Agreed that higher difficulty with New Game Plus works, like Demon's Souls. Otherwise, I don't care for this unlocking harder difficulties crap. Like Ninja Gaiden, you have to beat the game once to unlock Mentor, and then AGAIN to unlock Master. So, you have to beat the game 3 times!

I hardly have enough time to play through games once anymore. And most of the time now, I don't even care about getting everything anymore. Few games grab me like they used to. I had to force myself to finally finish Zelda: Spirit Tracks, because otherwise it would have been the first Zelda ever that I didn't beat. Can't go ruining something like that.

Of course, if the game is only 5 hours long, unlocking a higher difficulty isn't so bad. It's the games that are 10 or more hours that are real pains.

THE JACKAL