I've been fighting Shadar for the first time for a while now and just keep losing. I think I'm okay with moving on to another game. I should've realized sooner that this game would require grinding. I'm mostly tired of the awful AI that doesn't defend during powerful spell attacks. I think the story and world are both great but I don't want to grind. I've been struggling throughout the game by just beating the enemies and dungeons that I need to complete in order to beat the story. That's what I mostly wanted to play this game but I guess the combat was suppose to be a bigger focus. This isn't me calling Ni No Kuni bad or anything. Perhaps in another life would I have loved this game and spent all my time on it. I just can't do that anymore and after 10 hours of playing it, I don't think I want to keep playing even if I beat Shadar. I'm still constantly dying to regular enemies. Oh well, at least I gave this game a shot.

@Phatmac: If this is the point where you're on the boat, then you're supposed to lose. You can hurt him enough for the fight to end though

@Phatmac said:

I'm mostly tired of the awful AI that doesn't defend during powerful spell attacks.

To be fair, you get the ability to order your allies to defend literally right after the Shadar battle.

But yeah, it's still a very combat-heavy game.

spoilers

Man I finally hit just before the boat and I had to force myself at 5am to quit playing. For god sake I have a Hog-Goblin named "Boss Hog" As far as Im concerned Video Games are over because nothing is going to top that. That isn't to say that I've had my frustrations with the game but man I think the level of charm this game exudes is enough to forgive the pitfalls like the horrible A.I. and other things. And I dunno the grinding isn't bothering me. When I know I need to grind I simply throw on a podcast and kick back while I train my familiar levels up. Im just dissapointed it seems for all the grandeur of his amazing name Boss Hog has proven to be mostly ineffectual in combat. :-(. But still....Boss Hog. Best name ever.

@drac96 said:

@Phatmac: If this is the point where you're on the boat, then you're supposed to lose. You can hurt him enough for the fight to end though

I'm on the boat and I don't think this is true unless I'm missing something.

This is why I am going to play this game on Easy, if I get around to it.

I also used gamefly to rent this game so I don't feel any buyers remorse. If I bought this game, than I wouldn't quit this early.

@Phatmac said:

@drac96 said:

@Phatmac: If this is the point where you're on the boat, then you're supposed to lose. You can hurt him enough for the fight to end though

I'm on the boat and I don't think this is true unless I'm missing something.

I don't think you're supposed to lose exactly, but the fight does end automatically at a certain point.

@ArtisanBreads said:

This is why I am going to play this game on Easy, if I get around to it.

yeah I should've played it on easy. I wonder if you can change it to easy.

Oh you can change it to easy. I'll report back and see if I can win.

@Phatmac said:

@drac96 said:

@Phatmac: If this is the point where you're on the boat, then you're supposed to lose. You can hurt him enough for the fight to end though

I'm on the boat and I don't think this is true unless I'm missing something.

You cannot win the fight. I don't know if it is one of those "do so much damage" or "survive for this long" but you cannot win. But also if you die it is game over so...good luck.

But since you have the boat there is a fairly easy grinding spot that you can get to. A certain enemy gives 2,000 EXP when you kill it. The downside is that it flees on the world map and in battle but if you spend enough time there you can boost levels quickly.

At least until you find the higher level variant that drops a cool 8,000 EXP (9,000 with the perk) later on.

@Phatmac said:

@ArtisanBreads said:

This is why I am going to play this game on Easy, if I get around to it.

yeah I should've played it on easy. I wonder if you can change it to easy.

You should be able too. I seem to remember it saying you can change the difficulty in the options or somewhere.

@SpunkyHePanda said:

@Phatmac said:

@drac96 said:

@Phatmac: If this is the point where you're on the boat, then you're supposed to lose. You can hurt him enough for the fight to end though

I'm on the boat and I don't think this is true unless I'm missing something.

I don't think you're supposed to lose exactly, but the fight does end automatically at a certain point.

Yeah, it must be time based or something. He was only around 50% hp for me and then he wiped out the party, but the game went on.

It may be possible that someone was left alive with a sliver of hp and I just didn't notice.

God the "you are supposed to lose this fight" fights in JRPGs gotta be one of the worst parts.

@Phatmac said:

Oh you can change it to easy. I'll report back and see if I can win.

Good news. I think I read you take less damage in that so it's probably better. I just want to avoid a lot of grinding if I can. Game will already be long enough.

Easy is still kinda hard, but I beat this match. I'll keep playing. Thanks guys.

@ArtisanBreads said:

God the "you are supposed to lose this fight" fights in JRPGs gotta be one of the worst parts.

I'm enjoying the hell out of this game, but you are totally right. I just got to the same boat fight last night. My "JRPG sense" actually kicked in as soon as Shadar appeared, guessing it was one of those fights, so I stopped trying and got a "Game Over". But as others have said, you actually have to put in some effort, which might even be slightly worse than fights you are supposed to straight up get knocked out.

@beard_of_zeus said:

@ArtisanBreads said:

God the "you are supposed to lose this fight" fights in JRPGs gotta be one of the worst parts.

I'm enjoying the hell out of this game, but you are totally right. I just got to the same boat fight last night. My "JRPG sense" actually kicked in as soon as Shadar appeared, guessing it was one of those fights, so I stopped trying and got a "Game Over". But as others have said, you actually have to put in some effort, which might even be slightly worse than fights you are supposed to straight up get knocked out.

Yeah you're right it totally is worse.

I was just watching the Persona 4 ER and it's funny when Jeff and Vinny throw "is this one of those JRPG fights?" out there at one point when they get worked over really quick.

Just have the player lose in a cutscene or something. It isn't really worth it.

@ArtisanBreads said:

@beard_of_zeus said:

@ArtisanBreads said:

God the "you are supposed to lose this fight" fights in JRPGs gotta be one of the worst parts.

I'm enjoying the hell out of this game, but you are totally right. I just got to the same boat fight last night. My "JRPG sense" actually kicked in as soon as Shadar appeared, guessing it was one of those fights, so I stopped trying and got a "Game Over". But as others have said, you actually have to put in some effort, which might even be slightly worse than fights you are supposed to straight up get knocked out.

Yeah you're right it totally is worse.

I was just watching the Persona 4 ER and it's funny when Jeff and Vinny throw "is this one of those JRPG fights?" out there at one point when they get worked over really quick.

Just have the player lose in a cutscene or something. It isn't really worth it.

Yeah, if you're gonna to transition to a battle for one of those, you have to make it super obvious, maybe to the point of just automatically playing things out for the player. I remember it happening in Final Fantasy IV a lot, and it working fine there because of that reason. There's dialogue happening, or you only have one battle option, things like that, although that might have just been a limitation of video games at the time, where in-battle "cutscenes" like that were a painless way to move the story along.

Switching it to Easy may get you back in the game and enjoy the story more. But I read somewhere that it's not a lot different than Normal, they say it's just like 20% easier I think. Then again, that may still help.

I'm loving the game so far, but I'm still at the start, just 6-7 hours in and just got Esther hehe!

Welcome to a REAL JRPG game mate ;)

I mean the game doesn't fuck around but honestly.. I feel really good playing this game because I feel like the bounties and stuff should be harder and I am just cleaning them up, sure I wandered into an area that was to high level (Only because I kick the bounty targets ass that was blocking the way) and got wiped but its awesome it is very rewarding if you do it right and the grinding I have done has been minimal at best.