How much of a grind is this game.

[acropyre-]

It took me 80 hours. If you are down to your last couple of familiars to capture, the dragon DLC actually counted as a captured familiar. 

[Jaguargenie]

Some of the trophies are a huge grind. The familiars trophy and alchemy can be huge. Best advice is go farm the early familiars, bring them to the Ivory Tower (final stage in the game) and bring them out for a fight. If you are a high enough level, AoE spells should kill everything on screen. Those early familiars will level real quick.

 

As for the alchemy, there isn't much way around it. If you aren't collecting and picking up items as you are playing the story, you have to go back and grind. You need a large amount of some early/rare ingredients. I would strongly suggest a guide to help you out. This one http://www.ign.com/wikis/ni-no-kuni-wrath-of-the-white-witch/Alchemy_Recipes is really pretty comprehensive and gives you locations to all the ingredients as well. It helped me out a lot.

[usrmd]

Looking at something around 80 hours to plat this.. check out howlongtobeat.com, the "completionist" time for games you're wondering about.

[Jounochi]

Took me just under 71 hours to platinum.

 

Tips:

1. Catch tier 1 monsters and evolve.

2. Forage whenever you see sparkling turf.

3. Just be persistent.

[Swordsman83]

the create 120 items through alchemy and tame 250 familiars should be your last 2 trophy before plat. 

[Darbs101]

I just find the feel of the grind so horrendous. I agree there are way grindier games in reality. The story is well worth it though so happy to be finished get IN!!!!!!!!! Got to have a break before I go back and platinum this beast felt longer than Persona 5 royal!