Been ages since I played this game and can't remember if it originally had a hard mode or if i played on normal. However, I was wondering if anybody can fill me in on the general opinions with respect to difficulty.
I definitely want a challenge but my fledgling warrior (lvl 5) is getting one-shotted in hard by skeleton guardians and ghouls in the catacombs, I remember like any good old school game, the difficulty was very tough in the beginning and then eventually overpowered. So if this is just a speedbump on hard mode, I'm fine. I just dont want to get to a point where a boss fight is impossible due to less than optimal uberbuild and difficulty.

I could be wrong but i'm assuming that, like diablo, hard is for higher level characters who already beat the game

I'm also in the Catacombs with a level 5 Rogue, and normal mode is hard enough for me !
Without Brock the zombie I won't even had stood a chance vs a Guardian, and even with him I'm toast when fighting the Sk Conjuror ....

If I remember correctly, there is no new game+ type thingy in this. One playthrough only, oldschool none of that scaling business.

Those darn Guardians are PITAs :/ - warrior builds can handle them (I managed to with potion chugging and liberal use of the special attack) but the other 2 templates are at a small disadvantage. One thing I would suggest is spending a skill point or 2 in a summon skill - the summons really help in the squishier levels, and each class can learn other classes abilities.

Agreed, my rogue can summons skeletons, it really helps, but I can only have 1 at a time !
As many RPGs it seems that in low levels warriors are more powerful. I also wonder if the rogue ability is more useful later, currently I'm better off running than hiding lol.

I started with a female "survivor" aka. rogue and went to the catacombs only to realise I had sold all my good weapons and only had broken or cracked ones... long story short I started again with a female warrior and did eveything right this time. Even killed 2 Zombie Jakes for massive damage... I mean experience. I'm enjoying this game a lot but it crashed for no reason when I was in Catacombs lvl 2 :(

i get alot of those random crashes too, i quicksavve alot...