The game seems to give some kind of hard mode if you start again after the credits. Has anyone seen this before?

Gusnation told me about it so yeah at the very least I am aware of it.

It would make for a really nice new category to add to the game.

Only issue with that is that you can't select it from the get go from power on afaik. You need to beat the game at least once to get access to it.

An easy solution would be to just get a save state made at the credits or something to do actual attempts on it but that is a slippery slope to go down as such a decision could carry potential undesired side effects like tampering with any potential RNG in the run.

if you want to do hardmode play the JP version, it is the hard mode all the time

which is why they are split on this board