I’m back with a review of Chapter 5! Let’s see what my thoughts are for this chapter!
Contains major Crestoria spoilers.
“Condemning someone over THAT? This is madness!”
If Chapter 4 were a tragedy, I’d consider Chapter 5 a melting pot. There’s a bit of everything in this chapter. There’s tragedy, humor, fan service, character building, and world building all mixed together. Does that make this the best chapter so far? That depends. There are things I liked and disliked about this chapter, but I found this chapter decent.
The plot of this chapter is about the group trying to reach Toshimina by boat but they got no money and are fugitives. They decide to become a theater troupe in order to win the prize money. As they practice, they meet up with Yuna who is best friends with Penelope Kluber, a world-famous actress, who becomes their acting teacher. We learn more about Yuna and why she’s the way she is and how she gets her sin.
First thing I want to get out of the way is the acting. Did anyone get secondhand embarrassment from watching Kanata, Misella and Aegis’s acting? I sure did.
Back on topic, I just want to say how much of a disappointment Yuna’s sin was. The execution was a bit lackluster. It’s not as shocking as Aegis getting framed for murder or what Kanata and Misella did. I honestly thought her sin would be a lot more dramatic than her just saying criticism while Penelope is in critical condition.
Alas, it makes sense for her sin to be that. Actions don’t always cause crimes; words can cause them too. I feel like it’s an allusion to the real world where anything someone says can be twisted and used against them, ultimately becoming ‘cancelled’. I’ve seen it prevalently on Twitter…mainly on the K-pop twitter community. Twitter users, mainly the toxic ones, will twist words on whatever a K-pop idol said in the past on purpose in order to bring them down and to bring their biases up. Yuna’s a habitual liar and her flirty façade is the reason she earned ire from people in past and present. She had good intent, but people don’t care—they just want to bring her down because they slandered Penelope, unanimously beloved by her fellow townspeople. Maybe it can be seen as justice for those that despise Yuna, but it was nothing worth condemning over, as Kanata states.
To be frank, I thought Yuna’s sin was going to be revolved around the death of Malcolm Sloat, the evil scientist that the group killed. I do find it weird that his death hasn’t been reported despite him having guards that were obviously given to him by the city’s government. I guess the writers didn’t want to keep repeating the same murder plot, so they changed it up. This means Yuna and the others committed murder and arson and got away with it. But that’s okay. Malcolm is evil and the protagonists must vanquish evil, right?
Though, I do admit that her sin being caused by sensitivity was heavily foreshadowed in the chapter when Yuna was talking about Genitz. The man she was looking for in Chapter 3 turned out to be Penelope’s father whom she never met. Yuna explained his ordeal. He was a playwright and got condemned for writing a play that offended someone. Yuna’s fate became the same. Her years of journalism had gained her fair shares of detractors. Once an opportunity to condemn Yuna came by, her haters did everything they could to fuel their ire.
Speaking of Malcolm, most of the chapter’s darker aspects are all due to him. Yuna drags Kanata, Misella and Aegis to a manor in the outskirts of Centerport where a man named Malcolm Sloat lives, and he’s probably the evilest person in the story so far, showing no remorse for those he experimented on (he’s also the guy who experimented on Emil and made him the way he is in this universe). I find his design intriguing. He has a good design; it was a waste for him to be killed off in the middle of the story. I just hope those words he said before he died is foreshadowing his return. I thought he was an entertaining villain.
I have to say that Yuna and Penelope’s friendship is sweet, but a bit dark in a way. It’s sweet given how much they respect each other, yet we only see their friendship from Yuna’s perspective. We learn a lot about both Yuna and Penelope from the bits of the former telling about the latter’s backstory. Penelope had an abusive mother who was also a well-known actress like her daughter; she would beat her whenever Penelope made a mistake in acting practice. The beatings got so bad that Yuna viewed Bernette as a monster, so she recorded her actions with her Vision Orbs and that was how Bernette was condemned and disappeared from Penelope’s life—her father wasn’t present in her life. She became alone due to Yuna’s meddling, which made her feel guilty to the present day. Why I find their friendship slightly dark is because of how well Penelope is good at acting. Has she ever had some feelings of resentment for Yuna hidden within her? Not only that, Yuna’s whole personality and story came from how guilty she felt for tearing apart a family for her own morals is pretty dark too.
Not only that, the mentions of Penelope getting abused as a kid was pretty dark too. Like what Aegis said, there’s not justification for those who hit their children. Why do I have to sympathize with someone who chose to hurt her own daughter? That’s like sympathizing with Cody who chose to sell kids. I get that parents have their own ways to discipline their children, but their actions are their own choices. What would happen to Penelope if Bernette were still alive and continued to beat her?
Alright, enough tragic talk. I’ll move onto happier topics like cameo characters! This chapter had the most amount of cameo appearances with 9 in total. You might be thinking, “But Grace, I counted 8!” Bzzzt, you’re wrong. There are 9. Why? It’s because Emil was mentioned despite not making at appearance, so he still counts. Other than Emil, who is with Cress in this universe, let’s go over other cameo appearances.
The Iselia trio is a quartet with Arche being a friend of theirs now. Their appearances are brief, so they don’t contribute much to the story other than being the instigator of Kanata’s decision to participate in the drama festival. I hope they appear again; Arche reappeared in the Christmas event where she got separated from her friends.
The next cameo appearance is Sophie, who is a girl Kanata and the others found in Malcolm’s manor; she was in a room full of corpses and seemed to be the only survivor. She was a boss fight but it’s an unwinnable one in the main story given she runs off when you deplete her HP to the blinking state. What happened to her afterwards is interesting. She gets a side story I have yet to play, but before the side chapter, her fate was shown in that same Christmas event; Ange found her, took her in, and named her Rainy. I have yet to play Side Story Sophie, so I won’t say anything more about Sophie until then.
After Sophie, Chat and Patty make their appearance as young pirates searching for Aifread’s treasure. Their squabble was hilarious. Their appearance caused an amazing line to come out of Vicious: “What daycare did these two break out of?” If these two were traveling together, who would be the captain?
Eizen has a prominent role in this chapter. He battles Vicious and the party and then says that Vicious has a inner demon within him. Given the circumstances of chapter 7, his words are true. Eizen is also a boss battle and an unwinnable one at that. Why, game?
The Crestoria cast has some development and building. Kanata is willing to pertain to the idea of stealing a boat and going through extreme measures to earn money like entering a drama festival when no one has any experience. He also likes designing clothes as he designed the pirate clothes (when will we get alts?). His love for pits has returned in this chapter as he fell into another hole. Given that this chapter was a Yuna-focused chapter, it’s understandable that Kanata doesn’t get development. I do like the new details I learned about him, though.
Misella was mainly a Kanata simp throughout this chapter. I honestly lost track of how many times she said “All for Kanata” or other similar things. It kind of got annoying after the third section. I did like some details other than her simping like her being perceptive of Yuna’s feelings towards Penelope and her being great at sewing. I feel like Misella was at her worst in this chapter with the way she was behaving in this chapter. I hope she gets better next chapter.
Aegis was pretty much Kanata and Misella’s babysitter throughout this chapter. He was looking after them when Vicious ran off and he got roped into being in a theater troupe with Kanata and Misella. His acting was awful. Goodness, I cringed the most when he was acting. I give props to his voice actor for imitating an exaggerated style of kabuki. I do like how knowledgeable he is once again as he knows who Penelope and Bernette are.
Yuna’s great. I like her a lot. I enjoyed her a lot. She has a lot of quirks that make her stand out a lot. Her reason to become a journalist is understandable since it’s all for Penelope. I know her accent and her habit of lying came from using them as seduction tactics to get information from men. I kind of want to see her talk normally. I also want to know what her first lie was and what caused subsequent ones.
Vicious didn’t do a lot except bring pirates to the city and almost destroyed it. Thanks a lot Vicious. You deserved that slap. Vicious was absent most of this chapter and was only prominent towards the end. It seems that he is rubbing onto Kanata. Kanata was keen on the idea of stealing a boat, much to Misella’s dismay. I also liked his interaction with Eizen. The mystery behind Vicious shrouds deeper.
Penelope is great. The NPC’s in Crestoria have been evil, annoying or used as death fodder. Penelope breaks all those tropes as she’s presented as kind, strict and important. Though, she does have a death flag given her heart condition. I love how devoted she is to acting; having something you’re passionate about always makes me smile. Though, I do want to know what her feelings towards Yuna really are. She’s all about her acting and such, but it makes me wonder what she’s hiding within her. I wanted to know what how she felt when her mother abused her and how she really felt about the incident through her perspective. It’s very unfortunate that we probably won’t get to see her again. I really like Penelope’s voice. I wonder who her voice actress is. She did amazing as her. My only gripe with Penelope is that she looks like a redesigned Rebecca. Other than that, Penelope is the best NPC in this game by far.
This chapter was quite an experience, overall. Now that the group finally got a boat and left the continent, what adventures will they find on their way to Toshimina? Will they even get there by the next chapter? I hope to start Chapter 6 soon.
Tales of Crestoria is an upcoming mobile title dedicated for smartphones that is an entirely new story and doesn’t focus on previous Tales of titles. The game features Kanata Hjuger, a young man branded as a Transgressor because of the crimeof “protecting someone important” to him. The game will be released for iOS and Android on 2020.
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