What I want to stress to your readers is that The Path of the Acolyte difficulty level in Ninja Gaiden II is not like Ninja Dog mode from Ninja Gaiden Black. In Ninja Gaiden Black, Ninja Dog difficulty was basically artificially boosted. You would get healing items on a regular basis for free to help you get through the game, so it was almost like performance-enhancing drugs.

That's not the way it should be. Difficulty should be adjusted not through indirect methods, like a Band-Aid on top, but through more direct methods--things that will make the player feel like they want to get further, to see more of the game, and assist them in a way that isn't artificially changing the rules.