Playing catch up

[SiftRock]

So with the Vita out I recently splurged and got a ton of NIS games, Phantom Brave being one of them.

I've played it before and honestly had a lot of trouble with it as it seemed unnaturally hard to level up, and well, do anything. Hindsight 20/20 as I'm kind of having that problem right now and would appreciate some tips for leveling/starting off.

Also what all is new in this version? I didn't get too far in the Ps2 version so curious to what's been added.