Need help with Ni No Kuni

I'm playing through Ni No Kuni right now, really like it but man, there are some very annoying flaws that I want to know if there are fixes for it.

I'm at the part where you just got Esther and you're going to the sage trials in the desert. My problem is Esther just keeps getting knocked out no matter what I tell her to do, using items to give her more magic or HP seems like a total waste since she'll just get KO'd anyway.

My second complaint, and maybe I should be buying loads of those items to give MP but all my familiars seem so weak that it makes more sense to play as the kid during battles and use fireball or pulse on enemies but then i'm literally stuck walking around, defending until a blue MP orb is randomly dropped to recharge because I'm always running out of MP.

Random enemies do a lot of damage with certain attacks surprisingly even while playing on easy.

Can anyone tell me if this gets less annoying or if theres something I can do to alleviate Esther's annoying deaths and having to wait to get more MP? If anyone has advice its appreciated these two issues are annoying me so very much.

Its been sometime since I last played but do you have a familiar that can taunt? It sounds like when Esther is healing she is getting all the aggro. Giving her a familiar like a Hurly or Mite may do the trick for her to use.

Also Oliver does have some pretty awesome spells but you will burn mana very fast, its good to have a mix of familiars, also remember to give them food to boost their stats.

well, a certain amount of leveling is expected from you. i just did all the sidequests as they became available and that put me right.

also, some of the familiars are kind of ass. some good ones that you can get right now (assuming esther can charm at the point you're at):

1) the starting familiars of both oliver and esther are keepers

2) there's a cheetah familiar running around the desert. it has a vest, really long claws, and looks f*cking goofy. very good attacker

3) keep going south past the desert area to grasslands around the pirate-themed city. there's a pirate cat there. it's similar to 2). while it's not quite as good, it's better than what you'll get for a while.

4) look for the skeleton warriors common in the desert. they're pretty similar in style to oliver's starting familiar, but slightly more defensively oriented.

also, if esther is getting too much attention from an enemy, have oliver send out mite and then control esther so you can make her run away until the enemy leaves her alone. you can also try having esther send out familiar 4) if there are multiple enemies.

Mitey is great, and I made sure to have a strong melee attacker with each party member. Esther had her duck, which is both strong melee and magic and I gave her some bat monster as well that had very strong melee attacks. (getting the bloody AI to use the bat was an issue though...).

I can't remember that well but I do remember that Mitey outdamaged the kid's spells (while using no MP!) and eventually if you train some proper magic based monsters, their spells will pretty much replace the kid's spells.

I'm not recognizing the issue with Esther getting owned all the time though... Her duck can heal and I kept that healing/wind little dude you get in the forest. I pretty much used the kid and his monsters for 80% of the time... Some fights can definitely be pretty brutal, mostly because the AI is a bit basic and keeps blowing all the MP in every single fight...

The trick with Ni No Kuni is to grind like crazy. I've been on it about 60 hours so far and I'd estimate I've spent a good 20 hours of that just battling random monsters to level up and I'm now level 99 for everything. Better to be way overpowered then ever find yourself underpowered.

Few tips for you:

• As soon as you get access to a boat (probably another 3 hours for you) then go to Ugly Duckling Island and farm Tokos. They give you ridiculous XP and you'll find your levels going up like crazy.
• Once you can tame familiars try and find a good balance for your teams. Give each one a battler, a healer and a tank. That should stop Ester getting owned so much (try the Umberwood with her)
• As soon as you get the dragon go to Perdida and farm Toko Tokos (9000 XP each)
• As soon as you get the dragon tame a dinoceros (on the steps next to Al Mamoon). It's by far the best familiar in the game.
• dinoceros + earsplitter move = win almost every battle with 1 hit.

I would say the best advice is just to grind and level up as much as possible before entering a new dungeon. I think I was around level 20-25 when doing the trials.

Sounds like you need to level up a bit. If you are having trouble this early in the game then you will have a huge amount of trouble later on in the game.

What I do is level up until enemies start running away from you. It helps a lot.