Hard Mode, US Box Art request and a marketing thought

[thefro]

Firstly, many thanks for bringing this over to the US. I've played through the import Japanese version (despite not knowing Japanese!) and loved it and I'm excited to play through it again in English.

I'm not sure if you're going to do anything to the game beyond slapping the European version on a disc, but can you please look into what it would take to let us change the number of "LIFE" we have by default in the game to create a "hard mode". Personally I would like to have to option to change the default number of lives for your characters from 5 to 3.

As Nintendo Gamer says in their review

Characters have five lives before permanent death – two too many for even the toughest encounters. That we never once saw the game over screen – bar in one instant fail stealth section late in the game – suggests Mistwalker were worried players might struggle to adapt to new ideas.

I've seen this brought in a few of the other European reviews as well as an issue.

I would think that would just be changing a program variable and adding a menu option that would literally take a programmer only a few minutes to change, but maybe there's something I'm not aware of. I know that might mess the balance up on the NewGame+ but I think it would be very well-balanced for the first playthrough for an experienced gamer. I think this would be a really simple tweak to fix that problem with the game (experienced action gamers can play on "HARD" and people who are are less confident can play on the normal setting).

As far as box art goes, I'd love to see something close to the original Japanese packaging with the sleeve and reversible cover for the packaging





This plus the "Elements of the Last Story" artbook/mini OST would be great for a Limited Edition or preorder bonuses.

I'm not sure when you're releasing in the summer, but besides having the game at E3, I would suggest bringing Mr. Sakaguchi and whoever else (Uematsu?" to the San Diego Comic-Com in July if the game isn't out yet. That'd be an awesome place to have a demo and build up some interest amongst people who don't check video gaming sites every day.