Basically I ran through the early game fairly easily, got popoi first then Primm. My main (i think he's supposed to be called Randi? idk) was at 117HP, but the others in 40-50HP when obtaining. I got absolutely demolished heading to the woods looking for Dyluck, even before reaching the castle, mostly the 2 lower level characters dying. So, I leveled them up to about 90HP both, and went much smoother, but still got destroyed by fire boss; obviously the lower 2 HP dying faster. (I'm running the best equip I could find, but notably, Popoi's seems under par, as it's cheaper).

I don't mind a bit of grinding, but this is like multiple levels of grinding very early in the game, which is rather unusual for an RPG. Typically, the grinding comes much later on.

So, I'm getting the feeling this game is just progress story, grind your levels, progress, at least thus far. Is that basically what the game is?

Oh, also, I noticed some people saying to level your magic in other forums; but I haven't seen any magic abilities yet. Am I supposed to at this point?