If you take the time to recruit four Generics with a Faith and Brave of 70, (dismiss the other six the game gives you), and level up enough to buy them all the best armor and equipment, you will find going through the rest of Chapter 1 much easier.

It's always a bit of a slog in the first chapter, but things get better as you go along:

1) You'll be able to poach monsters for valuable items using Secret Hunt to fur shops.

2) Propositions galore! You can send Generics on mini-missions for Gil and treasure.

3) Recruit and use (and poach!) your own monsters, using Invite or Train. You can also breed them into even more powerful breeds.

4) Tons of Nongeneric recruits with amazing abilities. I won't spoil who you can recruit, but you get so many you inevitably get some that suit your style. You can even recruit a character from another FF.

5) A lot of fun and challenging and fun subquests to keep you busy. You may find yourself spending as much time in Chapter 4 as the other three chapters combined.

6) It's moderately difficult to win the game, but it's challenging to get every item and mission.

So hang in there.