Grinding early experience points in Ni No Kuni

Question

I have been hurting for a good RPG for a while and with such good reviews, when Ni No Kuni went on a recent PSN sale, I couldn't resist. I finally got some time to start in the other day. I am still very early and our main character has just started being able to battle.

I am wondering if there are any real benefits to grinding experience points early in the game. Any Google search of this immediately points to Tokos (like in this IGN guide).

From my Final Fantasy days I normally like to sit in an area and get a few levels before moving on so I have a leg up on my enemies. In Ni No Kuni, is there any real benefit to grinding before Tokos? In general, when should I start or how far in will I need to start grinding experience?

Right now it is still just our main character as the only party member (and no familiars) and have not tried going into any towns or anything (so yes, very, very early in). Spoiler-free tips appreciated.

Answer 1

It sounds like you might benefit from my quickstart guide for Ni No Kuni, which contains a bunch of things I wish I'd known when I started playing. It's almost completely spoiler free, although I do mention place names and summarizes some key game mechanics to make things easier to refer to.

When it comes to grinding, you are correct that the Toko family is the best bang for your buck. Rather far into the game you'll come to a location where there are many Tokotokos you can farm for very, very easy XP. I wouldn't suggest grinding excessively until this point. You'll also have access to a spell that will make singling the Tokotokos out much, much easier. I powerleveled here and evolved my familiars to their final forms, and then I found the rest of the game to be relatively easy.

There are some hard walls where the difficulty goes up significantly - when you head to the second overworld zone (after you've completely cleared Ding Dong Dell and the surrounding environs), things get a bit tricky. You might want to grind a bit in the early areas before entering this zone.

However, aside from that, doing all the sidequests in an area will generally get you close enough that you can move on without experiencing any crazy difficulty spikes.

Not too far from the beginning you'll gain the ability to charm familiars and recruit them to your party. There is some grinding involved in catching familiars, so grinding before you can do so is somewhat wasted.

There are clear winners and losers when it comes to familiars, so knowing which ones to spend the time to get and grind for XP on can save you all sorts of trouble. I've got my "preferred team" listed in the quickstart guide (along with where to find them) if that's of interest.