo ROM hack, so expect ludicrous difficulty throughout.

----CHANGES----

You are stuck at level 1, enemy formations are made harder, bosses have additional obstacles/enemies in their arenas, you can only heal with save rooms and it (almost) always takes 3 hits to die.

There are also other changes like custom music, weapon rebalancing/reworking and a tiny bit of graphic changes.

----DIFFICULTY----

As for how difficult this hack is (according to the author, who is somewhat well versed in the game, but nowhere near hardcore as some speedruners for example), it will take a lot of dedication to get through.

Moving from save point to save point and defeating bosses will take a lot of practice to master and might be too much for some players that don't like their games too hardcore.

While the whole hack should theoretically be doable without using savestates (with enough practice), if you really feel like you are getting stuck anywhere, feel free to use savestates to get through that point. There's no shame in that.

----CHANGELOG----

1.1.1

-LUCK fix patch now applied (1.1.0 didn't have it)
-Dead Warrior is now ACTUALLY weak to Stone
-Fixed a bug where items with negative luck could make the luck underflow, causing 100% soul drop rates (now no item gives negative luck)

1.1.0

(The new patch is compatible with old version save files and should not break progression)

The main point of this update is to remove some of the more tedious and way too punishing aspects of the hack. This makes the hack's difficulty more consistent and not have ludicrous difficulty spikes. If for any reason, you want to play the older version, the old version patch is included with the new version.

Main changes:

-Underground Reservoir and Chaos Realm gimmicks reverted.

-HP decrease on some enemies that took a bit too long to kill (check Readme for more detail)

-Regular boss music replaced (the previous one could get old quick)

-Hint items added for points where progression differs from the original game

-Soul drops generally increased across the board

-Joyeuse and Claimh Solais locations switched

Check the Readme for more detailed changes.

----CREDITS----

Special shoutout to Dev Anj for creating the LUCK fix patch, which this hack uses and many of the different MIDI composers for their MIDIs.

Check the Readme for a more detailed look at the changes and credits.

CHANGELOG:

1.1.1 CHANGES:

-Dead Warrior is now ACTUALLY weak to Stone

-LUCK fix patch is now applied (it wasn't for 1.1.0)

-Fixed a bug where items with negative luck could make the luck underflow, causing 100% soul drop rates
(now no item gives negative luck)




1.1.0 CHANGES:

-Regular boss music replaced
(The prevoius one got pretty repetitive after a while)

-Underground Reservoir (doors) and Chaos Realm (no save points) gimmicks reverted.
(Progression through these two areas is more like the original game, instead of a long gauntlet without save points)

-HP decrease on some enemies that took a bit too long to kill
(Bone Pillar, Minotaur, Catoblepas, Wooden Golem, Lilith, Cockatrice, Werewolf, Disc Armor, Needles, Man-Eater,
Fish Head, Nightmare, Triton, Slime, Alura Une, Kicker Skeleton, Red Minotaur, Giant Skeleton, Gladiator)

-Final Guard now resists everything but slash

-Dead Warrior and Nightmare now weak to Stone
(The most optimal strat for defeating these enemies was quite tedious. If you have Milican's Sword they can be killed much faster now)

-Hint items added for points where progression differs from the original game

-Soul drops generaly increased across the board

-Joyeuse and Claimh Solais locations switched

-A few room layout changes

-Manticore was NOT changed (The changes from 1.0.1 seem good enough to not make this boss a pain with unoptimal strats)



1.0.1 CHANGES:

-Big Golem and Death boss fights fixed
-Manticore and Great Armor HP to Def ratio changed.
(Now takes less hits to kill without strength souls, but about the same with the most optimal strength souls. This is purely a buff for
weaker builds vs the bosses and does not make the bosses harder.)

(Manticore previously: 900 HP, 24 Def)
(Manticore now: 1880 HP, 0 Def) (yes, it is actually weaker)

(Great Armor previously: 1000 HP, 25 Def)
(Great Armor now: 1337 HP, 16 Def)












CREDITS:

--Manekimoney
--Dev Anj, who is responsible for the LUCK fix patch



MIDI CREDITS:

--Old Boss1 - Unkown MIDI creator (Found on VGMusic.com)
--Boss1 - MIDI extracted from "Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 2"
--Boss2 - Unkown MIDI creator (Found on midiworld.com)
--Julius MIDI - Dracula9AntiChapel and Kev Guitar
--Graham MIDI - Unkown MIDI creator (Found on http://kimagurenagareboshi.web.fc2.com/) (sorry, can't tell who made it cuz I dunno japanese)
--Chaos Realm MIDI - Made into MIDI by ear, by me
--Chaos1 MIDI - Unkown MIDI creator (Found on VGMusic.com)
--Chaos2 MIDI - Bev Wooff (Rexy)



MAIN CHANGES:

--Some music has been replaced. Not for any particular reason. Just thought it'd be cool.
--A few sprite changes. Not for any particular reason. Just thought it'd be cool.

--You cannot level up.
--99% of the time, it takes enemies 3 hits to KO you (might differ between enemy attacks and your defensive setup).
--Some enemies attack faster than before.
--The power level of weapons and armor is weaker.
--A few enemies take 1 damage from all attacks but have very low HP. Faster weapons are stronger on them.
--Room have harder enemy formations.
--Bosses have added obstacles/enemies to make them harder.
--There are no real healing items obtainable (either by shop, enemy drops or exploration).
--Souls with healing have been made useless and cannot heal you.
--Mind Ups have no effect, but can be sold for a higher price.
--Souls have lower damage and reworked cost for level 1 stats. Not nearly as useful as before.
--Bosses that are also regular enemies don't drop their souls. You can find their soul container later in the game.
--Bosses that are also regular enemies no longer drop items (all items can be gotten later on, Great Sword is now a drop from Bomber Armor)
--All hard mode exclusive weapons and boss rush reward weapons can be found in the castle.
--Enemies drop their items more often.

--The waterfall in Undergroud Reservoir can be passed freely, without rush souls.
--Legion must be defeated to gain access to Flame Demons.
--Chaos Ring is no longer obtainable.
--Alastor works like an Iron Golem, requiring a Killer Mantle to cut its HP.
--Kyoma Demon can only be found in Chaos Realm (the soul is too broke for most of the game).



WEAPON/SOUL CHANGES:

All weapons had their stats changed in some way. Here are listed some more specific changes:
--Mach punch is an early game weapon and found in Study.
--Hammer in Study replaced with Trident.
--Sherman Ring in Dance Hall replaced with Kaiser Knuckle.
--All spears attack faster.
--Partizan, Gabolg and Ronginus Spear have land cancelling.
--Whip sword is reworked and found on Top Floor. Has land cancelling and is faster.
--Valmanvay attacks faster (changed enemy immunity frames from 7 to 3).
--Positron Rifle allows completely free movement while firing (like Valmanvay).
--Yasutsuna is reworked and replaces the Chaos Ring as the all souls reward. It can be found in the room before Chaos (recommended for the boss fight).

--Cockatrice and Catoblepas souls no longer inflict Stone debuff (Catoblepas soul now uses Bone Pillar code to achieve this effect)



DIFFICULTY:

This is a Kaizo hack, but some Kaizo hacks are just a bit tough, while others demand savestates to be beatable. So how hard is this one?
Let's put it to a scale from 1 to 10.
1 is the base Aria of Sorrow difficulty.
10 is practically unbeatable without using savestates.
With that, I would consider the hack to be an 8 on the scale, while sometimes leaning into the 7 or 9.
Moving from save point to save point and beating bosses will take a lot of attempts and a lot of practice, but can be done with perseverance.
While I haven't played all of the other Aria of Sorrow ROM hacks, I assume this is the hardest one yet.

However when the hack leans to a 9, it takes quite a lot more to progress. While it can be done without savestating, the amount of precision
and endurance that is required is on a level where it might not be worth it. If you feel like some parts are just too tough or bothersome,
feel free to savestate through them.

The parts with the difficulty of 9 are the parts that I savestated through to make it bearable for myself. I will list them here, consider
these to be difficulty spikes:
--Headhunter phase 3: used savestates to skip the first 2 phases. Nothing much to say. Phase 3's movement is one of the trickiest in the game.
--Underground Reservoir (changed in 1.1.0, no longer the same), getting from the 1st savepoint to the Forbidden Area: The Undergroud Reservoir
has been remodeled so it requires much more rooms to be explored for progression. There are about a dozen rooms that need to be explored without saving.
--Julius fight: Skill issue. Perhaps with enough practice I could have done it, but the farthest I got on a honest attempt was about 30% through
his HP.
--Chaos Realm (changed in 1.1.0, no longer the same): Similar to the Underground Reservoir, it is a gauntlet without any save points except it
also has a boss at the end. Definitely the hardest part of the hack.



KNOWN BUGS/UNINTENIONALL ODDITIES:

--Some rooms might have graphical glitches due to having too many different entities in the room.
--The save point in the Floating Garden puts you outside the room when you reload the save. Dunno how I broke that.
--Some enemies are planned to be placed on specific terrain,. Since they sometimes aren't on that terrain, they function a bit oddly
(for example Alura Une that is not on flat ground).
--Talking to Mina after defeating Graham can cause the game to freeze. Dunno how I broke that.
--During cutscenes, enemies can still move. This means you can take damage when ending the Julius fight, unless you position yourself and
the entites in the room so you can avoid that.


Database match: Castlevania - Aria of Sorrow (USA)
Database: No-Intro: Game Boy Advance (v. 20210227-023848)
File/ROM SHA-1: ABD71FE01EBB201BCC133074DB1DD8C5253776C7
File/ROM CRC32: 35536183