I am at 34 near the end of chapter 9. I don't think i have been doing much grinding, I do however like to find all secrets and treasures (not that I think i have all of them). Your time seems way short, how did you manage to beat the bosses? Had you played through it once to know what their weaknesses were? It has been a trial and error thing for me so far.
I had read that the cut scenes alone are about 10 hours, Did you skip over all the cut scenes too?









