Tales of Crestoria has a whole bunch of exciting events and promotions for their Half Anniversary campaign! First of all, the SSR summon ticket gained from the Half Anniversary's Eve Countdown event can finally be redeemed in a special Select-a-Stone Summon event that lets you choose which SSR memoria stone (and accompanying character) you want. All of the original SSR characters in Tales of Crestoria and characters from Premium Summons released before December will be available in this summon pool. This means that you can choose any character's memoria stone except for Chronos (who is only available through the Arena Summons), the characters from the EX Summons pool (Dhaos, Crestoria Leon, Mieu, Barbatos, and Mecha-Asbel), the Christmas seasonal characters, and the New Year's seasonal characters. That's a lot of options! This summon will run from Friday, January 15th, to Wednesday, February 17th.
In addition, there will be a free 10x Summons available for each player once per week for the next four weeks. It doesn't look like this includes the usual guarantee of one SR+ memoria stone, but that's still a good deal. Any previous free summon events have had 1 free summon per day, rather than 10 per week. These summons will be available from Friday, January 15th, to Friday, February 12th. There will also be a Luck Tester Summons that does not award any memoria stones, but has a variety of useful prizes. The premier prize is 100,000 gleamstones, which is enough for twenty 10x summons! Other prizes include SSR awakening stones, SSR ascension stones, SSR summon tickets, 1,000 gleamstones, ascension crystal packs, and various ascension material packs. Tickets for the Luck Tester Summons are available as a daily login bonus during the Half Anniversary Campaign and as an exchange prize for the Half Anniversary Limited Quest event and associated missions. The Luck Tester Summons will be available from Friday, January 15th, until Monday, February 22nd, although the quests that provide Luck Tester Summon tickets will only be available until Friday, February 12th.
In more exciting news, three new playable characters are being added to Tales of Crestoria: the villains Makina, Forte, and Assid. Their memoria stones are named "Makina [Guileless Destroyer]," Forte [Cold-Blooded Wisdom]," and "Assid [Convivial Cruelty]." (If the latter two don't sound familiar, play the most recent story chapter!) Unlike most other summons, the Half Anniversary Limited Summon also uses a "Step Up" mechanic that awards different prizes based on how many times you have done a 10x summon. The first time, you will have the usual guarantee to receive at least one SR+ memoria stone and will also receive 4 Hope Fragments. The second time, you have the same guarantee, but receive 6 Hope Fragments. The third time, you get 7 Hope Fragments and are guaranteed to get 3 SR+ memoria stones. The fourth time, you get 7 Hope Fragments and a guaranteed SSR memoria stone. After the fourth time, the step-up count resets. 100 Hope Fragments can be exchanged for a Choose-a-Stone-Limited Summons ticket, which lets you pick one of Makina, Forte, and Assid. The Half Anniversary Limited Summon will run from Friday, January 15th, until Monday, February 15th. The Choose-a-Stone Limited Summon will remain open until March 1st though.
The Makina memoria stone has a maximum HP of 6,000, a max ATK of 2,300, and max DEF of 700. Her maxed out memoria skill is Onslaught VI (Light), which provides +27% ATK to a light ally. Makina herself has a maximum HP of 25,000, max ATK of 4,000, and max DEF of 2,500 at level 100 when fully awakened. Her awakened character skill is called "Innocent Malice" and provides a +10% ATK increase to all allies as well as a +10% ATK increase to light allies. Her artes are Atomic Pew-Pew (250% ATK, 3 hits, 1 enemy) and Guilty Masheroo (190% ATK, 1 hit, all enemies). Her mystic arte is Meteor Kaboom (260% ATK, 8 hits, all enemies). I love the funny names of Makina's attacks!
The Forte memoria stone has a maximum HP of 15,000, a max ATK of 1,000, and max DEF of 1,100. His maxed out memoria skill is Vigor VI (Earth), which gives an earth ally +27% HP. Forte himself has a maximum HP of 31,000, max ATK of 2,850, and max DEF of 2,850 at level 100 when fully awakened. His awakened character skill is called "Inscrutable Schemes" and provides a 10% increase to the maximum HP of all allies as well as +5 to the OL gauge of earth allies when artes are used. His artes are Acuteness (ATK and CRIT rate up 20%, all allies, 3 turns) and Ghost Rush (80% ATK, 10 hits, all enemies). His mystic arte is Xenomalenifica (250% ATK, 22 hits, 1 enemy).
The Assid memoria stone has a maximum HP of 7,000, a max ATK of 1,300, and max DEF of 1,600. His maxed out memoria skill is Safeguard VI (Water), which gives a water ally +27% DEF. Assid himself has a maximum HP of 23,500, max ATK of 3,850, and max DEF of 2,700 at level 100 when fully awakened. His awakened character skill is called "Buh-Bye Now" and provides +10% ATK to all allies as well as +10% ATK to water allies at 20 hits. His artes are Kick-Start Battery (200% ATK, 4 hits, 1 enemy) and Infinite Thrashing (120% ATK, 10 hits, all enemies). His mystic arte is Xenomalenifica (390% ATK, 11 hits, 1 enemy). I find it interesting that the twins have the same mystic arte name, but the damage and number of hits are different.
Finally, Tales of Crestoria previewed some new content that is in the works. It looks like they are almost done implementing the Enforcer Cloak and Meat attachments that were designed by Kanata and Misella's voice actors and voted on by fans a few months ago. These preview images were posted:
We also got a preview of Chapter 7, which is planned to be released in two parts, with the first half being released in late January and the rest being tentatively released in late February. The art shows Kasque, a character we've seen in the opening and concept art, but who has only been alluded to in the story, and Vicious, looking rather, um... different than usual. I'm certainly interested in seeing where this story goes! I had a lot of questions about Vicious's origins already and this preview only raises more...
