Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow: Harder Vanilla ft. More Doors

Happy New Year.

This is a mod that aims to make a slightly more difficult vanilla experience. Readme for more info.

You start out as a greyed-out Soma with weaker leveling and a Handgun that deals Dark damage, and you notice that all enemies are tougher, some resistant to even Slash. Some have drastically increased damage. All of them drop their souls and items far easier than normal. Some yellow souls have multiple effects. Item placements are changed, soul pedestals are changed, there are new holes in the walls... It's mayhem up here.

0.96 - "Making this update gave my monitor a scanline."

Couple issues.

Happy New Year.

There are frankly too many slight changes to list all of them, so I'll just plow through all of them in a general manner.

You start out with a Handgun that deals Dark damage. Don't expect huge mileage out of it. Maybe try out the broadswords and spears.
Most enemies have gained additional Resistances, more ATK, more DEF. You personally have around 50% less stats.

All Soul Rarities are lowered to 1 (base 15% chance to obtain any soul at Lv1). In comparison, Zombie normally had a Soul Rarity of 180 (base 2.8% chance).
Rarity of items from enemies also lowered to 1. RIP Hammer's wallet.

If you noticed, some souls have '(Dextro I)' or '(Blood I)' written in their description. To put it succinctly, Dextro II additionally grants the effect of Dextro I, and Dextro III grants both II and I as well. In essence, you're equipping up to 3 Yellow Souls at the same time. It's like some kind of Class System.

All items that grant LCK would otherwise grant you INT. Because LCK is a terrible stat. You need 16 of it to even increase drop chance to begin with, and only ever so slightly.

Additional 'doors' to pass through from room to room. You'll know when you see them. Some room layouts have also been slightly changed.

Oh, and the most important change of all. Soma's blue colours have been replaced with greys. This might be a questionable decision.

So... That's all. Have fun, I suppose.

Oh, and I replaced Gorgon's name with Euryale. God of War reference.

Current bugs:

Certain swords aren't sellable for some reason. I have no idea why. I don't know how to fix it either.

If you happen to equip Chaos Ring really early (say, via New Game Plus) in a way that it'd give you negative INT, your blue souls may underflow and deal massive (sometimes negative) damage. I have no intention to fix this, because it's normally not possible to get Chaos Ring that early in normal play. Plus, it's funny.
Just treat it like Sergey Hax mode, I suppose. Yes, that's a CrossCode reference.

Palettes chosen for Chaotic Realm might have graphical glitches, and have questionable compatibility with recolour mods.


Thanks to:

LagoLunatic, for DSVania Editor. Made this entire endeavor possible to begin with.

Dawn of Sorrow Definitive+ Edition, for the name "Namakura"

For several patches I've included because I like them:
caminopreacher - palette changes to Student Witch, Witch, Crow, and UI trims. Also, the brilliant idea to place the Black Panther soul where you'd normally find Vjaya.
DevAnj - MPpatch and INTpatch.
radzo73 - EXP border fix.
Xanthus - ASM edits. Zombie Officer soul heals 10 HP. Succubus heals only 2 HP.
Mako, Crossman - Several amazing hardcoded effects, like shooting Crows from Giant Bat, removing Headhunter's limit, buffing Sherman Ring by 500%. Also, the idea that one-time bosses (Legion, Balore, etc.) can drop items. Also also, 'Aria of Sorrow Rebalanced' inspired me to make this mod to begin with.

Testplayers that greatly influenced an update:
JupiterClimb - 0.96

Changelog:

0.90 - "Initial release."
It's pretty much done, but just in case there are bugs, or dire imbalance... You know. I'ma be up in there, ready with a Day 1 patch to fix such issues.

0.91 - "Day 1 patch."
Iron Golem HP reduced from (default 9,999) 999 to 99, actually killable without 'specific' attacks.
Prices added to Excalibur and Valmanway. Chaos Ring -10 STR/CON/INT changed to -50 CON/INT, no massive -STR so hopefully this doesn't break anything this time. Slight changes to some enemy weak/res and stats. Red Minotaur soul tweaked (halved damage, less manacost). Bomber Armor soul damage buffed.

0.92 - "Removed Fortune class."
The Tsuchinoko part of Fortune III wasn't working. Tsuchinoko might be hardcoded after all. Mimic is now part of Blood class, replacing Flesh Golem.

0.93 - "Entrance now connects directly to Chapel."
A second "Left or Right?" has been added somewhere in the castle. More doors. More holes. More enemies. More soul freebies in the early-game. Zombie Officer soul heals 10 HP, Succubus heals only 2 HP, thanks to Xanthus.

0.94 - "Big update."
All items now have a rarity value of 1, like all souls. I just don't like RNG. A third "Left or Right?" added. First "LoR?" changed to Rune/Sherman. More holes in the walls. Map art. S U S. All Katana-type weapons are Valmanway now. Valmanway itself replaced with Garian Sword. Chaos buffed to 223 DEF, tweaked to only Slash weakness. Floor doors covered with platforms where possible. Skips fixed. Malphas/Kicker Skeleton and Hippogryph/Giant Bat soul pickups stacked together. Classes tweaked. Arena challenge rooms now skipped from right to left. Water drained from Flying Armor room for no real reason. Durendal colour fix. Purple Floating-Garden room tweaked. Try saving and reloading in the Black Door save room for a neat surprise. Floating Garden loot tweaked. Broadsword obtainable without Malphas. Vjaya room tweaked for no reason; Cestus placed a little higher up. Some other items tweaked; Hrunting is a shortsword now, as well as Gladius. I REMOVED a tile from the ledge you jump from to get Copper Armor, and SOMEHOW that made the jump EASIER. Shadow Knight DEF halved. Lightning Doll spotted in Study!?
0.94a - "Hotfix."
Lightning Doll soul damage halved, MP cost doubled. Manticore HP increased. Great Armor HP increased. Broadsword replaced with Claymore (visual only). Claymore replaced with Master Sword, deals Holy damage, found in Floating Garden. Blocking Mail in Yasutsuna spot, Yasutsuna moved earlier, top of broken Arena elevator. Hammer sells Great Sword now.

0.95 - "I don't really know how to make this game harder."
Soma's overall stats reduced by 50%. Armor DEFs and most armor/soul attributes reduced by >50%. Dainslef massively nerfed. Chaos Ring penalty nerfed. Chronomage MP cost now 199. Kyoma Demon MP cost now 299. Persephone MP cost now 30/s. Alura Une MP cost now 80/s. Free Sky Fish soul in Top Floor. i-frame/bunnyhop/swingspeed rebalances for overhead weapons. Garian Sword damage scaling tweaked. Slash res from "Armor" type gear reduced to only Final Armor, Demon Mail, Blocking Armor and Eversing, mainly the lategame armors. Damages from higher-end weapons reduced. Longinus Spear is the new raw highest-damage weapon. Legion is now weak to Killer Mantle.
0.95a - "Hotfix."
Army Jacket nerfed to 12 DEF. I accidentally put in the wrong number, I forgot it's in hex :skull:. Biphron soul found in Clock Tower. Death is now weak to Killer Mantle :)
0.95b - "Crash fix."
Nerfed 2 laggy crash-prone rooms. I forgot to actually give Eversing and Demon Mail their slash res :skull:, fixed. Nerfed some higher-end enemies' attack damages. Still huge, but not that they're both hard to dodge and can just 2-shot you.
0.95c - "These damn glitches, I tell you."
Fixed Poison Fist disappearing. Tsuchinoko in Inner Quarters moved 2 rooms up. As a token of appreciation, and as per initial intent, there is a room with infinitely respawning Mind Ups and Potions.

0.96 - "Making this update gave my monitor a scanline."
Fixed the skip going from Study to Arena with slide; unintended, genuinely forgot about the existence of that box when I added it. Agartha may be obtained much earlier. Death's Scythe massively nerfed, part of the mega-tweak to all overhead weapons' i-frames. Longinus Spear pos swapped with Kaladbolg. Chaos and Balore doubled. Castle Corridor hub room tweaked. Chaotic Realm made more annoying and given experimental colours; apologies to people with photosensitivity issues for the previous versions. Spears now have less frontswing and hit twice if you're close enough. Front text edited to remind you of the existence of "NOUSE".

Foreword:

Thank you all for the good reception. I appreciate that my idea of fun aligns with most people.
There might no longer be any updates after this, for the sake of my fragile mental health.
- Luminatron

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