PART 4 - CUTTING CLASS
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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.
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…