Huh. I sort of regret putting off playing this for so long just because I knew it had a trash-tier localization and suspected it was extremely grindy.
It certainly has more than its share of issues (the awful localization, it is pretty grindy, the constantly re-used assets, mind-numbing/cringe-inducing plot developments, quite a number of auto-lose battles, a host of painful side-characters, tons of trap items to waste your limited resources on), and yet there’s just so much to collect while bap-bap-bapping away at enemies that I can’t help but enjoy playing it. Some advice:
Picking up the DLC Pack is well worth it for the two extra characters alone, as they make the early-mid game much less punishing due to being notably more powerful than the two you start with, and you should limit your Plan creations to unlocking and adding enemies to the 16mb dungeons (the ones that cost 100+ are DLC content and can be saved for a second playthrough), removing the damage cap, increasing the jump height, and unlocking two of the CPU Candidate characters (who cost 1024mb each).
Then on any potential NG+ playthroughs you can unlock the other character, the Colosseum, the DLC dungeons, and the highest level equipment (completely skipping all the weaker stuff, which is just a waste to unlock).
One final thing that may be worthwhile to be aware of, is that pressing the L1 button will skip attack/transformation animations.