Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow: Reprise (Roguelike/Endless Mode)

[Xanthus]

Reprise is a roguelike mod for Aria of Sorrow which allows for endless randomized gameplay, along with extensive rebalancing and new features! Rooms, enemies, items, and shop are randomized, along with custom content and modifications. Mod is still in development but is almost feature complete at this point.

Patch (zipped with readme): https://www.mediafire.com/file/0gcyh1hl7orq2gu/AoS_Reprise_083.zip/file
Discord: https://discord.gg/PytA9rr6nz

Releases:
0.83 - 10/19/23  Hotfix to add Undine, and fix gargoyles spawning early
0.82 - 10/18/23 Randomized progression, improved flying enemy spawning, improved shop, bug fixes and small room changes.
0.81 - 7/30/23 Bug fixes, minor room improvements, nerfed pierce effect against high DEF, and added progression soul indicators outside of each area.
0.8 - 7/25/23 Julius and Chaos added, 7 new room modifiers with physics changes, different lobby based on soul progression, new balance changes and effects, bug fixes, etc.
0.7 - 5/13/23 Added autosaving after bosses, Nightmare difficulty with better difficulty selection and balancing, Hi score saved, more items from hidden breakable containers, various fixes.
0.61b - 3/7/23 A few bug fixes, fixes a lock that could still occur on hard mode. Certain money pickups will increase after room 40.
0.6b - 2/19/23 Various QoL improvements, boss room moved to lobby, endless mode improvements, Easy / Normal don't receive difficulty changes over time. Seed / RNG improvements
0.52a - 1/14/23 Bug fixes, minor balance and room changes, more money later in the game.
0.51a - 1/12/23 Fixed game ending at Graham with Soma, added '~' to item/souls that have been changed from vanilla to easily find changes in-game, and nerfed rush souls.
0.5a - 1/7/23  Added tons of new gameplay modifications, effects, and rebalancing. Randomly hidden XP containers in the walls, and Julius mode by holding L on the name entry screen.
0.42a / 0.41a - 12/7/22 Quick fix for a room that got corrupted and took 3 seconds to load.  Fixed a room generation bug where it would get stuck trying to find a different room.
0.4a - 12/7/22 Game is easier on Normal/Easy with starting equipment, added more items to pickup and other room improvements/rebalancing. Other fixes / changes in the changelog.
0.38a - 11/30/22 Entire areas are generated that contain rooms from 2 vanilla areas. 8 Room modifiers that affect the enemies / player. Book of Return item added. New pickups that add max HP and MP. Various fixes / changes.
0.31a - 11/10/22 Fixed a crash that could happen in rare scenarios, couple of other minor fixes.
0.3a - 11/9/22 Randomized shops, new pickups that increase stats permanently, Pickup/Enemy randomization improvements, more tweaks and fixes (changelog in readme)
0.21a - 11/6/2022 Added in Bosses, difficulty based on time, room changes, shop changes, random seeds, and various fixes.
0.1a - 10/31/2022 First alpha release.

Additional gameplay in my twitch vods: https://www.twitch.tv/xanthus1/videos

 
 
 

Main Features:
   - Procedural generation using the filename as the seed.
   - Randomized rooms, aside from the intro room and the lobby room.
      - There are four generated areas (one for each direction from the lobby), each contains rooms from two areas.
      - When you defeat a boss, all areas / rooms, as well one item in the shop are re-randomized.
   - There are 19 randomized effects which affect certain rooms (e.g. poisonous enemies, higher knockback, or changing physics, etc.).
   - Almost all enemies are randomized (except for a few which are 'locked')
   - Weapons, Armor, and Accessory pickups are spawned in a mostly progressive order with some randomization.
      - Note: You must pick them up for better equipment to spawn.
   - Soul item pickups are randomized, aside from "progression" souls.
   - New Item: Charon's Obol. After you use this item, the next enemy killed will drop their soul.
   - New Item: Book of Return. Use this to teleport back to the lobby room.
   - New pickups: Pink and blue soul canisters that permanently increase your stats ( STR, INT, HP, MP, etc.)
   - New randomized breakable walls, contain either an XP boost, Meat Strip, or Money.
      - Hidden along the left or right walls of ~25% of rooms.
      - Spawns particles about every 8 seconds, or can be seen with Peeping Eye / Skull necklace.
   - New Equipment and Soul effects / balancing (full details in Balance section)
      - Final Strike - Adds extra damage if it will kill
      - Pierce - Penetrates DEF if you hit with a fully extended spear.
      - Backstab - Knives do 2x damage if you hit an enemy from behind.
      - Soft landing - Not affected when falling at high speeds / dive kicking.
      - Weapon cancel - Cancel any weapon attack upon landing
      - Bounce landing - Hold jump to bounce upon landing
      - MP Refund - Get MP back after using red souls.
      - Max MP / HP effects.
      - Short invulnerability on hit effect.
   - Four available difficulties.
      - Different difficulties may have different starting stats and items.
      - Hard/Nightmare get more difficulty over time, so don't go too slow!
      - Hard/Nightmare don't have potions in the shop.
      - Nightmare mode will face more difficult enemies earlier in the game.
      - Nightmare mode also activates the 'Hard mode' setting from the vanilla game.
   - Julius mode: Hold L while hitting start on the file name entry screen.
   - Game saves after leaving a boss room. Your save is deleted on death.
   - Includes patches authored by Dev Anj to make LCK more impactful, and INT improves red souls instead of STR.
   - Originally included patch authored by FuseCV to allow for Kicker Skeleton without Malphas. Modified to disable dive kicking underwater.

Balance details:
   * General:
      * Resistance for enemies reduces damage to 25% instead of 50%.
      * Soul / Item drop chances increased by 2x.
      * Limits quantity for pickups / buying to 5.
      * Selling gives 25% of the price rather than 50%.
      * Minimum damage you take is either 5, or 2x the difficulty counter
         (number to the lower right of hp) if it's higher.
   * Equipment/Items:
      * All spears have Pierce effect
         * If you hit with the first frame a spear is fully extended, penetrate enemy DEF
      * Final Strike effect (adds extra damage if it will kill).
         * Hammer: +100% final strike
         * Warhammer: +150% final strike
         * Tallhammer: +200% final strike
         * Battle Axe: +50% final strike
         * Death's Scythe: +100% final strike.
      * Backstab effect for knives (2x damage if you attack an enemy from behind)
      * MP Refund for red souls on Pendant (2 MP), Silk Robe (5 MP), Elven Robe (10 MP)
      * Heart pendant gives double MP when you pick up hearts.
      * Cloak + 20 Max MP
      * Crimson Cloak +40 Max MP
      * Scarf: +20 Max HP
      * Red Scarf: +40 Max HP
      * Dainslef: +40 Max MP
      * Soft Landing effect on Gym Clothes, Ninja Suit, and Black cloak.
      * Samurai armor - Any weapon will cancel on landing. Nerfed DEF from 20 to 18.
      * Skull necklace has Peeping eye ability.
      * Rapier and Estoc have Slashing(Sword) type removed.
      * Scimitar has a faster attack speed
      * Meat Strip gives 50 HP instead of 29 HP.
      * Some items have altered prices.
   * Souls:
      * Zombie Officer Soul actually heals you 5 hp when you jump out of knockback.
      * Succubus only heals 2 HP on hit
      * Final hitbox range of bat soul increased
      * Witch / giant ghost blue souls will destroy tiny devil projectiles when reflected.
      * Ukoback soul spawns a little further from Soma
      * Great armor soul sets STR to 150% instead of 120%. MP cost reduced from 60 to 30.
      * Medusa head soul will cancel all momentum after you un-pause. (Momentum is no longer stored)
      * Ghost Dancer and Gremlin give +8/+16 luck instead of +4/+8
      * +50% Final Strike added to the Dead Crusader Yellow Soul
      * Red Crow: +40 Max MP
      * White Dragon: +40 MaxHP
      * Soft Landing effect Gorgon soul
      * Invulnerability on hit on Ghost Dancer and on Nemesis (while it's active)
      * Dead Crusader - +50% Final Strike effect.
      * Rush souls cost 50MP instead of 30 MP.
      * Weretiger: Hold jump to gain height in midair when doing an uppercut.
      * Giant bat: More MP cost (30 MP)
      * Imp and Alastor attack more often
      * Witch soul gives 25% chance to Guard.
      * Giant Ghost protects against up to 50% of damage, using MP to block instead.
      * Undead Warrior will use a weapon at the same time when using a red soul (retaining the ability to cancel an attack with a soul)
      * Quezlcoatl - Hold jump on landing to bounce.
   * Enemies:
      * Iron Golem health is reduced.
      * Disc armor changes so hopefully the disc doesn't go flying with certain level geometry.

Roadmap/ Wishlist for future features:
   - More rooms!
   - More soul fixes / balancing / new effects.
   - Custom entities for more variety (e.g. environmental hazards)
   - (Maybe) Add souls to the shop.
   - (Maybe) multiple lobby rooms and a method for traveling between them.
   - (Maybe) Some type of randomization within a room (allowing for enemies / items to spawn in different locations)

Known Bugs / Issues:
- Rare sprite glitches where an enemy or special object (like a moving platform) will have an all-black sprite, or using armor souls will have glitched sprites.
- Sometimes going through a vertical door might change the player's position slightly.
- If you teleport from a room with a fog layer, the background in the lobby will be wavy.

[Alkali Man OG]

Man an aria roguelike mode!?? God the replayability potential is insane

[tvtoon]

I am impressed by this hack remaining not submitted in the database, is there any reason or you just don't want it? Because it is GREAT, it is helluva lotsa funny, and I don't see why, since it even got a GREAT README! People would be surprised how many hacks barely got one.

About the hack itself, there is only one complaint: the stat enhancing soul doesn't seem to work. I played it on hard, but here is my suggestion: instead of those, a better idea would be to just lock the stats on level 1, that would be better than the stat reduction mechanic, because this game is purely "strength based" for most enemies.

[Xanthus]

Glad you're liking it so far! And its database submission was rejected because I've labelled it as an alpha- it's not yet feature complete to what I'd consider a full release. It's getting close though!

The stat enhancing pickups may have been bugged on the .31a version, but will definitely work for the next release.  I've been adding some new features and still re-working some of the room randomization / navigation currently. Hoping to wrap those up soon!

I want to keep some type of time based mechanic that keeps making the game more difficult. I know what you mean by the game being strength based, but I do like that it makes enemies more difficult to kill (making fighting longer), and doesn't just make you die quicker. I might change it to increase enemies HP instead, which is a little different in that it'll make weaker multi-hit moves not get nerfed as much.

[ChrisHighwind]

Tried it myself and it's a decent roguelike! My only issue is that when you die, you have to go through a lengthy process to start a new run (the Game Over Screen > Logos and Title Screen > Creating a new file with a new seed > Intro cutscene before you get back into the game), though hopefully with this being an alpha, that issue will eventually get corrected.

[Tsukiyomaru0]

At last, a rando I can easily get behind. Thank you so much.

Bug: Balore can spawn in tall rooms and... Cause a crash.
Also Juliuses can spawn in some areas but are glitched.

Also, a few suggestions:
• Have it so in Easy and Normal the shop will always have healing items (less options though on Normal)
• Save point via a room above the shop (preferably)
• Place bosses in dedicated boss rooms
• Add an indicator of when the next left-right transition initiates a boss encounter.
• Make it possible to randomizer starting weapon and armor.

[Alkali Man OG]

Probably an oversight but Excalibur costs literally 0 gold in the shop, so if rngesus spawned it then you can cheese the game easily

[Xanthus]

Just released a new version with a lot of updates! Lots of great new features, entire areas are generated, there are room modifiers which affect gameplay, a new item that teleports you, along with some other changes listed in the changelog.

Thanks for the feedback! I've fixed the bosses spawning and shop price issues, as well as the stat enhancing pickups. I also added potions to the shop for Easy mode. I've added a note to make jumping into a new game quicker after a game over, I should be able to just send you back to the file select screen.

Saving would be be complicated because there's a lot of data that would need to be saved. I might add it in as an option, it just might mess up where the RNG/seed left off and might lose some information.

I'm looking forward to players trying out the new features! This mod is turning out better than I'd hoped so far :>

[Tsukiyomaru0]

You might want to tone down the default difficulty some or randomize starting weapon and armor too, because itty bitty knife and bat soul VS minotaur = bad.

And no, playing on Easy Mode changes nothing. First room had a Minotaur.

And Hard mode didn't affect a thing either.

[Xanthus]

Thanks for the feedback, I added starting equipment to Easy and Normal, as well as changed the areas that they could start with. Should help balance things a bit more, especially in the early game, since just improved stats wasn't enough. I might also look at balancing the enemy randomization for lower difficulties in the future as well.

Released 0.4 with new features and fixes!
   * Normal and Easy start with better equipment.
   * Added more pickups and rebalanced various rooms/areas. Game should be more easy and satisfying overall.
   * Room generation improvements, including less repeated adjacent rooms.
   * Prevent duplicate shop items. Book of Return added as possible shop item.
   * Spikes won't trigger Room modifier effects (like knockback, poison)
   * Soul balance patches:
      * Zombie Officer Soul actually heals you when you jump out of knockback.
      * Succubus only heals 2 HP on hit
      * Final hitbox range of bat soul increased
   * Various small fixes / improvements

[Pethronos]

I have the impression that this hack is not getting the attention it deserves. I'm not precisely a huge fan of roguelikes, but for some reason, AoS fluid playability invites me to spend some fun time with its hacks, including this.

I'm posting this only for people to be aware of the project evolution and updates. Thanks Xanthus for your work.

[NicholasD!]

Hey Bud, i don't know if this can be done or even if this is a good idea but:

-Can you put uses or life to the items like a sword after some number of uses it can just break, or like cloak or armor after receiving a certain amount of damage it goes. I liked this idea cus you need to keep in check with your supplies and manage your inventory a bit more, instead of just using the best sword or best equipment.

This mod is awesome bud, keep it up!

[Tsukiyomaru0]

Hey Bud, i don't know if this can be done or even if this is a good idea but:

-Can you put uses or life to the items like a sword after some number of uses it can just break, or like cloak or armor after receiving a certain amount of damage it goes. I liked this idea cus you need to keep in check with your supplies and manage your inventory a bit more, instead of just using the best sword or best equipment.

This mod is awesome bud, keep it up!

two things:
1. Too complex to implement in a safe manner
2. A lot of roguelikes and roguelites doesn't favor expendable arsenal, instead they reward lucky or courageous players.

[Xanthus]

I have the impression that this hack is not getting the attention it deserves. I'm not precisely a huge fan of roguelikes, but for some reason, AoS fluid playability invites me to spend some fun time with its hacks, including this.

I'm posting this only for people to be aware of the project evolution and updates. Thanks Xanthus for your work.

Thanks, and you're welcome! The project and my discord has received a surprising amount of activity after a speedrunner (JupiterClimb) tried it out / started doing runs on it. I haven't really tried to put this out there too much yet aside from posting here and on various Castlevania discords. I probably should've posted again on this thread after the last big update- it had been about a month but still felt weird about double posting so I just did a ghost edit lol.

But I am glad that you and a number of other players are having fun with it! After the next big update I'll probably feel it's in a solid enough spot to submit again to the RHDB and not call it an alpha. I was going to wait until I reached a 1.0, but I think the core gameplay and navigation is getting to a point where it's mostly settled. After next version it should just be adding more features, content, and tweaking things here and there.

So an article / official submission should be on the horizon!

Hey Bud, i don't know if this can be done or even if this is a good idea but:

-Can you put uses or life to the items like a sword after some number of uses it can just break, or like cloak or armor after receiving a certain amount of damage it goes. I liked this idea cus you need to keep in check with your supplies and manage your inventory a bit more, instead of just using the best sword or best equipment.

This mod is awesome bud, keep it up!

I agree with part of what you're saying, and I think in the endless mode I'm toying with the idea of losing a % of equipment and souls as you loop back around to fighting the first boss again (and giving the boss buffs). I think the game is great up to the last boss, but afterwards if you've gotten what you've needed, you're no longer in the "fun zone" of seeing what you can find and upgrading, and switching loadouts. I'll have a testing patch in my discord at some point before the next release, and we'll see where we end up!

[somberlaindx]

so i tried your hack and i gota say its really really fun. two things id like to say one being incorporeal birds/imps they don't make things much harder but def frustrate the hell out of me. are they really necessary? I even had a bird somehow follow me from screen to screen for a little while lol. the 2nd thing is once I beat the game it just kept getting harder but bosses stopped spawning and the shop never had new items. is there a way you can code it to recycle them as well as the shop?

[Tsukiyomaru0]

Noticed a rather odd behavior: after unlock the boss, the last room's effect persists everywhere, even in the hub, as long as the room has no other effect of its own.

Also I'd like to propose having more custom rooms that can accept any kind of enemy without issue.

[Red Soul]

This looks amazing and I can't believe I didn't comment here yet!

I have a few loose comments/thoughts if you don't mind:

- What do you think of the idea of giving Soma "classes" with a different palette and stat distributions?

- How would this kind of hack fare on Dawn of Sorrow? I'm just a layman, but wouldn't the bigger cart size of the DS and the more refined engine give you more toys and variables to play with?

- Are more weapon traits planned? I think it's a pretty awesome idea to have those. Maybe knives and daggers could have higher crit than normal or cause bleeding (damage over time) for example.

- Are there plans to fix the mistranslations?

- When it eventually releases fully, are there plans to make it compatible with Jonata Guitar's palette hacks?

Thanks for your time and keep it up!

[CBLZ]

Just went through my first hard 2-loop clear. It was a very intense and exciting experience!

I saw some weird things happening though:

-during progression, some of the enemy attacks I expected to be overkill somehow began dealing minimal damage.
Is this some kind of overflow issue? (my difficulty level after 2nd Graham was 21)

-huge enemies like Giant skull making very awkward movements on small stairways as if they're zipping around reality itself

-After around 2nd Headhunter fight, Creaking skull soul began glitching up to red sprite mess and ghosts became pitch black.
I thought it was an added effect, but I came here and saw it on rare glitch list 
weirder part is that it somehow turned normal after 2nd Legion fight.

-This might not be an oddity, but Death + Ghost swarm almost seemed like the game's gonna crash


one more thing-my worst enemy was HEAVY LANDING area effect.



Anyways thanks for releasing such awesome romhack!

[Xanthus]

Just posted the update for 0.7 on the original post! Reprise 0.7 download
Added autosaving after bosses, Nightmare difficulty with better difficulty selection and balancing, Hi score saved, more items from hidden breakable containers, various fixes.

the 2nd thing is once I beat the game it just kept getting harder but bosses stopped spawning and the shop never had new items. is there a way you can code it to recycle them as well as the shop?

Shop should continue to randomize after room 100 now, I think I fixed that in one of the versions after your post.

Noticed a rather odd behavior: after unlock the boss, the last room's effect persists everywhere, even in the hub, as long as the room has no other effect of its own.

Also I'd like to propose having more custom rooms that can accept any kind of enemy without issue.

I think I've fixed this behavior with the room modifier. I like having the variety in rooms and don't want to have them all of them be the same in the name of enemy compatibility, but I'll do enemy fixes for the worst offenders. For example, in the latest version, I make sure Big Golem doesn't spawn in rooms taller than 1 screen, so that he can't spawn below you and hit you instantly on loading. I know the "cows" are an issue on stairs and zip down them when they turn around, so I'll try to fix them in the future.

- What do you think of the idea of giving Soma "classes" with a different palette and stat distributions?

- How would this kind of hack fare on Dawn of Sorrow? I'm just a layman, but wouldn't the bigger cart size of the DS and the more refined engine give you more toys and variables to play with?

- Are more weapon traits planned? I think it's a pretty awesome idea to have those. Maybe knives and daggers could have higher crit than normal or cause bleeding (damage over time) for example.

- Are there plans to fix the mistranslations?

- When it eventually releases fully, are there plans to make it compatible with Jonata Guitar's palette hacks?

Thanks for your time and keep it up!

I think classes are outside of what I want to do for this mod. But I do want to do more weapon / soul balancing with new features. I didn't plan on fixing mistranslations but could be open to doing it. And it should currently be compatible with palette hacks! I know a few players are use them.

I think it'd be great for Dawn of Sorrow! I haven't felt limited at all by Aria of Sorrow, still a TON of space free on the cart to use actually. I probably won't work on it, but maybe when I release the source code for this it might make it easier for someone else to create something similar.

Thanks everyone for the feedback and encouragement!

[MauricioReis]

Xantus, this is simply the best AoS hack!! My emulator already has 197 hours and counting! I finished it for the first time in nighmare mode and it will probably be the only one!   Now I'm back to having fun on hard. Thank you for this wonder!