Time was, many JRPGs featured surprisingly complex mini-games. Just look at the suite of Final Fantasy games from 7 to 10, for instance. With the costs of game development having skyrocketed, it’s not as easy (not that it was ever truly easy) to find the resources to repeat the trick, but Star Ocean: The Divine Force pulls it off with aplomb.
Es’owa is an in-game tabletop played on grids of varying sizes, with pieces called ‘pawns’ that are comprised of famous and not-so-famous characters from across the Star Ocean series. It’s a great way to earn rewards, and it’s fun in its own right to boot. Here are a few things to keep in mind.
Uniques Always Outrank Generics
This may seem obvious, but it’s worth stressing the point. The generic pawns you start out with are, frankly, not good. They’re meant to be replaced as soon as possible. You will never find a generic Gunner with a higher attack rating than any named Gunner.
You’ll accrue more Es’owa pawns at a charmingly quick clip throughout your Star Ocean: The Divine Force journey. Not just as prizes from Es’owa matches, but through treasure chests (make sure you’re spamming DUMA’s scan ability!), and even unrelated quest rewards. Do yourself a favor and consult your deck editing menu on a regular basis to make sure you haven’t forgotten to slot in any fresh faces.
Berserkers Are Your Openers
At first glance, Berserkers may seem dire. Since you start out with generics, and there isn’t much range in their attack power, the Berserker’s potentially debilitating effect of losing 30 power whenever a pawn is placed beside it can quickly reduce its per-turn output to zero, rendering it useless.
Berserkers do have their uses, primarily as openers, when you can maximize their output because there aren’t any other pieces in play. Plus, your opponent is likely to place their own pawn next door, to diminish the Berserker, meaning you can lure them into gradually being surrounded if you play your cards (er, pawns) right.
All well and good, but wouldn’t it make sense to use other pawn types instead? Well, sometimes. What makes Berserkers worthwhile in the long run is tied directly to whether you find their best pieces. Some Berserkers have attack power well into the 300s range. These fierce bits of plastic, or metal, or whatever Es’owa’s got going on, can be devastating at the start of a match.
Assassins And Wizards Are Mid-Game Menaces
On the other hand, save your Assassins and Wizards for further on. Wizards enhance every unit they ‘touch’ by 40 power. It’s fairly rote to say, ‘don’t start the game with one,’ since nothing will trigger, and you’re left with what is probably an uninspiring amount of attack damage from the Wizard itself. Less obvious, perhaps, is just how long you might wish to wait — get havoc-inducingly high-damage pawns on the board and then boost them with Wizards only when the ability can really put the squeeze on your rivals.
As for Assassins, there are times when you don’t need to wait until mid-game or later, but they’re relatively rare. Always keep these in reserve until your opponent pulls out the big guns with a super-powerful pawn.
Exceptions to the above are few and far between, primarily concerning unfortunate cases when you just keep drawing Wizards and/or Assassins. If you’ve got nothing else, hey, you’ve got nothing else.
Enfeeble Is Exemplary
It’s somewhat tempting to hang on to your standard-issue Flame Charge special attack. Direct damage influence is a huge deal, and if you can hold off until you’ve got the ‘full’ seven MP, you’re going to be dishing out a lot.
That said, we prefer Enfeeble for matches with Master Level Four and above. It cannot be overstated just how deadly Enfeeble is at max strength. A seven-MP shot of Enfeeble can reduce the attack points of your opponent to zero in many instances, effectively ending their odds of victory.
It works both ways, however, and you will find that Enfeeble pops up among many of the higher-ranked Es’owa players in Star Ocean: The Divine Force.
Expand Your Es’owa
While you may be forced at times to disregard this advice, depending on your opponent’s antics, it’s generally best to start off toward the center of a board and build outward.
You may feel uncomfortably exposed, after a fashion, but expanding rather than contracting lowers the risk of your pawns being boxed-in and sent to the graveyard. You have more control over the board’s layout, and if the enemy happens to be constructing a group of pawns near the edges, you can gradually work toward them and annihilate their units.
Your Opponents Will Stack MP
We’ve mentioned that NPCs with Enfeeble decks are going to stack up to debilitate you, which is why it’s imperative that you make use of Gunner units at the right times. Hold on to them whenever possible, waiting until the enemy has around four MP. Their five-MP Enfeeble is still quite hurtful, but the three-MP burst… really isn’t so bad, so if they should elect to use it instead for whatever reason? Hey, whatever.
This doesn’t just apply to Enfeeble. We haven’t seen many instances of Star Ocean: The Divine Force denizens casting Flame Charge at three MP, nor using Revive until it can resurrect a fair number of pawns from their graveyard. Your Gunners are MP destroyers, so don’t deploy them unless it counts.
Strong Pawns Make Excellent Fashion Accessories
This last tip isn’t so much about Es’owa as a board game as it is about Es’owa pawns in the broader scheme of the main game. Always check the effects that pawns can provide as equipped accessories.
We’ve found some very worthy stuff, including boosts to experience point gain, incredibly versatile elemental and debuff resistances, percentage-based stat upticks, and more. These things are useful to a degree that extensive RPG mini-games seldom see; it’s like Final Fantasy 8’s Triple Triad card game all over again.
The best part? While it’s not readily apparent until you try, equipping an Es’owa pawn to a character does not remove it from your deck, so these series icons pull double-duty shifts in the name of galactic piece. Not bad for a piece of plastic.
Or metal. Or… again, you know, whatever the heck they’re made with.
