You and the others have it wrong. I have both games, and in Black the default difficulty is toned down a touch thanks to complaints as such. And the added Ninja Dog difficulty, although not much different in difficulty via the gameplay, is littered with pickups/powerups compared to normal. If this game wasn't hard to master, it wouldn't be such a good game. I hate easy games I can play for a half hour, then put a blindfold on and complete. Actually spend some time TRYING to play it, and you'll find it to be too easy in places on Normal. What the hell happened to love for games that actually challenged you? Oh wait, I know.......the post 16bit era born children are here. There is a fine line between difficult gameplay and cheesy gameplay. Case of example: the fight against Ghost Doku. If we do not have the Dalibohoro, the big sword to whittle the boss's damage, it would take you too flocking long to kill using other conventional weapons. The boss, has a 8-hit combo that will kill you straight if all connect, a grab that siphon your health to him, a projectile sword and an upward slash in case you want to jump to him. Almost SNK-ish IMO.