With the removal of Hard mode from NG due to lack of competition, I lost my run. I'll post it and future runs for this difficulty here. Anyone interested in the category should submit their runs here. Unlock All Characters% (Hard) is very similar to Easy version except you don't need to freemode to pick up Ma chao's 4th weapon and it's... well I mean it's harder. You could die. Only change in category rules is you have to play every stage on at least Hard difficulty. I also wrote a guide specifically for Hard, but it's outdated.

Good times require 1 player, 2 controller strats, the only category where that's currently a thing. As well as a ton of Out of Bounds and field of view invulnerability glitches. It's a fun run for people who like playing around with speedrun techs and routing.