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[GnawtyDog]

Yeah. But no bragging rights.

pfft....finishing that game is the only bragging right you need

 

[Bladenic]

The already mentioned 7th Saga took this to insane levels, if only because the characters you DIDNT pick leveled like they were in the JP version but you didn't. So when you had to face one of them, you'd get raped.

It was stupid. Hate that piece of shit game.

 

[jholmes]

This happened a lot with RPGs. Atlus made the random encounters harder in Thousand Arms and I believe Working Designs toughened up some RPGs too.

 

[Timu]

Beat 'em ups were notoriously bad for this in the arcades. They were designed around being quarter munchers.

Taito and Technos were the worst at this, having games with no health powerups, no 1ups and persistent health so the same health you have at the end of one stage will be the same at the start for the next one. Capcom and Konami games at least give you health items and usually refill your health bar to full on the next stage(along with 1ups).

 

[djtiesto]

7th Saga for SNES had the stats tweaked with by Enix USA to make the game much more difficult than Elnard for the Super Famicom. After a while I grew to like the challenge, but compared to my playthrough of the import it was insanely difficult. My first playthrough I got stuck in the final world map area and couldn't even beat a random encounter to gain levels. Had to restart the entire game and ended up beating it with careful planning.

Kinda random, but they also changed the loud synthesized door-opening sound effect in the first town's castle to the generic menu clicking sound. Kind of obscure thing to change, but they did. Maybe on accident when they were messing with the game? I don't know or particularly care.

And holy shit at Working Designs' tweaking of Exile 2. Y'all ruined the game for me to the point of making it practically impossible.

I'm not really a fan of WD's difficulty changes... especially in the case of Wicked Phenomenon. I'm surprised that no hacker attempted to revert the difficulty level back to the Japanese version, yet. I'd really like to play the game (LOVED the original Exile) but couldn't even make it past the first area

 

[Phediuk]

In the arcades it was nearly always the other way around.

This is literally the opposite of the truth.

 

[theprodigy]

Nintendo did this with Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn for some reason. Our Normal mode was the Japanese hard, so it's no wonder you get your ass handed to you right from the get go in that game.

They also kept easy mode the same, which means there's no difficulty balance at all. You either play the easiest game ever made or a punishing one that constantly reminds you how much you suck at SRPG.

No, that's just renaming difficulties, the localized version of Radiant Dawn is actually easier (no more Master Crown requirement for 3rd tier, Edward/Leonardo got buffed, bunch of weapons got buffed and/or added, no more forge points, etc.)

Speaking of Fire Emblem, Path of Radiance was the opposite actually. I believe they cut the original JP Maniac mode and replaced with a Baby's First Fire Emblem mode for Easy.

The funny part is that they didn't exactly do this cleanly, there are some Maniac mode enemies scattered in there on easy mode

(actually in general Fire Emblem got easier in localization, although I think they stopped doing that with Shadow Dragon/Awakening)