Difficulty confusion

[Areth]

I'm kind of confused about the difficulties in the later Fire Emblems. Until recently, I thought that the difficulties in the Japanese versus American and PAL versions were something like this:

Japanese/American and PAL

n.a/ Easy
Normal/Normal
Hard/Hard
Maniac/n.a

Lately, though, I read something to the effect that the Japanese Normal mode was just like the non-Japanese Easy mode... which means that it's more like this:

Normal/Easy
Hard/Normal
Maniac/Hard

I guess my question is this: Is the Japanese Maniac Mode harder than the American/PAL Hard mode, or are they the same difficulty?

[Neofox]

The first set is how things were done in Path of Radiance. The second is how it was done for Radiant Dawn.

So to answer your question, Hard mode is easier than JP's Maniac mode in PoR, but they are the same in RD.

[Lord Glenn]

It depends on the game.

The latter case fits FE10. NA just renamed the difficulties(and did regular localization).

The former case is more so inclined to FE9, but I believe that there's more to the distinctions than just that. (I seem to remember NA!Hard being between JP!Hard and JP!Maniac in terms of difficulty, but I can't remember if that was ever proven true or false.)

[Celice]

The latter case fits FE10. NA just renamed the difficulties(and did regular localization).

That seems an ambiguous statement, the regular localizing.  Do you mean along with translations or along with adjustments in difficulty :?

[Lord Glenn]

I added it in(albeit ambiguously) because I figured that if I didn't say that, then someone would inevitably complain that NoA did more than just change the difficulty names(character name changes, fixes, etc.). And since that really doesn't go with this thread, I was trying to cover that to alleviate any mention of it(and the prevailing derailment afterwards). It really doesn't mean much other than what all NoA did for the localization.