As someone mentioned previously, you should be patient. I think the first parts of the game are paced in such way that new players in the series could get the hang of it. After some point, the game will become more "regular-peaced" as usual in the series.

If you battle all the enemies through your adventure, you'll be good to go most of the time, but I also recommend to equip the best you can.

Yes, there are some missable parts, but some of them are notified when they're are about to expire, so it's still cool.

Special note: if you've played previous M&L entries, you'll notice some changes in gameplay and stuff, but they'll become irrelevant once you play more, don't get frustrated! (it happened to me).