There are indeed Difficulty levels in Freedom Force, ranging from "Very Easy" to "Impossible". There are in the game options on the initial loading screen. For some reason the manual does not mention this,and the game defaults to "Normal" which would probably be considered "Difficult" in most games.
BTW they are only available in the loading screen when you first starte up the game.They are NOT available in the loading screen once you are in the game itself.
ANother pointer.If you find yourself replahing levels because a Hero is KO'd,and you don not want to lose him permanently.don't worry about it. KO means knocked out, not dead. You lose the hero for the reminder of that mission,but they are not permannetl lostl. They recover between missions, and will be on your roster when you move on to the next level. Something else the manual does not mention. It is easy to think they are permemnently lost because a couple of the early missions have as a goal that a certain hero must survive,and it's easy to assume that any hero KO's is lost to the game permamnently.