Summon Night: Twin Age simplified for America?

Not too long ago, I picked up a copy of Atlus' recently released DS RPG, Summon Night: Twin Age. The first time I went into my item menu, I noticed that I had 50 high-level HP recovery items, along with the same number of high-level PP recovery items. While this struck me as odd, considering I never picked up any of said items, I didn't really think much of it.

Later, while browsing messageboards for the game, I noticed that others had discovered not only the items, but also the fact that the two main characters both start out with a high-level skill that they shouldn't have at level one. Interestingly, it turns out that these skills and items were not present at the beginning of the Japanese release of the game. In the Japanese version, you start out with an empty inventory and no skills at all.

This leaves me to wonder why Atlus decided to make the beginning of the game easier for US audiences? It seems a bit strange to me, especially since the recent trend has been for US versions of games to get more/harder difficulty settings as opposed to their Japanese counterparts.

Readers, what do you think?

Images courtesy of Atlus.