I will keep this spoiler-free.

I am at the point in the game where I just got the third party member. I am playing on normal and every major battle or a boss fight I end up with just Oliver and his familiars, others just die in the firs minute no matter what tactics I assign to them. So it's just me dancing around the boss with verry little dmg output, picking up every mana drop and chipping away the health. Any advice? I am also trying to assign the favourite genuses of familiar of everyone, while also keeping sun/star/moon on everyone.

While I am asking: I am also color blind, can anyone explain what the colored numbers mean? I noticed the fire attacks do an orange number - is it just that, or is there any connection to the affinities (star vs sun etc.)?

Are you taking advantage of the all-out defense before the bosses big attacks? That's really the only way to get your party members to block when you want them to.

I made sure each of my party members had a healer familiar so that they could heal up when necessary; and also kept their AI to "do what you want". There were certainly some fights where they were kinda stupid, but for the most part they did well as long as I kept an eye on their mana and threw some coffee their way when needed.

And orange numbers mean critical hits (ie you're hitting their weakness) while red are just normal damage and blue are weakened damage (ie you're hitting their strength). It's not necessarily affinity-connected so much as what that particular creature may be weak to (which can usually be found reading the Wizards Companion. For example, many plant or ice familiars being weak to fire)

It's a good idea to give your AI companions a tank familiar that can soak up hits for them. Monolith (near Castaway Cove) and Lumberwood (No Mine Island below Autumnia) are great choices for Swaine and Eshter respectively. Definitely make use of All-Out-Defend, it will save your ass more often than not. Just keep in mind it only affects your AI companions, you will still have to manually defend with whoever you're currently controlling. Also keep in mind which familiars have Psych Up and Evade. You can't defend at all with Psych Up familiars, so you will need to switch back to your humans if you want to defend, and evade has a very short active window, so you have to be careful with the timing or it won't work.

I tend to keep Swaine on "Don't use abilities" given his low MP. If I want to use a skill I just switch to him and use it manually. If you've got a decent stock MP recovery items then you may not need to worry about that though.

Ok, thank you guys, I will try to improve with your advice. Mainly the use of all out attack/defense, this concept was just intruduced in ny game and I was not sure what it actually does. For a game that has this stone-tutorial-guy explaining everything whenever player needs,there ase still a lot of unexplained rules and stuff.

LOL I hear you Quipido. I've been having Oliver solo bosses even when I get my two party members. On the other hand what they said,you have to use the All-Out a majority of times. I'd just usually have the third party member heal since the second one consumes MP in the first 10 secs of battle,sadly I'm not joking.

Sadly I've found that grinding may be required before some of the tougher boss fights. When I first got Swaine he was about 4 or 5 Levels below Oliver.

Levels aren't that important in this game. 4-5 level doesn't make that big of a difference. The familiars use, the skills you equip, and how well you manage your party are all much bigger factors.

I just put a couple of hours in the game and even fought a boss, with new familiars setup (mostly support tricks equipped) and with the proper use of all out attack/defense I won with all party members alive. It was still a tough fight, but the whole system makes a lot more sense now. Thanks again for the advice, I am enjoying the game much more now.