If you're dying too often on hard difficulties - or if you're a bit uncomfortable with the combat system on normal - then you need to change your difficulty to an early one.

Unfortunately, there is no method for changing the difficulty mid-game. The developers could have easily put difficulty into a pause screen or placed it at upgrade stations but I think they put it in as an afterthought considering how badly this process is for the player to go through.

Go back to the beginning. Do this buy opening the Extensive ITM System Interface, then the bin file, then go to the very first area, the forest.
WARNING: This will RESET the progress of whichever chapter you are currently in, just like quitting the game would do.

Just walk up to the doors and wait. The developers want you to feel bad for not appreciating how janky the game feels on higher difficulties.

Keep waiting while the game throws silly dialogue at you...





Keep waiting while it attempts to be funny and fails because of dissonance between the player wanting it to open and the developer wanting to tell a funny story...

The doors will open and you will go back inside. Don't worry, your progress isn't reset any more than it was when you changed chapters. You keep your money and upgrades, and you can go back to the current chapter whenever.

It will ask you:
"Are you [Steam name]?" - Does not affect difficulty
"Did you take off the mask?" - Does not affect difficulty
"Do you prefer a harder journey?" - Hard difficulty
and if you say no
"Do you think adventure is more about battle than story?" - Normal difficulty
If you say no to this, it is Easy Difficulty.

Then, the beginning cutscene begins again. Don't freak out. It's stupid as all hell to make you sit through this again, but it does result in the game going back to normal.

You should now use the pause menu (esc) to return "BACK TO EXTENSIVE ITM SYSTEM INTERFACE" to travel back to your current mission.

For those reading this review: Feel free to ask questions in the comments! I will answer them, I get notifications for each and every comment.