Oh, definitely - I keep a noteback on hand for translating Aquarian messages - I haven't found any yet, but I am glad to hear you included some. One of my favorite things about Aquaria has always been the atmosphere, so if you can keep that in this mod, you're golden for me. That's why I'm playing - not so much in the sheer gameplay of being challenged or something, but just the experience of exploring a new, exotic world, and how alive Aquaria - and Naija - can seem. So again, if your mod has all these background touches and attention to detail to bring it to life, I should love it.
I really do pretty firmly believe the beginning is too difficult though. You shouldn't even be able to run into all these enemies before you can so much as sing a shield song. You say you wanted it to be as difficult as the Veil, but when you get to the Veil, you have certain tools at your disposal that aren't present here - this is definitely harder because of that.
Edit - I've played a bit more. Some more thoughts - I really enjoy that the treasures you placed around, when you find them, they actually show up somewhere around Naija/Li's new home. I suppose it's entirely possible you could've just had them disappear into the void, so it's cool that just like in the main game, you can flesh out her home as you find more stuff.
So far, I've found 3 treasures - the Mithalas Doll/Pot, and the Turtle egg. Also found the Shield song, but I don't know where I picked that up - I only noticed I even had it because I was looking through my menu. If I was supposed to get a notification that Naija had just learned the shield spell, I didn't. That might be a glitch - if it isn't, if possible, you might want to put in a notice somehow to alert the player they just got a song?
Even if it's something like, when you enter the place with the song, Naija makes a comment to herself about being reminded of whatever song you're about to get.
And, I really do think the map is just too aimless - it doesn't guide you anywhere, there's no real sense of direction at all. I never got this lost and annoyed at not being able to find things in normal Aquaria, and I've swam around in so many circles that I'm already getting bored. I found an Aquarian message but it just told me in blunt terms that there are x amount of treasures/songs/costumes/eggs to find, no real hint at actually finding them anywhere.
The map direction is that it's basically laid out in a giant spiral, so you're kindof naturally funneled along in a circular pattern, but this means lots of repetition and going in circles and places you've already been.
I don't mean to be this negative on it, but these are just my honest impressions and feelings, and I'm trying to give most helpful and constructive criticism I can. I love the visuals and touches you've made to the world, but I feel like mechanical problems are stopping me from enjoying it all.
Oh, also, a possible glitch or just a bit of sequence breaking you might want to fix - I traveled up the tunnel to this path of bubbles that eventually led me to the Mithalan pot treasure, but my first time through I missed a bubble and fell - but I fell down into a cavern where the only way in and out was blocked by a rock I would've had to lift with the bind song, except I didn't have the bind song. I had to use the editor to get out. Also, when I fell in there, I landed in a part of the water absolutely consumed by anemones and almost died before Naija just got richocheted into a part of the water I could actually control her - she would hit one, bounce into the air, land on another, and repeat.
I would suggest either placing a ceiling over this so you can't fall in there from the bubble path, or place a rock in the way blocking the route to the bubble path, so that you can't possibly get there without having bind, meaning if you fall in that cavern, you can use bind to get out.
Also with the bubble path, there's one bubble about midway through you're in, where you simply can not see the next bubble you have to jump to, and it's a leap of faith. You should probably move the bubbles slightly closer together so that you never have to make a blind jump, especially if you're careful.
