Cantarella Companion Quest 10/10 [MAJOR SPOILERS]
I'm going to list down the points that I loved about the main story quest and Cantarella's companion quest! This also involves how I interpreted some of the themes and symbols that stuck with me. Major spoilers up ahead, so I HIGHLY encourage you to finish both before you read this. Going in blind will also make you appreciate both stories more I'm sure! Posted this first on Reddit!
On to the bullet list!
Terrific story.
It hooked us in with a cryptic riddle that started off as some indecipherable fairytale that later turned out to be clues for a more tragic tale.
Got a glimpse of the Fisalia's dark history surrounding the Divine Trials, which greatly supplemented some of the loose threads in the main story quest. Breathtaking visuals
I loved Egla Town's Halloween vibe! It was a cute mix of spooky and warm. The dramatic vendors who gave us the riddles added some cheese to it that made the early segment charming and fun. It was a great way to ease us into the dark turn the story would take later on.
The Sea of Ghosts sonoro sphere was equal parts stunning and oppressive, but never dull nor suffocating. It was vibrant yet somber, and held a sense of danger that was present at every turn. Excellent exploration of themes and use of symbolism
Poison being the bedrock of the Fisalias' legacy as the parallel to their duty of withstanding the Threnodian's "poisonous" whispers.
The Fisalia's deep-sea motif. It shows their "allegiance" to the Leviathan and creates the sense of mystery and unease that come from the fear of the deep—the unknown, the dangers lurking in the aquatic world, the semi-paralysis of thrashing through the waters. It also brings to mind the picture of how deeply entangled the Fisalias are in the truth behind the history of Rinascita and its faith. The waves on the surface are but a glimpse of the thrashing currents and all-seeing abyss waiting beneath.
The contradictions within Cantarella herself. She is the matriarch of a family of poison makers, yet she has instead endeavored to create cures and medicine out of poisonous plants. The Sentinel's chosen resonator, yet she chose to return Their power and give it away to Fleurdelys to give her a fighting chance against the Threnodian. She is a leader who chose to fight the Threnodian's deceit with illusions of her own to rally the truth she believes in: To free her family from this brutal responsibility and the cycle of death and torture that have plagued them for centuries. Steeped in her family's brutal past, yet eyes geared towards the future, she is the perfect person to forge the dangerous path ahead towards freedom. The Defier in every sense of the word.
Themes of trauma and innocence
There are tons of it, but I'm only going to involve what stuck with me.
Innocence as portrayed by fairytale books you'd see in some of the rooms. In the game, the process of returning them to their respective bookshelves feels mournful, like a process of giving tribute. The memories they held filled Cantarella with pain, yet those stolen moments of fantasy and laughter with the other candidates were also fond memories. Either way, they are to be tucked back into the shelf as they are things of the past, finished, but never forgotten.
The door as a wound. According to Cantarella, the maiden candidates formed a friendship with one another despite being direct competitors, and agreed on secret codes to communicate amidst prying eyes. A special sequence of knocks on the door was one such code, and we used this to open the door when it first appeared, It's a common theme in horror games for a door of great significance leading to greater, more personal horrors. This door is not only significant to Cantarella, but also to the other girls who sought for friendship and comfort, much like herself. The door appeared in each room where the fantasy books laid, and you have the option to read through them, hear Cantarella's thoughts, and return them to their respective bookshelves, before interacting through the door and going through it. The entire sequence felt a process of mending trauma by re-opening the wound and cleaning up the painful memories that were messily stowed away.
Side note about healing: Revisiting long-buried pains, especially at that magnitude, and amplified even more by the frequencies of shared pain in the sonoro sphere, was a monumental task that even wore away at Rover. Yet the depth of their involvement made even the door familiar with Rover and Cantarella, and pulled them deeper inside notwithstanding. It may have been subtle, but I like how the story lightly touched on the idea that healing could be a tedious process because it requires looking deep into the shadows of our past and selves and cleaning, unknotting, or beating through the muck of unpleasant memories, regret, and shame. Psychological housekeeping. Just like what Cantarella and Rover did.
The robots in tutus symbolizing the "performers" or the Fisalia maiden candidates. All the candidates were only young girls who were forced to participate in the brutal competition of the Divine Trials. The slightly singed white tutus stained with red at the hem and turning completely blood-red down to the shoes give the impression of wading through crimson waters, deep enough only to reach up to the hems of their tutus, yet deep enough to have to exert force to wade through. This is a heavy-handed metaphor of the Divine Trials eating away at their innocence as the trials grow more dangerous and cutthroat. And with how the mechanical dolls moved in jolty motions, this could also be a twisted depiction of bodies convulsing in pain as they suffer from the effects of the poison they are required to feed one another.
Yet therein also lies a picture of resistance. The image of the wearer wading through the waters and doing her best to not sully what of her clothes remains clean shows a stubborn resolve to not succumb.
The performance reveals another facet when we learn that Cantarella set up her own "performance". Using illusions, she was able to protect some of the candidates and secretly offered them a safe place in Porto-Veno when she became the matriarch.
The giant jellyfish. At the deepest part of the sonoro sphere, we saw a humongous, luminiscent jellyfish that loomed over the horizon. We could only see it from below, and it possessed no discernable humanoid features. It seemed inanimate, but its cap was an imposing dome, and its tendrils swayed and drifted, alive. It was static, but our knowledge of a jellyfish's extreme poison, and a giant one at that, informed us that we were at the mercy of this figure. I think this is the true form of the Leviathan. We've only seen representations of Leviathan and the Imperator joined together, but none of Leviathan's features besides the lower fish half of the amalgamation. But even without a face, it successfully plagued Rinascita, digging its tendrils into the country's consciousness and seeping poison into its faith and perception of the truth. This giant jellyfish is the perfect representation of Leviathan in that respect.
(There's also something to be said about Cantarella having jellyfishes, but I don't have the bandwidth for that right now)
Kurogames always excels in using game mechanics to reinforce thematic storytelling.
The themes of Past and Present are fundamental in this story. Cantarella mentioned that the Sea of Ghosts is a sonoro sphere where frequencies of the past and present collide, influenced by the Fisalias dark history. With a lantern we obtained upon entering the Sonoro sphere, we can switch between the past and present dimensions to fight enemies, solve puzzles, and move forward in the story. A very apt mechanic! Traversing between the past and the present allowed Cantarella and Rover to unravel the frequencies that "haunt" Porto-Veno, and in turn prepare it for the peaceful future that Cantarella strives for herself and her family.
Main takeaway
This is certainly a top favorite among the companion quests so far. There was so much to chew on! The storytelling had a solid start, using a riddle to increase intrigue and unraveling the mystery it held. Cantarella is I believe also one of the most compelling characters they've written to date. She's a complex character filled with contradictions and is submerged in layers upon layers of intrigue, but her heart and vision shine through without fail. I love, love, love her! And her story!
