10 New Game Plus Features We Should've Started With
8. Easy & Challenge Mode - Pokémon Black & White 2
While it's not uncommon for games to conceal their higher difficulty settings behind a second playthrough, it's tough to parse the logic in forcing a second run to access all difficulty settings.
In today's edition of Just Gamefreak Things, we have their head-smackingly daft decision to gate not only Pokémon Black & White 2's Challenge Mode - effectively Hard Mode - behind New Game Plus, but also the easiest difficulty setting, Assist Mode.
Oh, and in a craven attempt to make players part with more money for both "flavours" of the game, Challenge Mode is exclusive to Black 2, while Assist Mode is exclusive to White 2. Wha!?
Gating the difficulty modes is totally baffling for two major reasons. Firstly, Pokémon games aren't exactly gut-wrenchingly tough for most experienced players, and so why keep Hard difficulty out of reach at all?
And secondly, it's a safe bet that anyone who wants to play on Assist Mode is doing so because the "Normal" difficulty is too much for them, so who does it benefit to lock it behind New Game Plus?
And more to the point, if anyone does slog their way through the game in order to unlock Assist Mode, they've basically proven they don't need it.