The game has three modes of difficulty setting. Easy, Normal and Hard. This does not change the content of the game, just your journey through the game.
The main effect of the difficulty setting is the Affinity and Persona systems. The threshold for achieving a high affinity is reduced in easy mode and increased in hard, compared to normal.
Easy mode is recommended if you’re looking to chase as many women as possible, although doing that in hard mode can be equally rewarding.
In general, some game features will display less information the harder the difficulty level, or will be disabled completely.
As an example, the Relationship App on the smartphone will display more information in Easy mode than Normal. But is disabled by default in Hard mode.
The relevant topics will highlight any effect the difficulty setting has those specific items.
Note: The difficulty setting cannot be changed during the game.