I really love the game and each character offers a different challenge and complexity to it. I had finished playing hard mode 1 with purse and wanted to play hard mode 2 with a different character. However, I was not able to do so without first beating it with the other character.
I can understand the design behind it, but imo it feels a bit too grindy and can get repetitive if you want to try challenges with different characters.
It can take the freshness out of the challenges if one has to restart on hard mode 1 just to get to the fourth one for example.