This must be the work of an enemy Stand! - Let's Play JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: The 7th Stand User

Iro · March 4, 2024, 11:41pm

What is JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure?

It’s a long-running (since 1987, so before the Berlin Wall came down) manga by Hirohiko Araki, first serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump - the magazine that brought you Barefoot Gen, Mazinger Z, Space Adventure Cobra, and some other shit I guess - and eventually in Ultra Jump, the same company’s monthly version aimed at older audiences.

Rather than following the same plot and characters for 35+ years, JJBA is broken up into distinct parts which each have their own casts and core conflicts. There is continuity between them - usually old characters reappearing in more secondary roles - but each part can be taken as mostly standalone, following a different “JoJo” on a different “Bizarre Adventure”. As of this writing, the manga is in Part 9, aka The JOJOLands.

The most famous and iconic arc is Part 3, Heritage for the Future, better known these days as Stardust Crusaders. It ran from 1989 to 1992 and introduced the concept of “Stands” (read: bespoke special abilities), changing the landscape of the battle shonen genre forever. The tail end of Part 3 got a 6-episode anime OVA adaptation in the mid-90s, followed by a much worse 7-episode prequel in the 00s that tries to cover entirely too much ground. It didn’t get a full anime until 2014, as part of David Production’s decade-long project adapting Parts 1 through 6.

The cover of May 1, 1989’s Weekly Jump, featuring Jotaro and Joseph

What is The 7th Stand User?

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: The 7th Stand User is a fangame made by Clayman. You play through the story of JoJo Part 3 as the eponymous 7th party member: an original character with their own original Stand who’s just part of the gang. If this sounds like some fanfic-y bullshit, that’s because it kinda is. That said, the game is clearly a labor of love and in my opinion taps into the right kind of JoJo style bullshit… when it isn’t word-for-word retreading Part 3.

The game expects you to be familiar with the entire JoJo series - especially Part 3, for obvious reasons - and I’ll point out other references where/if I deem necessary, but there shouldn’t be anything too egregious. If you’re really worried, read the manga or watch the anime, it’s all out there.

Gameplay wise, 7SU is made in RPG Maker 2000 and aesthetically patterned off The Final Fantasy Legend - aka Makai Toushi SaGa, the first SaGa game and the first Square game to sell over a million copies - for the Game Boy. This means it’s a good 'ol monochrome, grid-map, turn-based JRPG. I originally played the monochrome version, but for this series I’ll be playing the “R” patch for the first time, which includes a number of quality of life features such as color(!), removal of certain tedious random elements, and more lenient requirements for NG+.

Japanese cover art of Makai Toshi SaGa, aka The Final Fantasy Adventure

What is with this Let’s Play?

Everyone already knows the video venerables like Chip and Ironicus, but I’ve always had a soft spot for the screenshot LPs from the old days (well, 10-15 year old internet “humor” aside). The Dark Id probably singlehandedly spread the gospel of Yoko Taro in the early 2010s, Orange Fluffy Sheep shattered mechanics over his knee, and Didja Redo’s script rewrites were a remarkable fusion of comedy and drama. It always made way more sense to me than video as a format for RPGs, which generally necessitate a ton of reading or menu-ing that isn’t necessarily exciting to watch.

Does that make it a particularly good format? Maybe not, but this is my tribute to those I’ve enjoyed, as well as a harsh lesson to myself about how much tedious work it takes to filter through and format all those images.

The plan, for now, is to do multiple playthroughs of The 7th Stand User using a different Stand each time, allowing me to showcase the game’s surprising layers of minutiae and hidden elements despite its slavish adherence to the source material.

Iro · March 4, 2024, 11:41pm

(I’m crossposting this from Cohost, mostly as an experiment. If it’s too annoying to folks or becomes too tedious for me [I’m hitting that character limit lol] or whatnot, we can scuttle it no problem.)

PART 1: PROLOGUE

Table of Contents

The first thing we see upon hitting new game is the final boss from The Final Fantasy Legend. Off to hell of a start here.

Just kidding! Everyone’s favorite Victorian oil baron, Robert Edward O. Speedwagon, is here to tutorialize. If you ask him to, he’ll explain the basic controls, the Badge of Honor system, and Friendship Points, but I can get to those as they become relevant. We can also choose a difficulty level; I’ll be playing everything on Normal.

I’m writing this before putting the intro post live. Here’s hoping people are actually voting, because this is probably the coolest element of 7SU. Hell, here’s hoping I follow through with this in any meaningful capacity.
(…the mouse cursor isn’t there much longer)

We fade out, then back in on a salvage ship on the Atlantic Ocean in 1983.

Crane Operator: What are you waiting for? Open it!
Man in Diving Gear: I told you! There’s bound to be good stuff here, considering this is where a luxury liner went down 100 years ago…
Bald Man: Who cares?! Just hurry up and open it!!

Bald Man: We’ll force it open, then! Hey, you! Grab me a blowtorch!

The men huddle around the oddly coffin-shaped box, utterly clueless of horror tropes. Crane Operator’s cousin might’ve heard of Dracula like, one time at a party. Sounded fake.

Days later…

Investigator: All we’ve found is an empty container that was left on the deck… It seems to have been forced open with an acetylene torch…
Investigator: …No clue as to the whereabouts of its former contents. We are requesting that a search team for the lost crewmembers be dispatched ASAP!

I give it a 33 out of 100; “JoJo” and “Adventure” are nowhere to be seen. We encourage you to apply again at next opportunity.

Investigator: The chest is made of reinforced steel, so whatever was in here had to be important…

Investigator A is great at parties.

Inspector B down by the wall - hidden by the text boxes - has vanished during this exchange.

They left this title card in monochrome.

I first played 7SU version 2.5.3, which was fully in Game Boy style black-and-white. There’s certainly a charm to the look, and I was originally going to use it for this project, but the siren song of 2.6 R’s no random encounters and lowered NG+ requirements simply couldn’t be ignored.

I’m getting ahead of myself here, but a weirdly large amount of 7SU’s features are gated behind beating the game a certain number of times. That’ll show me to start a project with unrealistic scope, I guess.

We fade into what’s meant to be an airport gate but kind of looks like a shipping depot instead. I blame the colors. (Eagle eyed readers may spot a couple of non-Part 3 cameos. These are much easier to pick out in the color version, jeez.)

An older man in Indiana Jones cosplay walks in from his plane, greeted by a middle-aged woman.

Holly: Hee hee! How’s Mama?
Joseph: She threw a fit! But I told her that it was top-secret Joestar company business… Heh heh!

Meet Joseph Joestar: grandson of Part 1’s Jonathan Joestar and himself the protagonist of Part 2. I haven’t gotten to JoJoLion or JOJOLands yet, but Joseph probably could claim the most bizarre adventures out of any JoJo.

If memory serves me right, Joseph’s day job is some kind of international real estate mogul; it doesn’t really ever come up. Point is, he’s a mega-rich white business executive who can take a two-month globetrotting vacation whenever he wants and literally fought shoulder-to-shoulder alongside Nazis.

He is also racist towards Japanese people. Primarily Holly’s husband, Sir-Not-Appearing-In-This-Game.

This is meant to be her hugging him.

Joseph: Hey! Knock it off, Holly!
Holly: Don’t wanna! I haven’t gotten a chance to cuddle with you in ages!

Joseph: H-hey… Quit it!
Holly: Tickle tickle!
Joseph: Noooooooooooo!!

Joseph: Are you sure he mentioned an… evil spirit?
Holly: …Oh, I can’t believe it! My Jotaro!
Holly: It’s all true! No one else in the room could see it… But I could! Another arm besides his own… and that gun!
Joseph: Nobody else could see it but you? Have you been experiencing anything similarly… unusual?

Holly: Papa… What am I going to do?
Joseph: Now, now, my darling. Now that Joseph Joestar is here to save the day, there’s no cause for alarm!

Last time he was here to save the day, the Earth almost got taken over by ancient vampires, so, I mean. How much worse could it get?
Joseph: Now then, I’d like to meet with our Jotaro face-to-face…

The dark-skinned man sitting off to the side stands up to leave with Joseph and Holly.

Table of Contents

Iro · March 4, 2024, 11:50pm

Table of Contents

Joseph’s grandson is in the second-widest jail cell on Earth and provided with dozens of luxuries as part of his rehabilitation. It’s an Italian form of penal therapy, based on an experimental prison in Naples.

Warden: If anyone finds out about this, I’ll be fired in a heartbeat…!
Joseph: Don’t worry. I’ll handle my grandson.

Meet the main protagonist of Part 3: Jotaro Kujo, 6-foot-5, 181 pounds of muscle… and 17 years old.

Jonathan was a proper English gentleman full of justice and Joseph was a consummate trickster, but Part 3 - as the first JoJo arc set contemporaneously - takes cues from the “yankii” / “delinquent” genre that was popular at the time (see also its Weekly Jump comrades Rokudenashi Blues, YuYu Hakusho, and Slam Dunk).

When you think about shonen manga being aimed at boys in the 9-18 age bracket, the recurring theme of protagonists being listless or rebellious teens who nevertheless find purpose in a sport or job uniquely suited to their talents (the talents in question often being Big and Strong) makes a lot of sense. However there’s still something deeply comedic to me about Jotaro being introduced shotgunning a Heineken by stabbing the can with a pen in a jail cell.

Jotaro: Piss off.

I was going to make a joke about how this is a poor family dynamic, but I’ve seen way more poor family dynamics than healthy ones in my life. This probably hovers somewhere around fair-to-good.

Fifteen hours on a plane and this is the thanks he gets. And this is right before Japan Airlines banned smoking on international flights! It must have sucked!

Fun fact: a lot of long-distance plane routes cut northward towards the arctic circle because the diameter of Earth’s sphere is simply shorter and therefore more efficient. Some also fly in a straight shot over the North Pole, though this is less common now after Russia cut off their airspace due to their fuckery in Ukraine.

It happens much less over the South Pole, due to poor weather and the fact there are way fewer airports to divert to in case of an emergency.

Joseph: (My… my finger… When did he take that off…?)
Joseph: (Guess the ol’ “pull my finger” gag won’t work with him… I need new material…)
Jotaro: See that? Do you finally get it? This is my evil spirit…
Jotaro: Don’t come any closer… Unless you want to cut short what little time you have left.

Joseph: (I know all about the true nature of that evil spirit of yours, Jotaro… I knew it before I even came here!)
Joseph: (I’d clear up this little mystery for him right now… But…!)

Joseph: Abdul! …It’s your turn…

Joseph steps aside, allowing his heretofore silent cohort to take center stage.

Jotaro: Give up. He looks tough, but just saying he’ll get me out isn’t going to make it happen.
Jotaro: Nothing you can do is going to change my mind. All you’re doing is getting on my nerves.

Meet Muhammad Abdul (known as Avdol in more recent versions, but I’ll go for consistency here), our third main character. Hirohiko Araki has a penchant for naming things after musicians; he’s supposed to be named after Paula Abdul, highly noted solo artist and one of the original judges on American Idol.

Joseph: That’s not a problem.
Joseph: He’ll learn the hard way that even if he’s broken out of prison, society is an even greater prison.

Flames erupt from thin air around Abdul! Spontaneous human combustion claims another victim!

Or not. A spectral man with a bird head appears behind Abdul!

Jotaro: Is that…!?
Joseph: Yes! Abdul has an “evil spirit” just like yours!
Joseph: This “spirit” that obey’s Abdul’s will is called…

Tutorial battle time!

7SU is a pretty standard turn-based JRPG. Attack is what it sounds like, though its exact properties change from character to character. Stand is for various special abilities (spells) and whatnot. Guard and Item ought be self explanatory if you have ever played an RPG in your life.

Cardiac Massage and Stone Toss are available to every character. The former is a basic revival skill (no need to hoard Phoenix Downs), and the latter is a basic physical attack that works at medium range. Loud Yell cures the Confusion status.

Joseph: At that distance, physical attacks should be the most effective means of damaging him!

Jotaro: …You’re full of shit, Gramps.

Magician’s Red wraps tendrils of fire around Jotaro’s limbs!

Abdul: Now, Jotaro! Summon your spirit as well!

All Roman centurions were purple-skinned male strippers in loincloths, just so you know.

It shoves Magician’s Red away!

Abdul: Gah… -cough- I didn’t think you’d be able to manifest it so clearly…
Abdul: However… You fail to grasp even the very basics of Stand combat!
Jotaro: ~~Metal… Gear?~~ Stand… combat?
Joseph: Jotaro! What you thought was an evil spirit is actually a powerful vision created from your own life force! Since it appears beside you, we call it…

Here Joseph explains how ranges work in battle. Every Stand in the game is innately Short, Medium, or Long range; Jotaro’s is Short. In general, Short range attacks are going to be the most powerful, but they drop off hard the second an enemy is even in Middle range, let alone Long. Conversely, Long range skills work well even at close range, but usually cost quite a bit more SP.

Joseph: Now then… the fight is on!

Jotaro now has the famous Ora-ora punch rush attack in his Stand menu. Unfortunately, with Abdul at Medium range it barely hits harder than a standard attack; something like 5-6 damage. Meanwhile, throwing a pebble…

This is the most annoying element of the battle system in 7SU, because an opponent’s distance from you is up entirely to the whims of the RNG. Abdul is meant to get up in your face here so you can beat on him, but he didn’t at all when I took this footage.

I fucking lose the tutorial battle. Auspicious beginnings for this project.

Jotaro: I didn’t need a tutorial anyway!

Having definitely not gotten his ass beat, Jotaro goes in for the kill… but Avdol dismisses his Stand and turns his back.

Abdul: Mr. Joestar… As you can see, I’ve gotten him out of the cell.
Jotaro: …Was this your plan all along?
Abdul: Not quite… I did truly intend to send you to the hospital, but your strength far exceeded my expectations.
Abdul: You were actually rather pathetic, but I’ll allow you to save face in front of Mommy. I understand that filial piety is important to to those from the Far East.
Jotaro: …-grumble-
Jotaro: And what if I hadn’t pulled these bars apart? What then?
Abdul: My ability… rather, my Stand is Magician’s Red. If it came to it, my flames could easily melt them.

Melting metal doesn’t make it poof into steam! It just means now there’s molten steel everywhere!

A mother knows. (So does CLAMP.)

Joseph: Hey! The nerve of you, calling your own mother a pain in the ass! Who taught you to speak like that?
Joseph: And you! Don’t look so happy about it!

Holly cannot be defeated. She’s just so happy her two favorite big boys are finally in the same room together. This is family bonding, right here.

Jotaro: Hey, Gramps! Listen up! There’s still something that’s bugging me. How do you know so much about my evil sp-…
Jotaro: Rather… How do you know so much about my Stand?

JoJo being a comic for kids, Jotaro immediately switches to using the correct terminology. I always thought it was goofy how - for example - in Digimon, the kids always perfectly remember the name for every single form. I always had to be told shit a few times for it to stick.

Joseph: That’s why your Asian father isn’t allowed here. No Joestar blood.
Jotaro: How much do I gotta have? One drop?
Joseph: I, well, uh…
Joseph: Take a look at these pictures.

Jotaro: What am I supposed to be looking at?
Joseph: 4 years ago, this metal chest was pulled up from the waters west of Africa.

Joseph: When it was finally discovered, it was empty. Only I know what it contained! The one Abdul and I have been searching for!
Jotaro: When you say “the one”, do you mean…
Jotaro: The scattered corpse pieces of a certain saint, reunited?
Joseph: Wrong timeline.

Who exactly is this “Dio”, and why is he our mortal enemy? Perhaps you already know, but we’ll find out next time…

Table of Contents

Iro · March 4, 2024, 11:56pm

PART 2: THE STORY SO FAR

<= Previous | Top | =To Be Continued=>

Last time, Joseph Joestar landed in Japan to bail his asshole grandson out of jail and teach him about Stands, spectral manifestations of will. He claimed this was all related to their bloodline’s fated enemy, someone named Dio. Fitting, since 7SU is a JRPG and we all know that JRPGs end with killing God.

The group has lunch at a local cafe to chat about genealogy. Nothing like a public location to hash out your family troubles.

Every Part’s protagonist has a name that can be shortened to “Jojo” (most likely in reference to Get Back by The Beatles), hence the series title. In Eastern countries, one’s family name usually comes first, so our current Jojo is Kujo Jotaro.

Abdul: Heh… But when you think about it, our evil spirits are equally unbelievable, aren’t they?
Jotaro: …
Jotaro: Not as much as an Egyptian guy or my racist grandpa knowing perfect Japanese. When’d you pick that up?
Abdul: We watched all of Combat Mecha Xabungle while in transit… that was sufficient to glean the basics.

Joseph: I’ll show you… Truth is, Jotaro… One year ago, I discovered that I also have the same kind of evil spirit as you - a Stand!
Holly: Is that true, Papa!?
Jotaro: What did you say, Gramps!?
Joseph: Look closely! This is my Staaaaaaaand!

Jotaro: … what the hell, Gramps?

The manga identifies the camera in question as a Polaroid Sun 670, which… almost certainly would not have retailed for $300. The “original” instant Polaroid, the SX-70, retailed for $180 when it launched in the 70s.

Jotaro: You can’t use anything cheaper?
Joseph: You expect me to use a 640 like a filthy commoner?

Imagine your first day on the job at a fancy cafe when three foreigners and the biggest teenager you’ve ever seen sit down and start karate-chopping a Polaroid. They probably didn’t even leave a tip.

Abdul: Nothing that concerns you. Begone.

The waiter sulks away behind the text box.

Joseph: Pay attention, Jotaro! The image this photo shows… will decide your fate!

Jotaro: …? What do you mean?
Joseph: I’m sure you’ve never examined it carefully… but on the very base of my neck, there’s a star-shaped birthmark.

Jotaro: Why do you mention it?
Joseph: I heard from my mother that my late father also had this very birthmark. I imagine all those of the Joestar bloodline must have it.
Jotaro: So what exactly is on that photo?

You didn’t pay it any mind because it didn’t exist! It had to be retconned in!

Abdul: Get on with it, Mr. Joestar!
Kakyoin: Get on with it!
Polnareff: Oui, get on with it!
Iggy: -woof yelp woof bark-
ALT TEXT GOES HERE GET ON WITH IT!

Jotaro: Show us what’s on that photo!!

Jotaro: …
Jotaro: How does that make ANY sense?

Part 1 of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure - retroactively named Phantom Blood - follows the life of Jonathan Joestar and his nemesis Dio Brando. The first leg of the story depicts their childhoods, when the orphan Dio is adopted by the Joestars as a gesture of kindness to his deceased father. Dio attempts to worm his way into become the sole successor of the wealthy Joestars, while secretly tormenting Jonathan at every turn.

Dio’s scheme is not revealed until many years later, at which point he uses an ancient artifact to transform himself into a vampire and escapes. Jonathan and his companions - Robert Edward O. Speedwagon and Italian wizard Will Zeppeli - go on a brief quest to defeat Dio using the power of “Hamon”/“Ripple”, a magical martial art that channels solar power.

After much sacrifice, Dio is vanquished, but he decapitates himself before the Ripple can destroy his brain and secretly escapes. As Jonathan and his wife sail to America for their honeymoon, Dio’s head ambushes him, causing the ship to explode. Jonathan sacrifices himself to allow his wife, their unborn child, and an orphaned baby to escape, dragging Dio down into the depths.

…Until now.

She left out the part where Jonathan punched through a solid brick wall so hard that it caused Zombie Jack the Ripper to literally melt? Weird oversight.

Joseph: He caused the stock crash last year too! AND I bet he’s the Unabomber!
Jotaro: I thought you said he’s only been back FOUR years?
Joseph: I didn’t crush a cop’s hand with a bottle cap during the war to take lip from you, kid.

Abdul: It’s very likely that Dio’s awakening has in turn awakened your own dormant abilities.
Joseph: Abdul. Can you determine his location from this photo?
Abdul: I am a fortune teller, Mr. Joestar, not a GPS system. And if I may say, your Stand has a poor sense for working the aperture.
Joseph: I see. What about my grandfather’s workout routine? Can you make out anything about that?

Joseph: Sorry Holly, but it looks like we’re going to have to park ourselves at your place here in Japan for a little while.
Joseph: At least until I figure out how Grandpa got so shredded…

Meanwhile, an indeterminate distance away…

A mysterious figure stands atop a staircase, surrounded by corpses drained dry of blood.

???: Jonathan’s descendants… no doubt… This body seems to be sending out a signal somehow…
???: I knew I shouldn’t have gotten it chipped…
???: So be it… I suppose this is destiny…

We fade out one more time, entering another dimension - a dimension of sound, of sight, of mind, shadows and substance, things and ideas. We are entering… the Fanfic Zone.

Don’t I fucking know it. I can only upload four images at a time!

Next time… we meet our REAL protagonist.

<= Previous | Top | =To Be Continued=>

Jama · March 5, 2024, 1:11am

Time to bookmark this LP here in case I miss it on Cohost.

Iro · March 9, 2024, 4:19pm

PART 3 - THE 7TH STAND USER

<= Previous | Top | =To Be Continued=>

Thank you all for voting! After all that prologue business that was basically just the first chapter of the manga, we have now entered The Fanfic Zone, that dreamlike dimension where we build our JoJo OC; our JoJOC, if you will. And the first thing we see in this dream is…

Abdul: First off, if there were two guys on the moon and one killed the other with a rock would that be fucked up or what?
→ Yes
->No

If you were playing this without a guide, this is where you’d do a whole Buzzfeed personality test that ends with you being assigned a Stand. Some people have put together whole formulas and shit for getting Maximum Stats, but I’m not going to bother. We’re just going to beeline straight to the one we want.

You all voted for a Special-type Stand, and each of the three sort of edges into a different class. The short-range Special edges into Control, the middle into Support, and long here into Power. Power was the runner-up, so…

Abdul: Hmm… I think I’ve got it! Your Stand is…

Our Stand is a Mega Buster by way of s-CRY-ed (which I’ve never seen). Let’s go.

In proper JoJo fashion, Quicksilver is not named after the X-men villain but after the rock band Quicksilver Messenger Service. They are perhaps best known for the Happy Trails album which contains a 25 minute long rendition of Who Do You Love?.

(Aside: In retrospect, perhaps doing a JoJo LP when I know next to nothing about music was a poor decision.)

Abdul: As for your personality type…

I’ve always felt like these sorts of personality tests - Myers-Brigg, enneagram, horoscopes, the four humours, etc. - are basically cold reading; you’re going to latch onto the parts that seem like they fit and ignore the bits that don’t. More specifically, this is referred to as the Barnum-Forer effect, where people perceive broad statements on personality as specific to them. Who hasn’t let their emotions carry them away from time to time?

That said, I believe this does actually affect the 7th Stand User’s dialogue.

Abdul: Oh, and before I forget… Would you mind telling me your name?

Only a few people gave suggestions (my thanks to all those who did), but there were enough that I could toss them all into a proverbial hopper and press the “random” button. If we put everything together…

(Art by the incredible RoseNonsense)

Cascada: This is a weirdly text-entry heavy dream.

Our newly possessed player character awakes with a start.

Cascada: My dreams are usually more along the lines of “teeth falling out” or “attacked by thousands of hornets while in the passenger seat of a car where the brakes don’t work”…

Cascada: The power to cause any CEO on Earth to instantaneously explode?
Steel: …that would indeed be a special power… but yours is almost as good…

Steel: If you don’t believe me, try calling out the name of your Stand from before. It will manifest before your very eyes.
Cascada: Quit stalling and get out here! Do you want me to call the police?
Steel: I promise everything will make itself clear if you just give it a try. Go on.
Cascada: As if it’s going to do anything… “Quicksilver”!!

I feel like my reaction to suddenly having a Mega Buster would be more along the lines of “fuck yeah”.

Steel: You can see it, I presume? That is your Stand… In layman’s terms, it’s a superpower. The apparition standing in front of you is an extension of your body, so to speak.

This line makes a bit more sense when your Stand isn’t the one that’s an arm cannon, I think. Perhaps we’ll see that one day.

Steel: Though certain Stands have been known to possess multiple abilities… we refer to Stands such as these as “bullshit”…
Steel: Your Stand will surely become an indispensable ally.
Cascada: But… but why are you doing this? And what exactly are you?

Cascada: Ignore you entirely until you call back?
Steel: No, an IMPORTANT message… like from the hospital or something…
Cascada: Then what do you want with me?

The game will elaborate somewhat later (much later) but this is some primo fanfic OC bullshit right here. The New Girl is part of the plot now, because… she just is. The player was just given context for who Dio is and why he’s hunting down the Joestars, but Cascada here is just some teen with no skin in the game.

It’s so blatant it loops back around to being kind of acceptable. The whole thing about this game is that you get to be the cool and special 7th Stand User. No need to make any bones about it.

Cascada: I prefer “The Emissary of Hell”, myself.
Steel: Me too…

He just said that he’s dead! His life was already on the line and got scratched out! Pay attention!

Steel: That’s why your Stand is a giant laser cannon that fires pure destructive force…

With that… we can finally play the game! Holy shit!

You’ve probably played JRPGs, and this is one of them. We’re on a grid, we can rest in our bed to restore HP/SP, we can look at our stats and skills in the menu, et cetera. The bookshelf has a manual with the basic controls and a volume of Pink Dark Boy, an in-universe manga by Part 4’s Kishibe Rohan.

PDB: A Stand is what most people would refer to as a “superpower” or “guardian spirit”. The name “Stand” comes from the way that they “stand” right next to you when activated.
Cascada: Wait, I knew this whole time? Must’ve been REALLY groggy when I woke up…

Pink Dark Boy goes on to explain other Stand basics. Generally, only Stands can defeat Stands, unless they manifest in an explicitly physical way like possessing an object. Also, a Stand’s strength is usually inversely proportional to their range, with the exception of Automatic Stands with simplistic behavior.

The treasure chest in the room contains a Handkerchief, which gives a +1 to all stats and resistance to Poison and Darkness (Blind) status effects.

Cascada: Forget all this Stand business. I can’t wait to get home from school and play Sorcerian, the brand new RPG from the highly-acclaimed studio Nihon Falcom, makers of the Ys and Dragon Slayer series!

I definitely didn’t have to look up what PC-98 games came out in 1988 because my original joke was about a game that came out in 1990. No ma’am.

If you’ve read Part 3, we have some long-term foreshadowing here in the form of an impossible minigame.

I have never once succeeded at doing this; if you’re going fast enough to reach the goal in 20 seconds, then you’re going fast enough that you simply cannot avoid any obstacles in time. Here’s how it usually plays out:

It would actually be quite advantageous for me to grind out some wins on Hard mode (you can accumulate up to three Badges of Honor) but fuck that. I can use Cheat Engine later.

That’s everything in our room. When we go to leave…

Steel: Whenever you want to change your equipment, tactics, or catchphrase, call me with this radio. Also, if you press [Shift] while on the map, I can update you on the current situation and give you instructions on what to do next. Feel free to call me anytime. Take care now.

Due to what I can only assume are technical backend reasons (most likely due to how party members work), Steel is basically our equip menu. You cannot choose equipment from the pause menu: you have to call up Steel, ask him to change your equipment, and then he’ll cycle through each piece one by one and ask you if you want to equip it. This is fine right now and incredibly tedious once you’ve accumulated more than three pieces of armor.

If we ask Steel for some guidance…

Steel: I have a feeling there’s a Stand user very close to the school. Your destinies are no doubt intertwined. Be careful… Dio’s servants are sure to be everywhere. They’ll do anything they can to erase those who stand against him. If you see anyone moving hurriedly around town, it’s best to assume they’re an enemy…

Steel: Salaryman trying to catch the bus? Enemy Stand. Granny crossing the road? Enemy Stand. That schoolgirl running with toast in her mouth? It’s a fucking Stand. Kill her.
Cascada: Are you TRYING to give me an anxiety disorder?

Also notable is the Tactics menu, which is a sort of soft equip slot that lets us tweak our stats and status resistances a bit. There’s Normal, which has no plus or minus, but we also have:
Initiative: Attack +5, Speed +5, Defense -10
Charge: Attack +10, Speed +10, Defense -20
Desperation: Attack +20, Defense -20
Keep Distant: Attack -10, Speed -5, Defense +5
Flee: Attack -10, Speed +10, Long-range Defense +10
Guard: Attack -10, Speed -10, Defense +20

I pick “Flee” for now, correctly assuming Quicksilver’s attacks are mostly magical rather than physical. This bites me in the ass for a solid 45 minutes because the basic attack is always physical.

Cascada lives in a nice suburban home with her parents and little sister who have absolutely no personality traits whatsoever. At least she isn’t an obligatory anime orphan, I guess. The doors to their rooms are locked, but we can check the loft.

…aka, the New Game Plus room. Any souvenirs in your inventory from previous playthroughs populate this room; otherwise, it’s empty.

Cascada: Don’t push your luck, kid. I have an arm cannon now.

Cascada: Yeah, someone might mistake me for an Enemy Stand-user…

I do nominally appreciate the “wow, you’re up early” calls as a justification for why we can futz around the map indefinitely before progressing the plot. Even if we can still sleep in the bed as many times as we want.

The chest in the kitchen has an F.F. Sports Drink (10%+2 HP/SP), the fridge has an inexplicably unlimited stash of Bottled Water (5 uses, 2%+1 HP/SP) and we can take three Ointments (50 HP and cure Bleeding) from the first aid kit.

…I actually forgot the water was unlimited when I recorded this, so I did a lot of running back home to rest. Cascada is gonna get hydrated when I load my save.

Iro · March 9, 2024, 4:20pm

We finally step outside. Cascada’s house is in the northwest (upper left) corner of the Japan map. Our objective, the school, is a big fenced-off area in the center. When our heroine simple tries to cross the street…

Goddammit!!

Delinquents are basically the slimes or goblins of the Japan map. There’s a bunch of 'em and they aren’t really dangerous at all… but we are only at level 1.

Remember that the Flee tactic is lowering Cascada’s Attack… but that doesn’t affect Quicksilver’s Sunbeam. 22 damage is enough to outright OHKO every single mob enemy in this area; having a Mega Buster fucks.

The problem is that it’s expensive, at 8 SP. Our total at Lv1 is 35. If my math is right, that’s four shots before Cascada has to jog back home and take a nap. Or chug an entire bottle of water.

Immediately south of Cascada’s home is the konbini, which sells some basic healing items and basic equipment. Nothing we really need quite yet, and we can’t afford it anyway. Dad is stingy with the allowance.

Right after getting back on the road…

Steel wasn’t kidding. The instant Cascada got Stand powers, Dio’s squad of assassins started mobilizing like it was the end of John Wick 2 or some shit.

Muderdolls (named after… uh, Murderdolls) are a persistent encounter throughout the game, if the “Lv1” didn’t give it away. They’re a bit more dangerous than Delinquents but mostly by virtue of always appearing in threes; they’ll still drop to a Sunbeam like anything else.

You definitely want to prioritize killing any that start to get up in your face though, because…

They will blow themselves up for about 10 damage; nothing to sneeze at when Cascada’s max HP is around 50-60. To make things worse, this does mean you lose out on the EXP and money for that Murderdoll.

Another block or so southwards are a couple of locked buildings.

Cascada: I wonder when it’ll be open… my sister could use a makeover. Twintails do her no favors.

Cascada goes to say hi to a fellow student, but…

The third and final mob encounter on the Japan map is a pair of Lv2 Murderdolls, who have a bit more HP and a somewhat more annoying attack pattern.

They like to trip you, which has a chance of causing the Dizzy status and causing you to lose your turn. The chance is low enough that you’re probably not going to get stunlocked or anything, but it’s definitely annoying. And being annoying to the player is the most heinous crime any video game character can commit.

Now we’re cooking. Heat Ray costs a whopping 15 SP - by the end of this update, we can barely cast it three times - but…

Encounters in Japan top off at 20 HP. The first boss has 170.

Remember how in Final Fantasy IV, Tellah had all the big Tier-3 nuke spells but each one cost a whole third of his MP pool? This reminds me of that, but we’re only going to improve. The Machine cannot be stopped.

East of the 7-11 is this building.

As far as I recall, most maps don’t even have one of these. It’s more for culling your inevitably bloated inventory in NG+, I think.

Even so, we poke around, and on one of the bookshelves in the corner…

Nice. There’s a random pool of items that can show up for sale, but we couldn’t afford the Good Potions anyway. This is the same skill Jotaro had in the prologue; it’s free to cast and heals Confusion, Sleep, and Fear statuses. Getting it for cheap is a nice bonus.

We run back home for another nap and then head due east along the top edge of the map.

Guess Jotaro’s taking the long way to school this morning. He wouldn’t dare hop a chest-high fence.

How could an explosion not leave even a corpse? Creepy. Good thing this isn’t related to us at all. (It actually isn’t)

He’s across from a side gate in the fence around the campus. This is just a bit of flavor; it doesn’t matter how you enter the school, as far as I know.

Further east, at the upper right corner of the map:

Oh hell yeah. Time to get some Super Hang-On in.

Unfortunately this is the shittiest arcade ever. If I walked into a place where it looks like a gang brawl happened ten minutes ago, I’d probably walk right out. But I guess I don’t have a Heat Ray.

God, looks like the bathroom is leaking too. I currently have 5-foot-square holes in my wall and ceiling and a completely unusable bathroom due to a leak, so just seeing that puddle fills me with dread.

The games give your stock beeps and boops, and one of the Delinquents will attack you if you bother him. Around here is where I switch my Tactics back to Normal, which allows Cascada’s basic attack to do around 10-14 damage instead of 4-6.

One of Dio’s assassins wouldn’t be doing something this conspicuous, right?

???: Ichfindeeinepersonmitubernaturlichermact… Herausundermordeihn…

Google Translate tells me this is basically her saying “I’ll find someone with supernatural powers and kill them”. Seems on the up-and-up.

???: …“Watch your temper”. You should try to calm down and take it easy.
Cascada: That’s it?
???: You get what you pay for.
Cascada: Forget the Super Hang-On, I’m outta here.

In the next enemy encounter:

That fortune-teller hit us with a status effect! That charlatan! Fortunately all it does is help us finish this encounter quicker before wearing off. We start heading down the right-hand side of the map.

Part 4 enjoyers might recognize this goon; the sack makes a cat meow sound. Guess Cascada ain’t worth scamming, because this is all he says.

A bit further down we get to a hospital. I’m pretty sure we’d respawn here if we were knocked out, but I guess I’m just too good at this game to know for sure. More likely it’s just a Game Over screen.

For the whole stay? Damn. It costs me $400 to even go to the emergency room; who knows how much treatment would cost. When I got my appendix (that the surgeon described to me as, and I quote, “gangrene all the way up”) removed, it was something like $1600 with insurance - and this was still when I had my parents’ Good Insurance. Without, it would have been something along the lines of $25,000.

…I made myself depressed.

The bottom edge of the map has this forest maze, but the entrance is further west. We pass by a few more buildings on the way.

Hey, it’s that cafe. Looks like that one waiter did quit after The Polaroid Incident. Can’t blame him, really.

Restaurants are going to be our most economical source of healing once we’re in the game proper, because they affect the whole party at once. A single potion that heals 20 SP runs for about 50G.

Meanwhile, cameos spotted.

Cascada: My dad told me that in America, they can turn right on a red light. Fucked up.

My understanding is that the stock “kids hate their veggies!” food in Japan is green bell peppers, due to their bitterness. The reason I hated veggies as a kid was because my mom always cooked them from frozen in the microwave and they ended up soggy and mushy. You gotta burn the shit out of that brassica, it can take it.

This also reminds me of the wacky ingredient intros on the original Iron Chef.

Wise words, Chairman.

If we hook south from the cafe, we can start navigating the forest maze.

It leads to… another locked building.

Damn. Out of literally any fictional restaurant I’ve ever seen, this is the one I want to eat at the most. That spaghetti would definitely fix me, right?

And with that, we’ve explored all of the Japan map besides the school, our plot-mandated destination. There definitely isn’t anything else to check out. Not a bit.

…fine.

Stand Notes

It seems that whoever used to live here was gathering info about different Stands.
Dan Penn: My own Stand. Remote-controlled. Takes the form of countless levitating hands. Can turn memory fragments into physical records.
Murderdolls: Allows dolls and mannequins to be controlled from a distance by attaching a strand of hair. Does not transmit damage to the user.
Alhirt: An automatic Stand that takes the form of many large, insect-like entities called Green Hornets.

Diary

It’s a scrapbook-style diary. Half of the contents are burnt to ash… There’s a photo of a young woman and a much older man. Are they father and daughter? They seem very happy.

…It’s that bow and arrow… That’s the cause of this whole catastrophe… It has the power to awaken latent Stand powers… I’d tested it many times to no ill effect, but that day was different… an unbelievable thing occurred. The arrow broke apart, scattering pieces of it everywhere. I don’t remember how it happened… It was almost like it shattered on its own.
…That was when it all started. Bizarre accidents began occurring around town once after another. Things that seemed like they couldn’t possibly have been the work of human beings. Then, today, I received a visitor. He, too, was a Stand user. The man introduced himself, then, in a detached tone of voice, began to say…
“I apologize, but you know too much about my powers. I came here to dispose of you.”
That man is my murderer… Using my Stand, Dan Penn, I was able to transcibe my final thoughts into this diary. That arrow has caused many new Stand users to appear, and so has sparked many disasters… This is my penance for my irresponsible deeds… Watch yourself from now on… Watch out for ‘Stand Users’…

Cascada: Hey Steel, do you have anything to say about this?
Steel: BEEP BEEP THIS IS A PRERECORDED MESSAGE
Cascada: Asshole.

If you’re brushed up on your JoJo, you probably have an idea of who blew up this building and killed Steel. Weirdly enough, it’s not actually important to the plot of 7SU. Like, at all.

Next time, Cascada actually goes to school like everyone told her to.

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barquq · March 9, 2024, 4:33pm

That Cascada art is fucking fire holy shit lol

Jama · March 9, 2024, 5:20pm

This is a treat to read so far. Good job, Iro.

Binary · March 9, 2024, 6:22pm

I don’t know what I was expecting re: who the 7th stand user would be but that art IS fire.

Iro · March 15, 2024, 3:06pm

PART 4 - CUTTING CLASS

<= Previous | Top | =To Be Continued=>

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.

Jotaro: My left knee? Was it caught on a branch? No… it was cut before I fell. That’s what made me fall down the steps… But how?
Kakyoin: How very fast. I can see he has a strong Stand. It’s no wonder that my Master wants him dead. But still… My Stand will be enough.

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.

Jotaro: …!
Kakyoin: …Your knee seems to be bleeding. Here’s a handkerchief, for first aid. …Are you all right?
Jotaro: …It’s just a scratch. …Thanks. I don’t recognize you, are you a transfer student?
Kakyoin: Do you recognize ANY of the other students? What are the names of those girls with you?
Jotaro: …I’m asking the questions here.
Kakyoin: Yes, I just transferred recently. Noriaki Kakyoin, at your service.
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.

Cascada: I wonder what I’ll do…

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.

Cascada: No problem. Sounds like a job for The Machine and her Heat Ray.

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. My Google-fu is rusty.

hey what’s up later guys

Be excellent to each other. I mean it.

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.

Cascada: (…I hope they weren’t the ones who attacked me… they’re nothing but carbon now…)

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.

Cascada: Actually I don’t, and you won’t have any soon either.

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.

Cascada: (…I really hate this person.)

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!

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. 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.

Cascada: It’s not like you’re doing anything else with these rooms…

Iro · March 15, 2024, 3:07pm

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.

Jotaro: Wait! What are you doing…?

Even the nurse wants a piece of Jotaro. It ain’t fair.

Jotaro: Quit messing around! I’ll take them off. It’s a waste to cut them.

Cascada: That must be Jojo… Jotaro Kujo.
Steel: (…This is where it begins… This is the start of your struggle against fate.)

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.

Jotaro: Ka… Kakyoin!?

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.

Cascada: Are we going to, like… do something about this?
Jotaro: I don’t see the issue.

His sprite starts spinning rapidly, like if you were mashing the D-Pad.

Jotaro: Shit!

Jotaro: Uoooooooogh!! This… This isn’t a normal woman’s strength!
Jotaro: (I definitely saw something creep out from behind the beds… it must’ve been a Stand! I can’t risk hurting her… I’ll have to find some other way to fight back!)

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.

Kakyoin: That’s right…
Jotaro: !.. You… You son of a bitch!
Kakyoin: My Stand has infiltrated this woman’s body… If you attack it, you’ll be hurting her too, Jojo!

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).

Kakyoin: I may be human, but I’ve pledged my loyalty to that man… That is why I’ve come to kill you!!

Popular guys really just get away with anything.

Jotaro: I won’t let you harm this nurse!

My favorite way to eat melon is to dice it up, then put the pieces in the freezer for 60-90 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.

Kakyoin: Take this… My Stand, Hierophant Green’s…

Jotaro: -Hack- -cough-… Bastard…!
Jotaro: -cough- A little help?
Cascada: I don’t see the issue.

Kakyoin: I told you. Attack my Hierophant Green, and you’ll hurt her, too… My Stand has a much longer range than yours, but it hates wide open spaces. If something tries to remove it, it gets angry…
Kakyoin: It’ll claw at the inside and latch on! That’s why she was injured! You did this to her, Jojo! It’s all your fault! If you’d just let me kill you, this nurse wouldn’t have had to suffer!

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.

Steel: (…It’s your turn! He’s one of those people I told you about… One sent to erase those who stand in Dio’s way!)

Despite what Steel says, it is most certainly not our turn, as Jotaro staggers to his feet.

Jotaro: …Am often called a delinquent student… When I get in a fight, I’ll pummel the other guy until he bleeds… I’ve even hospitalized people… I’ve given half-assed showoff teachers such a scare that they’ve never showed their face at school again… And when I don’t like the food at a restaurant, I’ll leave without paying the bill!
Jotaro: But even so… I still know nauseating evil when I see it! Evil is when you crush the weak under your heel, using them for your own gain… Even women! And you match the description to a T! Neither the victim nor the justice system know about your Stand… That is why…

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.

Kakyoin: No matter what methods he uses… Justice belongs to the last one standing! Take this! Emerald Splash!

→ Join in the fight
→ Stand back and watch

You can totally pick the second option… if you like, 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?

Jotaro: In that case… You’re definitely evil!! My Stand…
Cascada: My Stand…

Kakyoin: You… Make one move, and you’ll meet the same fate as him… Looks like you won’t be heeding my warning… Fine then! Die along with him, fool!

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: Was that a LASER BEAM? What the hell is your Stand?!
Cascada: get fucked asshole

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.

Jotaro: I was in a bind there… Thanks. But you… you have a Stand? You don’t look the part, but… You’re not another one of Dio’s followers, are you?
→ Yes
→ No
Cascada: We’ve been classmates for two years, Jojo.
Jotaro: Yeah? When was the last time I showed up to class?
Cascada: …fair.

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.

Jotaro: Looks like the nurse’ll be fine as long as she gets treatment… I ended up making a pretty big commotion, though…

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.

<= Previous | Top | =To Be Continued=>

barquq · March 15, 2024, 3:51pm

hell yeah

this game seems cool as hell to be honest, i like how your stand / choices make a suitable difference to how you react to stuff and what you have access to. might have to give it a go

Binary · March 15, 2024, 6:17pm

Wasn’t expecting that degree of reactivity, that rules.

Iro · March 22, 2024, 2:42pm

PART 5 - JOJO NO NATSUYASUMI

<= Previous | Top | =To Be Continued=>

Last time, Cascada and Jotaro were ambushed by Noriaki Kakyoin and his Stand Hierophant Green on behalf of Dio. We proceeded to punch him across the room and cover his entire body in third degree burns. Now, we’re taking him in to pump him for information.

Holly: Just now… Jotaro was thinking about me at school! I felt it! It’s the bond between mother and son!

Jotaro: I wasn’t thinking about you.

The Kujo household is one of those big, fancy Japanese homes that Rich People in anime have. They got one of those bamboo water clonkers and everything.

I have not bothered to verify this at all so take it with a grain of salt, but I’ve heard that Japanese property tax increases based on the age of the building, so landowners are incentivized to fully renovate every 15-20 years or so; having an old house is an even greater status symbol than simply being a homeowner.

Kakyoin: N… nngh…

Holly: He’s… He’s bleeding… Did you do this!?
Jotaro: It’s none of your business. …I’m looking for Gramps. It’s such a pain to find anyone in a house this big… is he in the tea room?
Holly: Yeah… I think Abdul’s there, too…

Jotaro: You’re annoying.
Cascada: Better than being an asshole.

Holly: (I know that you’re a nice boy deep down…)
Jotaro: Hey! …You don’t look like your usual self. …Are you feeling okay?
Holly: …

Holly: (…He really does care! )

Answering “Yes” increases our Friendship Points with Jotaro, so no real reason not to do so. Even if he is a dick.

Cascada: We nearly killed a guy together, so… I GUESS…
Holly: Eeeeee! I knew it!! Oh! Since you’re going to the tearoom anyway… I’ll bring a first-aid kit and some snacks!

If she were born 40 years later, Holly would be putting “uwu” at the end of her sentences. Guaranteed.

Even in the manga, I always found this an incredibly funny cut. Jotaro punches the ever-living shit out of a dude, drags the bloody body home, and Joseph is just like, “wellp, he’s a goner.”

Joseph: Jotaro… It isn’t your fault… Look… This man has already pledged his loyalty to Dio. And do you know why? It’s because… of this!

Jotaro: What is this thing? It looks like a spider…
Cascada: I-it almost looks alive…
Abdul: That’s a “flesh bud”, forged from Dio’s cells! It’s burrowed its way into that boy’s forehead. Tiny as it may be, it’s reached deep enough into his brain to influence his thoughts and feelings!

In Part 1, Dio used his vampire powers to make a bunch of gross human sculptures and chimeras and shit. This is pretty par for the course when it comes to him.

Cascada: So… in other words, he’s brainwashed him!

You know how in Kingdom Hearts, half the time when you go to a Disney world, it’s just Sora-Donald-Goofy standing off to the side and going “whoa! gawrsh!” as the plot of the movie happens in front of them? Most of Cascada’s dialogue is going to be kinda like that. It is what it is.

Joseph: Yes, I suppose you could say that.
Joseph: By the way, who are you?
Cascada: Don’t get me started or we’ll be here all day.
Jotaro: Why not just operate on him?

Joseph: …He’ll suffer permanent brain damage.

Around here is when anyone who’s read Part 2 starts asking questions like, “Joseph can shoot magic sun energy out of his body, wouldn’t that wipe out a vampiric flesh bud no problem?” and the series is content to look you in the eye and answer, “that was last season, dude.”

Joseph: The Cairo story AGAIN? Abdul, please…
Abdul: It is very important exposition, Mr. Joestar. Every detail.
! Abdul: …When I met him… Dio!

Abdul: Then, I saw him, quietly observing me from atop the stairs.

The Berserk references truly are everywhere.

Joseph: At least 80% of that is because of my grandfather’s body, you know.
Abdul: Madam Erina had impeccable taste, Mr. Joestar.

Dio: You… You’re no run-of-the-mill human, are you? I can sense that you possess a ‘special power…’ I’d be very happy… If you were to demonstrate it for me.

Dio’s hair transforms into a mass of tentacles that grasp at Abdul!

Abdul: Uooooooohhhhhhh!
Cascada: You could have just said you screamed in fear, you didn’t have to ACTUALLY scream.
Joseph: -Sigh-
Both: EVERY detail.

Abdul: I thanked my lucky stars that I had recognized him as Dio, and as quickly as I could, I escaped through the window! I knew my way around the labyrinthine bazaar, so I had the good fortune to evade him…
Abdul: …If I hadn’t… I’d have ended up just like this boy. I would use my Stand to betray my friends, at his beck and call!

Jotaro: Not so fast! Kakyoin’s not dead yet!

hey that’s my podcast sign-on you can’t use it

Cascada: What are you doing, Jotaro…?

Okay I think we’re learning that Jotaro just has a thing for pulling it out. This is already twice in one day.

Joseph: Stop! Look at the part of the flesh bud that’s outside the brain! There’s a reason why even the world’s most skilled surgeon can’t remove it!

Abdul: Damn! It’s gotten into your arm! Hurry, Jojo! Let go of him!
Cascada: T-the tentacle…! At that speed, it’ll reach his brain in seconds!
Kakyoin: You… bas… tard…

Abdul: Let go, Jojo! It’s already reached your face!!

Cascada: Hey, there’s only room for one Machine around here and you’re lookin’ at her.
Cascada: So this is what Jotaro’s Stand is capable of…?

There is no reason given for why Joseph couldn’t have done this in the first place. It’s especially galling because in a later chapter he does remove one by simply channeling Ripple through his body. It’s just one of those things.

Edit: I double-checked and the event I’m referring to only happens in the 2014 anime adaptation, which came out after this game. Oops.

We fade back in on what appears to be a guest bedroom.

Cascada: I… live two blocks away and I have a Heat Ray.
Joseph: We have a complimentary continental breakfast.
Cascada: I guess I AM pretty tired…

Joseph: That dream you were talking about, with Abdul and that strange voice… Seems pretty hard to believe. But you don’t seem like one of Dio’s minions, so I’m not too worried. It seems that, for whatever reason, Stand users are popping up everywhere…
Cascada: Yeah, have you gone outside? Killer floating dolls every half-block.

Insert your favorite inn sleep jingle here.

In the morning, Cascada is given free rein of the Kujo household. There’s quite a few big rooms with a handful of tutorial/tip messages on the bookshelves. It’s basic stuff like “save often!” and “if you don’t level up, the enemies will get tougher!” faff.

There’s probably an interesting conversation to be had (that has already been had, more like) about assuming what a player does or doesn’t know. Like, I’ve played enough games to understand the basic mechanics of 7SU purely from its aesthetics, but what if someone who never played video games downloaded it because they like JoJo? Would they even know to click on bookshelves for hints? Would they understand leveling up?

Iro · March 22, 2024, 2:45pm

My uncle had a huge DLP TV like this one that he bought right around when plasma was starting to take off. Took up an entire corner of his living room.

It’s possible that this whole second floor with Kakyoin was always here, but I certainly don’t remember it from when I played the game previously. It’s got some of the tutorial books, so it must have been??

Joseph: By the way, have you seen Holly? I’ve been looking for her all morning!

As we navigate the hallways towards the exit, we run into Abdul.

Cascada: Are you seriously flirting with a high schooler?
Abdul: No. I merely find the situation bemusing.
Cascada: We’re good then.

Something shatters in the kitchen! Is it one of Dio’s assassins?

Joseph and Jotaro come running in.

Abdul: This is…!! It can’t be… Pardon me!!

I do like the continuity here where because Joseph’s Stand is made of thorns and vines, Holly’s is as well. There are even implications that Jonathan’s Stand would have had a similar motif. …We have no explanation for Jotaro whatsoever.

Abdul: I can’t believe it… My hand passes right through it… This is definitely… A Stand!! Holly’s Stand has awakened as well! But… this fever… The Stand is harming her… I’d thought that Mr. Joestar and Jojo were the only ones affected by Dio’s curse…
Abdul: Thinking Holly was the exception, I relaxed… N-no… I only thought I could relax! It seems that all those with Joestar blood flowing through their veins are susceptible! Stands are manipulated by the user’s fighting spirit… but Holly doesn’t have an ounce of aggression in her entire body!
Abdul: She’s so sweet and gentle… She can’t control it! That’s why it’s hurting her! This is terrible… If this continues… she’ll… It’ll kill her!

Joseph: I knew that she wouldn’t have the power to fight Dio’s curse…

They are making all this hullaballoo that Holly has no Fighting Spirit or Killing Intent or whatever but I dunno, I feel like her ability to remain utterly unflapped and unconditionally loving while her son calls her a bitch to her face requires some pretty fucking powerful inner strength. My brother called me emotionally controlling for asking him to get a covid vaccine and it still kinda stings.

Jotaro: Say it already! Say you have a plan!
Joseph: Nngh… urgh… There’s one way.

Joseph: …But I can’t determine his location just from my spirit photography… Shit!!

It doesn’t necessarily come through in this medium, but whenever Joseph says a swear word, he’s almost always saying it in English (with all of the rest of the dialogue being in Japanese). In the manga, the English words sometimes get full-on drawn into the speech bubbles; the anime naturally has his voice actor (the late great Unsho Ishizuka, aka Professor Oak) just shout the words. It’s a hoot every time.

Cascada: He has to have left SOME kind of trail…!!

Abdul: We’ve tried analyzing the photo with all kinds of high-tech gadgets, but to no effect.
Cascada: You said you met him in Cairo, right? We could start there?
Abdul: I categorically refuse to entertain the notion that Dio may still be in Egypt. Surely he has moved elsewhere, such as the American Gulf Coast.
Jotaro: Hey. I just might know a way… Just maybe, I might know a way to figure out where he’s hiding!

Jojo summons his Stand, which proceeds to stare real hard at the photo. Its eyes are sticking way out right now, like a horny cartoon wolf or possibly Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney.

Jotaro: Enhance.

Jotaro: Enhance!

Jotaro: ENHANCE!!

Jotaro’s Stand: also extremely good at drawing. He’d make a killing as a courtroom artist.

Abdul: It’s a fly! A fly was buzzing in the air behind him! Wait… I… I recognize this fly!

Luckily, the Kujo household has an Encyclopedia of Insects as their coffee table book.

I do not believe this is a real fly. Subsequent versions of Part 3 have referred to it as a “tsetse fly”, which is real and also a huge fucking problem in sub-Saharan Africa due to its role in transmitting parasites. “Preys on livestock” kind of undersells it.

Cascada: IS he now?
Abdul: …

Kakyoin: For whatever reason, he must be reluctant to leave Egypt.
Cascada: Fascinating. Isn’t it, Abdul?
Abdul: …Skilled though I am, my fortune-telling is perhaps not… one-hundred percent accurate…
Jotaro: …Why do you want to come with us?
Kakyoin: Hmm… I’m not so sure myself either… I wouldn’t be here now if not for you. That’s really all there is to it.

Cascada: Oh so you aren’t going to ask HIM a dozen probing questions about how he behaves in social situations? Real fair.
Kakyoin: …there’s only one card in that deck.
Abdul: My fortune-telling requires SILENCE!

In the original magazine version, it was called Star Silver. This is better.

Abdul: Now… we must go! For Holly’s sake!
Abdul: Cascada… This isn’t your fight, and I don’t intend to coerce you into going with us. But we could use your power… The power of a Stand-user with the courage to help those in need!
Abdul: Even if your Quicksilver’s Heat Ray kind of overlaps with my Magician’s Red…
Abdul: …I think it may be destiny that you met with us. What do you say, Cascada? Will you lend us your strength?

The top option increases your FP with the entire party. Refusing lowers it. And Cascada is a Champion of Justice (When It Suits Her), so…

Abdul: I had a feeling you’d say that!
Cascada: You’re the one who made me come up with a catchphrase!
Joseph: I can’t thank you enough, Cascada.
Abdul: I look forward to getting to know you from here on out.
Kakyoin: I’m sorry for everything that happened earlier. Maybe I can make it up to you somewhere down the line.
Jotaro: …Sorry. I didn’t think you’d end up getting wrapped up in all this. If things get nasty out there, then you’re free to go back.

chill the fuck out jojo

We scene transition into a side room of the Kujo house.

Robert Edward O. Speedwagon from Part 1 (and the first update) founded some kind of huge nonprofit conglomerate that’s just a front for assisting the Joestar family with whatever paranormal bullshit they’re up to this decade, so deep was his love for the late Jonathan.

Abdul: I’ve watched countless people die by their own Stands in the past. But for Holly, there’s hope! As long as we can get to Dio and take him out within 50 days… her Stand will disappear! She’ll be saved!

Okay, but what if we just taught her kung-fu or something, and then she’d have the minimum required amount of Fighting Spirit. I’m just saying.

Holly: To think I collapsed with a fever… But now that I’ve taken medicine, I feel so much better!
Joseph: You startled me, Holly! Try not to give me a heart attack!
Holly: Hmhm… Right, sorry, Papa! Now where were we… Right! Jotaro… what do you want for dinner?
Jotaro: Don’t move! Just go back to sleep!!

Holly: …Heehee… you’re right! Everyone’s so nice to me when I’m sick… I guess a flu every now and then isn’t too bad!

My own mother never used to get flu shots until she caught the flu in a foreign country and passed out alone in her hotel room. Now it’s ASAP, every year.

Joseph: She… even with that high fever, she tried to reassure us that things were fine… She definitely knows what’s going on… She didn’t say it, but she noticed the Stand on her back! She’s hiding it from us! My kind, beautiful daughter… She didn’t want to make us worry about her!

I think it would be pretty hard to not notice spectral thorns growing out of your spine and stabbing into you.

Kakyoin: If I were ever to fall in love, I’d want it to be with a woman like her. I want to protect her… If only to see her smile again.
Abdul: Hm… we should get going.
Abdul: After we defeat Dio, I will introduce you to Mr. Joestar’s mother. She is quite the woman, if that is your preference.
Kakyoin: Why, thank you. That sounds excellent.

If my teenage daughter wanted to vacation in a foreign country with the mega-rich delinquent next door, I would probably not be okay with it. If she had a Stand, then we could at least discuss it.

Joseph: Come back here when you’re ready.
Cascada: Got it.

We get booted back to the Japan map, and if we talk to Steel now…

Steel: What pitiable circumstances… Destiny can be mercilessly cruel. It seems that if you don’t defeat Dio within 50 days, Holly’s life will be at risk. You must hurry… Also… Do keep in mind that resting at the hotel or in your bedroom at home will cause time to pass. It’s a long way to Egypt from here, so there’s little time to waste. Think carefully before you rest and use your days prudently.

Which means no more free heals, unfortunately. Glad we stocked up on 99 bottles of water yesterday.

These assholes are still running around town, but starting the Holly timer causes another change. Delinquents now have a chance to drop a rare item.

Once this is in our inventory, we can go back to see that strange fortune-teller (not that one, I meant the one in the arcade).

oh shit

A whole gang descends upon Cascada, but we book it over to the fortune-teller before they get ahold of us.

Rainbow: I am called Rainbow. My job is to rid this city of you Stand users. I didn’t think you’d find me here, but now I can take care of business…

Cascada: Woah oh, bitch.

See you next time, when we finally (for real this time) hit the road!

<= Previous | Top | =To Be Continued=>

Jama · March 22, 2024, 6:01pm

I feel like Heat Ray is going to be pu tting in a ton of work this playthrough.

Iro · March 29, 2024, 3:02pm

Part 6: Bugs on a Plane

<= Previous | Top | =To Be Continued=>

Recap: If Dio isn’t defeated within 50 days, Holly’s own Stand will kill her. Cascada has signed on to this mission, For Great Justice. But she does need to tell her family that she’s going to spend her summer vacation traveling to Egypt to hunt down an evil vampire.

She gives us some Sweets (25%+10 HP/SP), probably the most consistently reliable healing item across the entire game. Good kid.

Pops gives us 1000G, enough for twenty (20) drinks from the vending machine outside. Travel expenses indeed.

Now you may think from this option that stomachaches or getting sick might be something we need to keep an eye on; you’re not supposed to drink water in places you aren’t used to, after all. They aren’t.

I wouldn’t call this a trap per se, but if you pick the first option, you have declared to the game to make you susceptible to the Stomachache condition, which can force your character to run to a bathroom while in the field. The Sickly trait is worse, because it creates an invisible exhaustion variable that can land you in the hospital (expensive) or force you to rest and skip the timer forward a day. There are actual reasons you might pick these, but definitely not on a first playthrough.

Cascada is The Machine anyway. She don’t need no stinkin’ medicine.

And for our final order of business before leaving Japan, we hit up the 7-11 to stock up on some travel essentials.

A girl’s gotta be prepared.

Speaking of, fighting off more Murderdolls on the street gets Cascada to Level 6, where we get the Laser Beam skill; our first all-targeting attack. The Machine’s ascent to power continues.

Let’s hit the road!

Dio: Looks like they’re coming… to Egypt… Joseph… and Jotaro… is it…

In the manga/anime, Dio is using something akin to Joseph’s Stand here (thorns, spirit photography) to spy on the party. The implication is that it’s Jonathan Joestar’s Stand.

Impressive cobbling together of a plane from tile assets, honestly. The cloud background also constantly undulates, creating a decent sense of motion.

Joseph: Watch out… I have a feeling we might have some unwanted company aboard this plane…

Right on cue, a giant fucking beetle appears.

I hate bugs. One time in Malaysia when I was about 11-12 years old, an Atlas moth landed directly on my chest and that shit put the fear of God in me.

Japan loves contrasting rhinoceros beetles (kabutomushi) and stag beetles (kuwagatamushi). Think Kabuterimon and Kuwagamon, Metabee and Rokusho, Kamen Rider Kabuto and Kamen Rider Gatack.

Joseph: Ugh… it’s somewhere in the seats… A bug inside the plane? That’s definitely not normal!
Abdul: W-where is it!?

Cascada: It has to be hidden somewhere among the other passengers!

Imagine the sound of buzzing insect wings directly by your ear, but the insect is the size of your head and also making wet schloppy noises.

Jotaro: Disgusting… Let me take care of this.
Abdul: B-be careful… I’ve heard of a bug-like Stand before… One that likes to tear out and eat human tongues…!

Abdul: I-I can’t believe it! Not even Star Platinum, which can stop a bullet in midair, could land a single hit!
Kakyoin: There’s no doubt now! The bug’s a Stand! Where’s the one controlling it!? …Shoot!! It’s attacking!

Jotaro: Shit!! That was too close…
Joseph: He did it! He stopped the needle!
Abdul: But one second later and his tongue would have been torn to shreds… This Stand is no pushover!
Abdul: I know this Stand…! It’s the Tower card! It symbolizes mayhem! Destruction! Interruption of journeys!

Magician’s Red, Hermit Purple, Hierophant Green, Star Platinum… if you haven’t noticed by now, the Stand name motif for a while is going to be [Tarot Card] + [Color]. It eventually moves on to just straight up band names and music references, which is why Cascada’s stand is Quicksilver.

Abdul: I’d heard talk of this Stand before, but I didn’t know it was working for Dio… It specializes in accidents… Train wrecks, plane crashes, the works… He likes to make his killings look natural.

Abdul: And now he’s on Dio’s side…!

I looked this up and the closest match I could find was the Pan Am 103 incident, where a bomb caused the plane to crash in a residential area in Scotland, killing 270 people. A Libyan former airline executive was convicted of the bombing in 2001.

Joseph: Who’s controlling the Stand!? Where are they!? (They have to be somewhere on this plane… Where there’s a Stand, the user can’t be far!)

Tower of Gray zips over to the other side of the plane, behind a row of sleeping passengers.

Jotaro: (What’s it planning…? Wait… It can’t be…!)

(Massacre!)

This giant bug is painting on the wall with five severed human tongues on a giant needle. JoJo has always been sort of horror-adjacent and it’s easy to forget just how gory it can get.

Abdul: T-the nerve of the bastard!

Abdul: Incinerate it, Magician’s Red!!

We used to smoke on planes, so, I mean. Maybe burning up a bunch of oxygen would probably be fine as long as those masks still drop from the ceiling. With a Stand, you could put it on yourself and the person next to you simultaneously!

Kakyoin: Back to sleep.
Kakyoin: That “Instant-Knockout-Neck-Chop” elective from last year is really coming in handy…

And we enter the actual boss fight, and it’s our first time with a full party! I like how Joseph starts out at a higher level than the rest, because he’s already been on a bunch of bizarre adventures.

Everybody is automatically inflicted with the “CantFind” status, which basically means they cannot target the enemy. He’ll just dodge every attack.

Like so.

Kakyoin: He’s even faster than I thought! There’s only one thing to do! We’ll have to use attacks that target all enemies in order to hit him!

In the manga, this was Kakyoin’s time to shine as the Newest Party Member; he stretched Hierophant Green out into a net that Tower of Gray couldn’t avoid. Here, while CantFind means we can’t target him, we simply use attacks that don’t require a target.

Often, you’re going into this fight with only Kakyoin and Joseph having multi-target attacks, and the two of them are perfectly sufficient to take down Tower of Gray. But Cascada got a fancy new Laser Beam and she’s itching to try it out.

Cascada: Woah oh, asshole!

Cascada: …
Kakyoin: …
Abdul: …
Joseph: …
Jotaro: …Give me a @#S% break…

To enforce the tutorial aspects of this fight, Tower of Gray has abnormally high defense unless you’re hitting him at the correct range. Jotaro’s stats are high enough to actually offset the CantFind status somewhat, and him landing a surprise crit in the first turn after all those story bits would just be silly… But it does mean that Cascada’s shiny new attack is absolutely useless unless Tower of Gray moves into Long range.

A couple turns of Kakyoin and Joseph blasting him wraps things up pretty quickly.

Cascada: T-that old guy’s tongue was imprinted with the shape of a beetle!!

Joseph: I didn’t shoot my grandfather’s friend with a Tommy gun on the streets of New York during the war to hear you badmouth old folks, kid.
Kakyoin: No offense intended. Your Hermit Purple is elegant, like that well-trimmed bush in Holly’s garden.
Jotaro: You want to run that one by me again, Kakyoin?
Kakyoin: Er… Perhaps another time…

Joseph: !! That’s odd… Is it me, or is the plane tilted on its side…? N-no, I’m not just imagining it! It’s definitely tilting!

Joseph books it to the front of the plane, followed shortly by the rest of the party.

Jotaro: Their tongues have been yanked out. Must’ve been that damned beetle…
Joseph: We’re going down… The controls are broken, too! We’re going to crash!!

Silly as it is, I like this bit because we just confirmed that this guy doesn’t have a flesh bud and is usually just a gun for hire. Dio’s power and charisma is so insidious that he’s inspiring even opportunistic mass-murderers to give their lives for him; it seems the flesh buds are required only for those who might otherwise resist his wiles.

Jotaro: You guys are real professionals. Despite everything, you haven’t screamed… Would’ve been a pain if you did. This old guy here is gonna make an emergency landing, so tell the passengers to brace for impact. We’re counting on you.

All those times Jotaro skipped school, he was actually practicing his negging skills.

Kakyoin: …P-propeller planes…?
Cascada: I-I don’t know about this…
Joseph: Look on the bright side! There aren’t any piranhas this time!

Cascada: …
Kakyoin: …
Abdul: …
Jotaro: …

This is genuinely one of my favorite gags in the entire series. Gets me every time.

Next time, we’ve got a whole new hub map to explore!

<= Previous | Top | =To Be Continued=>

barquq · March 29, 2024, 3:14pm

i haven’t watched in forever so i can’t speak to the quality anymore, but I always loved Part 3 because it takes place in Egypt, and Abdul and his stand are insanely cool characters. Thanks Araki

all this to say, i’m curious to see what 8-bit Egypt looks like haha

This must be the work of an enemy Stand! - Let's Play JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: The 7th Stand User

What is JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure?

What is The 7th Stand User?

What is with this Let’s Play?

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 - Jotaro Kujo

Chapter 2 - Noriaki Kakyoin

Chapter 3 - Tower of Gray

Chapter 4 - Silver Chariot

Chapter 5 - Dark Blue Moon

Chapter 6 - Strength

Chapter 7 - Devil

Chapter 8 - Yellow Temperance

Chapter 9 - Emperor and Hanged Man

Chapter 10 - Empress

Chapter 11 - Wheel of Fortune

Chapter 12 - Justice

Chapter 13 - Lovers

Chapter 14 - The Sun

Chapter 15 - Death Thirteen

Chapter 16 - Judgement

PART 1: PROLOGUE

PART 2: THE STORY SO FAR

PART 3 - THE 7TH STAND USER

PART 4 - CUTTING CLASS

PART 5 - JOJO NO NATSUYASUMI

Part 6: Bugs on a Plane