For me the normal difficulty level for this game is brutally hard. I pretty much can't beat the bosses if I don't outlevel them a bit. All throughout the second chapter I had to stay at least 5 levels higher than the bosses. Never could finish the 2nd arena mission, and by the third chapter I was bored of grinding exp, then got stuck fighting the flashback of the MCs mother or whoever the redhead is. The enemies do so much less damage on the easiest difficulty level that it feels like the difficulty for losers, but damn me if I can't beat the game on normal.
I wonder if being able to read the item descriptions would help. Can only really pick accessories based on the stats they boost. But both weapons and accessories have a lot of different effects. Also there seems to be some system to consume the abilities weapons get, at the smith guy, but I'm not sure how it works.