Gaming Ni No Kuni Wrath of the White Witch: When to use familiars and when NOT to use them?

[AutumnWolf]

I ask because my first familiar seems super weak compared to Oliver.

Can I go full scrub and just use Oliver thruout the whole game or will that come bite me in the arse later?

 

[k0walski]

Well, I guess, since you have a choice which familiar to use and one of the "features" of the gameplay is that you can collect them and choose which one to develop and evolve, you need to search for a familiar/two/three, which have unique abilities. Because in different battles the one you have might not be useable at all. Simply useless because it won't be able to stand against an enemy. Unfortunately, the cruel truth - you need to train Oliver and familiars so they could complement each other. That's why the game is soooo time consuming (at least it was for me). Anyway I wasn't able to master all the things (even 50%, I think)... Just needs time. Lots of it

 

[AutumnWolf]

Well, I guess, since you have a choice which familiar to use and one of the "features" of the gameplay is that you can collect them and choose which one to develop and evolve, you need to search for a familiar/two/three, which have unique abilities. Because in different battles the one you have might not be useable at all. Simply useless because it won't be able to stand against an enemy. Unfortunately, the cruel truth - you need to train Oliver and familiars so they could complement each other. That's why the game is soooo time consuming (at least it was for me). Anyway I wasn't able to master all the things (even 50%, I think)... Just needs time. Lots of it

Damn, thanks for the answer!

I guess I'll just have to get more familiar with this mechanic...

 

[k0walski]

You're welcome

The game is really amasing. Especially those cut-scenes (as far as I remember, drawn by Ghibli). They make the game more vivid (even though the world is beautiful and vivid).

 

[ILuvGames]

Damn, thanks for the answer!

I guess I'll just have to get more familiar with this mechanic...

There's a pretty good guide on Gamefaqs that should help you too in case you don't find an answer here. You don't have to read the whole guide to find it as it's in the 'tips' section right at the start of it :-

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps3/998014-ni-no-kuni-wrath-of-the-white-witch/faqs/65877

 

[The Real Jdbye]

I ask because my first familiar seems super weak compared to Oliver.

Can I go full scrub and just use Oliver thruout the whole game or will that come bite me in the arse later?

The starting familiar is quite weak, even after being fully evolved IIRC. There are some you can find later on that are super OP. Overall, familiars are not very well balanced, so it's best to search online to find out which ones are good, so you don't waste a lot of time and items leveling and evolving a familiar which will still be weak in the end.
I just found a suggested combo of familiars somebody posted online and ran with that, it made battles much easier.
You certainly don't need the best familiars in order to beat the game, you can make do with whatever random familiars you feel like using, having OP familiars can make the game a bit easy... On the other hand, having weak familiars makes battles drag on a lot longer than necessary. I don't necessarily recommend just copying setups found online like I did, use what you like. It will be easy to tell when one of your familiars is much weaker than the others and at that point, it's probably worth replacing sooner rather than later if it's similarly leveled and evolved and still weaker than the others, as it won't suddenly become your most powerful familiar after evolving, the stat scaling seems to be pretty linear in this game.

 

[AutumnWolf]

The starting familiar is quite weak, even after being fully evolved IIRC. There are some you can find later on that are super OP. Overall, familiars are not very well balanced, so it's best to search online to find out which ones are good, so you don't waste a lot of time and items leveling and evolving a familiar which will still be weak in the end.
I just found a suggested combo of familiars somebody posted online and ran with that, it made battles much easier.
You certainly don't need the best familiars in order to beat the game, you can make do with whatever random familiars you feel like using, having OP familiars can make the game a bit easy... On the other hand, having weak familiars makes battles drag on a lot longer than necessary. I don't necessarily recommend just copying setups found online like I did, use what you like. It will be easy to tell when one of your familiars is much weaker than the others and at that point, it's probably worth replacing sooner rather than later if it's similarly leveled and evolved and still weaker than the others, as it won't suddenly become your most powerful familiar after evolving, the stat scaling seems to be pretty linear in this game.

Thanks, I think I'll follow my instincs.

Guides, while useful... can take away from the experience of trying to figure things out yourself.

Thanks to everyone who replied!

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Thanks, I think I'll follow my instincs.

Guides, while useful... can take away from the experience of trying to figure things out yourself.

Thanks to everyone who replied!

I was most of the way through the game and had my team fully evolved by the time I even thought to check what people online were saying about it, so I didn't really mind following other people's tips, since the huge discrepancy between my familiars was getting annoying. One of them just seemed uselessly weak, I hoped it would get better after evolving (sort of a Magikarp->Gyarados situation) but it really didn't. The starter familiar wasn't the worst of them, but it was still way weaker than my strongest one (which it turned out was actually one of the most powerful familiars in the game, happy coincidence), after I got that one it became pretty obvious how weak the rest of my team was. Wouldn't even have noticed otherwise.