Pull a Working Designs and modify this game, XSeed.

[wrath]

hmmm actually my goal in most games is to not die even once(unless its a storey scenario I cant avoid) Its a little game I play with myself ....But ive actually not read any negative reviews of the game or to many reviews of it period....Even if it is easy I dont have to many games that are so its nice to have a non super difficult game roll arround once in a while....BUt as I havent been enthusiastically looking into the game I suppose I should see what some folks think of it not that it'll deter me I mean everyone loved FFXIII and I didnt so I dont put to much stock in reviewers at this point.

[Aria]

In its current form it's laughably easy. There's really no point in playing it other than to look at pretty pictures and admire the terrible plot. It would only take an extra menu selection and the changing of a few simple variables to fix this.

Here's my proposal: Start new games with a difficulty selection. Your difficulty decides the number of lives each party member has in battle.

Very Easy: 5 lives (original game)
Easy: 4 lives
Normal: 3 lives
Hard: 2 lives
Very Hard: 1 life

Very Hard: 1 life?
Would that mode even be possible? What about all the 1 hit kills I've been hearing people complain about?

Maybe easy mode should have 5 lives(I hear that towards the end of the game, it gets a little more challenging). Normal should be 4, and hard should be 3. I don't usually play hack 'n slash type JRPGs so I'm pretty positive the difficulty of this game will be just right for me. As for the "terrible plot"...I know of plenty people who enjoyed it even if they thought it was a little on the predictable side. Maybe this game just isn't for you?

[JiggiUp]

I didn't hate Last Story. It has a great aesthetic and plays well. I just felt it could have been exponentially more enjoyable by simply modifying the number of lives you have in battle, and maybe cutting back on the hand-holding (party members always tell you a boss' weakness right away).

I don't think it was a decision he took enthusiastically, but realistically it was the only decision he could take. He had 3 big bombs this generation, partially because he put his games all on the wrong platforms. It's amazing how a sequel to a game people in Japan hated, White Knight Chronicles 2, still outsold both Xenoblade, and The Last Story.

He was getting money from Microsoft to develop for the 360, it was part of their initial (failed) push to boost the system's popularity in Japan.

Blue Dragon's sequels just ended up on the DS.

[Shizuka]

It's amazing how a sequel to a game people in Japan hated, White Knight Chronicles 2, still outsold both Xenoblade, and The Last Story.

People in Japan didn't hate the game, or the franchise, for that matter. It's the closest they've got to a Monster Hunter-esque game on the PS3 until Capcom released the PS3 port of 3rd Portable.

[momo]

I have not played the game yet. But, why not just leave everything as is? If xseed messes with the code, they might break it.

[VernorsMan]

In its current form it's laughably easy.

Anything that becomes more like WD is laughably terrible.

[JiggiUp]

Anything that becomes more like WD is laughably terrible.

Thankfully, XSeed doesn't have to design gameplay modifications to suit the whims of Vic Ireland. They could instead make actual improvements.

[ClintNixwood]

Just going to have to accept it as it is. I'd love for an adjustable difficulty, as I think more games should do it (Tales of Graces f, for example, has it and it works really well to customize your experience). But then again, OP has already played the game and we haven't. Unfortunately I don't think they will be changing it. This is the way Mistwalker designed it; if they wanted to change it they would have for the EU release (or maybe it is that they can't; they didn't use an in-house development team for programming).

Sometimes you have to accept something for its good and bad qualities. It will still be worth experiencing for those of us who haven't played it yet.

[JiggiUp]

Yeah, in its current (and likely final) form I really can't recommend this game. It's a solid set of art assets and game mechanics utterly broken by the complete lack of difficulty and incessant hand-holding. Blue Dragon was the best traditional JRPG on an HD console (which also included a very punishing hard difficulty setting), and I really didn't think Sakaguchi would stoop so low.

[Desu]

I'm surprised you forgot to ask for a questlog.