4 - Cutting Class
(Originally posted March 16, 2024)
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As we cross the threshold into the school campus, the camera moves elsewhere.
No less than five (5) schoolgirls fawn over Jotaro as he walks to school. According to the Japan map, his house is literally directly across the street, but the road was blocked off due to that explosion. Presumably this hill is just off screen.
I don't know if this is how high school girls in the 1980s actually interacted with each other. My mother has told me stories of high school girls in the 60s keeping razor blades in their hair for when they inevitably got into fights... and also how they would sneak up and snap each others' garter-belts as a goof.
(we should bring one of these things back imo)
He said "both of you". There is no ambiguity here ladies. Unless one of you has a Stand...
Nah that's just arthritis. (If you've got weirdly warm knees, maybe get that checked out. Probably got inflammation.)
His fall halted, Jotaro drops safely to the ground.
The Teen Girl Squad rushes down to continue fawning. I guess if you're 6-foot-5 and built like a truck at 17, the ladies would be into that.
However, our protagonist has none of it. Instead he notices our mysterious stranger over there literally painting a creepy portrait of Jotaro.
Meanwhile, Cascada's heading to class, having fended off about a dozen angry delinquents and two score evil puppets on her jaunt around town.
There are a few students wandering around who provide small talk, mostly fluff.
You can't join a club until your second run, and I don't quite understand why they made it that way. Clubs generally just give small stat buffs, but a few are pretty notable if you're using the right Stand.
The Part 4 cameos continue with my guy Shigechi trying to catch a cat. You can only catch it yourself if you have 50 Speed (unfeasible for most people unless you're a grinding fiend) or you're playing with certain specific Stands. Even if it's a bit of a frivolity, it's a nice early example of the game's reactivity to what Stand you ended up with.
Always check the shoe locker. You might find a Muscle Drink that you'll never use because you forgot it was in your inventory.
We can beeline straight to the nurse's office, but that'll progress the plot. Everybody knows that you check everything else first.
The teacher's lounge is the first room on the right. My understanding is that all of them are named after famous mangaka; we've got Mr. Ito, Mr. Yamada, Mrs. Takahashi, Mr. Suzuki, Mr. Kimura, and Mr. Okamoto. Junji Ito and Rumiko Takahashi are obvious enough, and Lynn Okamoto's Elfen Lied is allegedly a formative work, but the others are harder to place. Sound off if you've got any ideas.
hey what's up later guys
Be excellent to each other. I mean it. Remember you're usually talking to a human being.
The chests in the library contain a Dora Cola (35 HP, cures bleeding and hunger) and a Lighter (disposable fire damage).
Still avoiding the nurse's office, we head to the second floor... and I don't realize I've moved my mouse cursor to where it's visible at the top of the screen until the end of the segment. I have failed my ancestors.
Another NPC we could help out, if we had a Stand capable of fixing things. Alas, The Machine only knows how to destroy... and she likes it that way.
-> Not really interested
-> I'm not good with gore
If we choose the second option, Cascada becomes "Squeamish" and some of her dialogue throughout the game changes so she's more grossed out by stuff. These kinds of small touches that persist throughout the whole game are part of why I find 7SU fascinating.
...I've never seen Hellraiser, myself.
Yeah, we're all waiting on that HD-2D version. (Also, I'm doing this post the night I heard Akira Toriyama passed. RIP to one of the greatest to ever do it.)
A nice touch for the color version here is that every shelf with an issue of Pink Dark Boy actually has a bright pink book on it. They're the same Stand tutorials we've seen elsewhere, outlining the basics as well as the differences in range and type.
Meanwhile, in the, uh, second floor boy's bathroom...
Where other schoolgirls dare not tread, Cascada follows The Way of the Warrior (武士道). She is a Champion of Justice.
CoyoteSmith_"You'reFucked".flac
Anyone who dared would get a Heat Ray to the face and we would have one less groper in the world.
We head to the third floor.
God forbid women do anything.
What is this, a Kojima game?
If you touch it...
It wakes up and starts to chase you. It moves slowly at first, but it gets faster over time and can move through walls with impunity. You will get caught, and it will kill you instantly with no battle required.
i cannot believe i didn't notice the cursor goddammit
Stay in school and don't get seduced by creepy fortune-tellers in the shitty arcade, kids! ...actually that sounds way cooler than staying in school...
Lastly, we have the roof.
Exceedingly normal. No teenagers dying from expending their soul to seal away mankind's inherent desire for death or anything.
On the way down, I realize there's a new exit on the east side of each floor that wasn't there when I last played this game.
Clubs! There's a ton of new rooms and new NPCs in different clubs across all three floors of the side building, too many to show off. I mentioned the club mechanic earlier (even though we can't access it yet); the way it worked in previous versions was that you had to enter a club entirely unprompted. You could make some assumptions or look up a list, of course, but having all of them just hanging out to give you an idea of your options is a cool addition.
And with that, we've finally explored the entire school. It's time to check in on Jojo in the nurse's office.
Anyone actively picking a fight with someone who looks like Jotaro probably has it coming, to be honest.
Even the nurse wants a piece of Jotaro. It ain't fair.
I guess Cascada and Jojo attend the same school, so they'd logically at least know of each other. They're probably the two biggest students here.
Jotaro starts taking his pants off, and the handkerchief he received earlier falls open.
I've only used digital thermometers my whole life, so I had to look this up. Old glass mercury thermometers have a bend in them so that the reading "sticks", because otherwise it would cool down too quickly. To reset it for a new use, you have to shake it so that all the mercury gets back down into the bulb.
This is now an Informative Let's Play.
His sprite starts spinning rapidly, like if you were mashing the D-Pad.
I find it extremely funny that Jotaro's yelp of surprise is "Uoooooooogh". Imagine him taking a sip from a slightly-too-hot drink and immediately screaming "Uoooooooogh!" in a crowded cafe. Almost as awkward as karate-chopping a Polaroid.
New game mechanic! You get these kinds of conditions in battles against civilians or in various story-mandated scenarios; Part 3's plot has to stay on track, after all. Most of the time they're no big deal, but the first time I played 7SU I had a Swarm-type Stand with a lot of multi-target attacks. It could get a little difficult to avoid hitting things I wasn't meant to.
Anyway, if we can't do damage and can't die, our only real option is Guard.
This happens for two or three turns. No big deal.
Bit of an awkward wording there. It's probably closer to "I also have a Stand", because Hierophant Green is a Control type while Magician's Red is a Power type (according to this game anyway).
Popular guys really just get away with anything.
My favorite way to eat melon is to dice it up, then put the pieces in the freezer for 45-60 minutes. There's enough sugar in the fruit that it doesn't turn rock hard, instead getting more of a slushy, icy texture. Works great with grapes too, plus frozen grapes can be used as makeshift ice cubes for cocktails or dessert wines.
Pretend I somehow made this line funnier than it already is.
This isn't particularly clear with the game's graphics, but is visually obvious in the manga/anime: generally, damage inflicted on a Stand is inflicted one-for-one on the user. It becomes less of a deal as their forms become more esoteric, but the idea that Stands are a manifestation of the user's lifeforce (and therefore, directly connected) stays pretty consistent.
Where I'm from, we call this "Edelgard Logic".
Having exhausted the text ripped directly from the manga, Kakyoin is allowed two (2) dialogue boxes to acknowledge Cascada's presence.
Despite what Steel says, it is most certainly not our turn, as Jotaro staggers to his feet.
This here is sort of the series' proper declaration of Jotaro being the new protagonist. Joseph in Part 2 may have been a bit of a scoundrel (in a soft, Han Solo kind of way) but so far Jotaro has just kind of been a dick to everyone. Here he finally shows some actual moral fiber.
-> Join in the fight
-> Stand back and watch
You can totally pick the second option... if you don't want to engage with with the premise of the game. Most of the time, you can flee or avoid major battles, and they'll just play out how they did in the manga without your influence. But where's the fun in that?
Well, we know exactly what to do with guys like this.
Jotaro moves first, but he's still only as strong as the tutorial battle and Kakyoin avoids the bulk of his damage by staying at Middle range. That's not a problem for The Machine.
Kakyoin has some reasonably dangerous multi-target attacks... if he gets the chance to use them. Jotaro's Ora-ora has a chance to inflict the "BlowBack" status (one of the many distinct "lose a turn" effects in this game). Jojo's putting out barely 25% of Cascada's damage, but it means Kakyoin gets one action before we gun him down.
Easy.
-> Yes
-> No
If we say yes, Jotaro actually becomes a bit more impressed with us because we chose to do the right thing, but it also increases our Evil Karma (yes, there is a karma system in this game). However, as established, Cascada is a Champion of Justice (when it suits her). No restroom stall will go unturned in her crusade against evil.
This line is extra funny in the context of 7SU, which, if you recall, established this is the last day of school before summer break (so that Cascada doesn't come off as a delinquent herself). Jotaro spent the last four school days in a jail cell too, so he's skipped the entire week.
The update's running a little longer than expected, so you'll have to tune in next time to see how we deal with this Kakyoin fellow.
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