Did you play through it the first time that way?

As for another question (I haven't played this game in awhile), are you strong enough to go to Mysidia yet? If you are, I'd suggest buying three Swap (or 'Change', whatever it's called) spells, and use those to raise your stats, by swapping the plants near the beginning of the game. Or, if you don't feel like 'cheating', then you could just train normally, I suppose.