Hey guys, I finally got my copy yesterday, Newegg's "3 day" shipping sure did take a while :P

I've played about 12 hours already, really enjoying it so far, first thing I did when I got the ability to capture familiars was get a bonehead and I have him to level 2 now...but it seems like every familiar I've tried just ends up being less useful than your starting familiar, Mite or whatever his name is. Currently I have my bonehead morphed to his second evolution and he's level 11, my mite is morphed to second evolution as well and he's level 17, it seems like Bonehead is only really good against a couple types of enemies while Mite seems pretty good against just about everything, I'm not sure if it's just because Mite is 6 levels higher or if bonehead's physical only damage is what's hindering his usefulness.

I'm also having a lot of mana trouble, once I run out that's pretty much it until I find an inn or a save point lol. Quite enjoying it though, I'm surprised I'm liking it as much as I am.

I believe Boneheads are lower in defense than most similar types. Definitely lower than Mites, that's fo sho. But yeah, MP is a rare commodity in the other world.

I'm having the same problem as well with mana. I just keep going back to the lake behind Al Mamoon to get the spring water thingy for MP hehe!

I also captured the bonehead familiar, but he's not very useful as of now. He's slow and has bad accuracy. I'm still leveling up his attack though so it may take some time. Mite is still the best in physical attacks for me too so far

There are a few familiars that are late bloomers and only really start to come into their own on their 3rd evolution. I have Bonehead as well and he is level 54 on his final evolution and as long as he isn't actively pulling aggro he can put in some damage pretty hard. Also with "Beserker" types like Bonehead abuse the crap out of "Psyche Up" it costs no MP at all to use and makes them do way more damage.

I finally just got alchemy!

I figure if I can find bonehead some fire defense I'll be able to work him up to being my main full proper. I'm not sure which of his third evolution I want to use though.

@Demoskinos: Damn you're right, I didn't think psyche up gave much of an improvement but it sure does.

Man good luck not trying to play this game everyday,ever since I got it on Sunday I've been playing it nonstop! on the other hand I personally use Tinman his defense and strength is superb and Deep Fry,he ooks so badass on his third transformation,his magic and attack is pretty good and his movement and attack speed is good.

@Bishop113 said:

I finally just got alchemy!

I figure if I can find bonehead some fire defense I'll be able to work him up to being my main full proper. I'm not sure which of his third evolution I want to use though.

If you go into your Wizards companion under the bestiary you can actually see all of the creatures in the game as well as their evolved forms. What happens when you evolve their 3rd form is you get a choice there are two branching ways you can go and both evolution will have trade offs and be able to learn different spells/tricks.

Yeah I've looked in the bestiary, I'm just not sure which of the transformations I want. The next familiar I want is Girlfriend, that looks like an awesome familiar.

In regards to Bonehead it's very important to keep in mind that Bone Baron is almost useless until like Lv 70+. He regularly gets 1 point stat gains until that point when it suddenly gets huge boosts. He ends up being pretty strong at max level, but he's purely an end game/post game familiar.

Anyone have any good tips for combat, I'm starting to get real cynical about the game as combat has ramped up in difficulty.

A few tips off the top of my head:

- Give everyone a good physical familiar up front and either set their tactics to not use skills or make sure the familiar has limited MP usage skills. That should prevent them from blowing through all their MP in a couple battles.

- Make sure you cancel an attack to guard if you see them charging up an attack.

- Use L2/R2 to cycle through menus rather than the D-pad.

- If you have your third party member make sure to take advantage of All-out-attack and All-out-defend. Especially the latter. It will make a huge difference in tough fights. Just remember that you still have to guard with the person you're controlling. And also remember that you can guard immediately after you've finished guarding, so make sure to pick when to use all-out-defend wisely. Also keep in mind that evade has a very limited active window and any familiar with psych-up can't guard at all.

- Speaking of Psych-up, I'd avoid any more than one or two familiars with that ability. It's not as useful as Defend or Evade.

- Give your AI companions a tank familiar to soak up hits. Lumberwood is a great choice for Eshter and either Monolith or Tin-Man are good choices for Swaine. If you want one for Oliver too Little Bighorn is pretty good.

- Try to focus on giving each character familiars that are compatible with them, as they get a stat boost. They don't all have to be compatible, but I'd aim for at least 2 each.

- If the difficulty is really posing a problem fight some Toko's (Ugly Duckling Island NE of Ding Dong Dell) for tons of exp and quick levels.

@TohruAdachi said:

Man good luck not trying to play this game everyday,ever since I got it on Sunday I've been playing it nonstop! on the other hand I personally use Tinman his defense and strength is superb and Deep Fry,he ooks so badass on his third transformation,his magic and attack is pretty good and his movement and attack speed is good.

Yep there with you on the non stop playing. Im probably not as high on it as a lot of people but its still an absolute beautiful, fun RPG. The music+dragon flying around the whole map pretty awesome.

@Zeik said:

- Use L2/R2 to cycle through menus rather than the D-pad.

You sir, rock my face. Played about 17 hours and had no idea. Cheers duder!

@Zeik: Thanks for the tips, I've been trying to force myself to use L2/R2 to cycle, it seems faster and lets your keep moving so. Definitely keep in mind some of the other stuff you mentioned.

After posting I took a break to clear my head(was pissed) when I came back I switched my bonehead to Swain and started using Mite and Oroboros instead(Oro~ :D) his plasma ball ability is only 3 MP and does more than any other spell I have from the looks of it, friggin amazing difference that's made. I also did some grinding, was hoping I wouldn't have to in this game but oh well, I cleared my head and just fought enemies near the shore village for an hour or two until I had gained a few levels and leveled up a bunch of my familiars. I also picked up one of those cat dudes with the sword, got him to evolution 2 as he seems like a pretty good familiar as well.

I'll give bonehead another shot when I get him to his final form but unfortunately it looks like I won't be using him. Oh well, Oroboros is an awesome little dude anyways.

lol, oh how time flies. Well I'm 22 hours in now, I spent time grinding Toko's, I now have 3rd evo Bone baron, Mite, Puss in Boat, Orobscuro and Esther's starting Familiar. Also captured a rabbot and I'm working on Tinman now, two other familiars I wanted to get.

@Bishop113 said:

lol, oh how time flies. Well I'm 22 hours in now, I spent time grinding Toko's, I now have 3rd evo Bone baron, Mite, Puss in Boat, Orobscuro and Esther's starting Familiar. Also captured a rabbot and I'm working on Tinman now, two other familiars I wanted to get.

You sure you wanna do that? I think the game will be more fun with challenging bosses.

@TohruAdachi: Well I won't be doing it anymore but I hit a bit of a brick wall and wasn't having fun so this should even it out, I'm using low level familiars now so it's not a cake walk, haven't fought a boss yet so I don't know how that'll go.

@Bishop113 said:

@TohruAdachi: Well I won't be doing it anymore but I hit a bit of a brick wall and wasn't having fun so this should even it out, I'm using low level familiars now so it's not a cake walk, haven't fought a boss yet so I don't know how that'll go.

Really? I didn't really have to grind until after the desert because the genie was a problem,but even still I didn't think I had to grind for that part either. The only part I really grinded for was Hamelin. I had to solo,and I was like level 30 grinded to level 36 and I was so angry because it was the same result,just spam your skills and spam MP pots on your self for thirty minutes and finish him. When I was level 30 I had to solo him and brought his HP down so low,but NOOOOOOOO,trained to level 36 and same results and finally managed to kill him. So I don't think I had to grind for the Hamelin part either. So to be honest,I really only had to grind for near end-game,just remember to get the Jack-in-the-Box merit reward it'll really help you when you get into certain parts of the game that I had a problem with but didn't want to grind. Like a dungeon and the monsters were to strong so just sneak up and silently kill.

@TohruAdachi: I mostly just want to make sure I get through the game, I have a tendency to lose interest in games super fast so I want to keep this an easy going and fun experience, when I hit that wall(the eye of the storm and after that was the wall for me) I was about ready to box it up and ship it back to newegg hehe. I'm about level 35 now I think, and I just got to Hamelin so from your description I should be on track.

@Bishop113 said:

@TohruAdachi: I mostly just want to make sure I get through the game, I have a tendency to lose interest in games super fast so I want to keep this an easy going and fun experience, when I hit that wall(the eye of the storm and after that was the wall for me) I was about ready to box it up and ship it back to newegg hehe. I'm about level 35 now I think, and I just got to Hamelin so from your description I should be on track.

Yeah same for me, I plan on beating the game,doing some post-game stuff and than quitting the game until I get bored of Persona 4 Arena and than come back and Platinum Ni No Kuni.

@TohruAdachi: Haha, I will definitely lose interest before I come close to getting a platinum trophy in it. After this I plan to finish dragon's dogma and SOTC/Ico collection.