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  • What Are DUMA Points?
  • DUMA In The Sky With Diamonds
  • The Secret To Gathering Large Quantities Of DUMA Points

There's a literal truth as well as a figurative one when we say you won't get far in Star Ocean: The Divine Force without DUMA. The robot pal is responsible for aiding you in battle in all sorts of cool ways, and travel across the sometimes-massive regions of the game's overworld is made much faster thanks to DUMA's speed boosts.

Related: Star Ocean: The Divine Force - Beginner's TipsYou aren't even limited to the horizontal with DUMA by your side. See that mountain? You can (probably) climb it. But to really get the most from your mechanical maestro, you need DUMA Points. Read on to find out how to grab them en masse.

What Are DUMA Points?

It'd be helpful to know what these things even are before we get into the nitty-gritty, so if you're just getting started with Star Ocean: The Divine Force, DUMA Points are a type of currency found all over the world, utilized in the menu screen to build upon the innate powers of the robot by the same name.

Once the DUMA (technically 'D.U.M.A., but you'll forgive us for shorthanding this) sub-menu gets unlocked, you'll see two tabs: Assign DUMA Skills and Strengthen DUMA. It's the latter we're concerned with for the purposes of the guide.

Within the Strengthen DUMA tab, there is DUMA Skill: Field and DUMA Skill: Battle. As their names imply, one regards DUMA's capabilities while outside combat, and the other is all about what it can do when the going gets rough. We're mentioning all this stuff because this is where DUMA Points get spent as you gain them.

You're going to find, quite quickly, that DUMA Points in Star Ocean: The Divine Force can feel quite minuscule on their own. Skills cost a fair few of these purple crystals a pop. It's imperative that you aim to acquire as many as you can in order to maximize DUMA's output (and make the game's fighting more manageable by proxy).

Related: Star Ocean: The Divine Force - A Complete Guide To DUMA

DUMA In The Sky With Diamonds

At the very beginning of Star Ocean: The Divine Force, your party of Laeticia, Raymond, and Albaird head to some old ruins together. During this brief section of the game, you won't see purple diamond-like crystals floating around the overworld, but that changes permanently as soon as you acquire DUMA from the escape pod. From hereon out, these enticingly shiny bits are yours for the taking — these are DUMA Points! — just so long as you can figure out how to reach them.

Most DUMA Points fall into one or more of the following categories:

  • They're at higher elevations than you, necessitating carefully-targeted usage of DUMA's aerial ability;
  • They're either somewhat or heavily hidden, requiring close assessment of your environment;
  • They're fairly obvious to behold, but to reach them, you must traverse dangerous gaps via DUMA, where falling means losing a portion of your HP (and reverting to your prior location).

As you can see, in many cases, DUMA itself is mandatory for the successful acquisition of its own skill-raising points. So it goes. But hey, it makes sense; you'll be buzzing around with your quiet buddy for much of the game. Finding DUMA Points is as much about raising DUMA's power as developer tri-Ace ensuring we get some gameplay mileage out of its large playable areas.

The Secret To Gathering Large Quantities Of DUMA Points

When it comes to acquiring DUMA Points, there's the obvious method and the less obvious method. In truth, they work in tandem; the first is the basis, and the second is how to 'grind' within the grounds of that basis.

DUMA Points commonly appear not just out in the overworld, but all over settlements, from small towns to bustling cities. Most frequently, you'll see them on and around rooftops or similarly high structures. Clearly, your goals when reaching a settlement should always involve scouring the place for DUMA Points, especially since the bigger clusters, which award larger sums of DUMA Points, are commonly a bit harder to reach (but well worth the effort).

This is where it gets good. You see, it's easy to fall victim to the belief that DUMA Points don't regenerate. After all, exiting and re-entering a village after getting them will typically seem to prove it. DUMA Points do regenerate; they simply do so at a relatively slow clip. What this means is, you can (and should) revisit previous places semi-regularly. While they also respawn in the overworld, settlements are more bunched-together, and thus less time-consuming.

We gained thousands of DUMA Points barely a third of the way into the main quest in this fashion: every two times the plot calls for hiking to a new (or even old) location, visit every previous town to see where the purple crystals have popped back up. While the exact mathematics behind their respawn presently eludes us, we can say with certainty you'll be swimming in the stuff.

You can, of course, elect to skip this approach entirely and accrue a goodly number of DUMA Points more organically. You'll level DUMA's abilities up at a fair clip, but nowhere near as quickly. That's all. If you have a limited window of opportunity to play a massive JRPG like Star Ocean: The Divine Force, you may be better off going this route. But if you want to earn DUMA's rad assists in short order, check your towns and cities on the regular.

Next: Star Ocean: The Divine Force - How To Level Up And Gain SP Quickly