How has it been an in-game week and we’re still in the prologue?
Morgana doesn’t have a place to stay, so Damien agrees to let him stay at Leblanc. Why does he think Sojiro would allow that?
We meet a new character when we return to Leblanc. Sojiro tells us she’s the doctor at the local clinic.
Sojiro: Rumor has it she gives pretty crappy examinations, and sells weird homemade medicines on top of that. At least, that’s what I’ve heard. I haven’t been there myself. They should really just leave her alone. It’s not like she’s getting in the way of their lives…
Medical malpractice isn’t getting in the way of peoples’ lives??? This stuff kills people!
We take Morgana upstairs and he insults our room. Beggars can’t be choosers, Morgana. Sojiro comes up and is inexplicably cool with this.
Sojiro: Look, this place is a restaurant. Animals are a no-go… Though I guess you might stay on good behavior if you’ve got a pet to take care of…
This is so contrived. At least suggest making it a cat cafe? Those are a thing. Despite insisting he won’t take care of it, he immediately brings Morgana food. I suppose he just can’t resist the power of cat cuteness.
Morgana: To be honest… I don’t remember anything about my birth.
Okay, so you were lying before? How do you even know you’re in the wrong body, then?
Morgana: I think the Metaverse’s distortions made me lose both my memories and my true form.
Once again, this is backwards. This is the first time Morgana’s said this, but Ryuji acted as if he knew this earlier. Did the two writers forget to line up their scenes???
Morgana: It has to be [human]! I mean, why else would a cat be able to talk like this? There’s no other possible explanation.
We’ve seen a lot of weird stuff, Morgana, I don’t think that’s the only possible explanation. Also, he can’t talk normally — only Metaverse-touched humans can understand him. To everyone else he does indeed sound like a regular cat. He then proceeds to eat Sojiro’s food, which looks like chunks of fish, muddying this further. Was that human-quality fish meat, or just a can of unflavored tuna? Morgana also says he didn’t get hungry in the phantom world.
Morgana: Let me make myself clear: Your taking care of me won’t be for nothing. It’ll be give and take.
Morgana, you have been nothing but selfless so far, even after we betrayed you. Why would I think otherwise? It’s really weird that they keep acting like Morgana has to justify his existence to us. We then flash-forward again. Are we going to do this with every social link?
Niijima: Skillful infiltration and escapes to all manner of places… There’s even the possibility that you used special tools and had someone who manufactured them… …Answer me!
So we’re not even talking, she’s just monologuing at us. What is the point of this? Anyway, Morgana is The Magician. Seems an odd choice for the grizzled veteran, but okay.
Morgana: I’ll lecture you about the infiltration tools over time.
Because we really needed to pad out this tutorial even more.
Morgana: By the way, the power you used in the Palace was seriously amazing. The stronger that power gets, the more reliable it’ll be as a trump card.
It’s not power so much as versatility, which also clashes with the established lore. If our supernatural abilities are tied to being true to ourselves, shouldn’t we focus on power-leveling our base persona instead of being level 1 in everything? Why would he think that spreading our power out over many false selves is more desirable?
Morgana gives us in-universe exposition on social links providing power to complement the out-of-universe exposition we already got, and finishes with, “This is all part of our deal, got it?” Our “deal” is that you give me everything I want and in return I… become more awesome? This is just so protagonist-centered. Especially after we already screwed him on a previous deal, yet he’s completely trusting of us.
“You should thank Ryuji.” Jesus Christ, game.
Damien: It’s fine.
Ann: No, it’s not.
Very true, but not for the reasons the writers think.
Ann: See you tomorrow.
Aren’t we getting expelled tomorrow??? Why is everyone dragging their feet on this, we have a time limit!
Morgana refuses to teach me how to make tools until I clean the room, but also won’t let me clean the room and insists I go to sleep. So the railroading has been externalized.
Aw, kitty.
On the train, Morgana proposes, “we’ve got some downtime. I wonder if we could put it to good use…” Oh, I can’t stay up one extra minute to clean my room, but you’re making me work on the train? …And then he doesn’t even do anything. What was the point of this line? At school, Morgana proposes we visit the quack doctor to pick up strong medicine for better healing. Okay, but if it’s psychosomatic, couldn’t we just grind up random leaves and tell you it’s strong medicine? We don’t have to buy the real stuff.
And… we have a normal day of school? Kamoshida didn’t report us? Oh, god. He said he’d report us at the next board meeting. That’s going to be our deadline, so we still have plenty of time. That is so incredibly stupid.
Instead of killing Kamoshida already, we sit through a whole day of school and then Ryuji texts in the middle of class to say we’re gonna meet up at the “secret hideout” after school to discuss. What is there to discuss? Kill him already!
The teacher notices us texting in class and throws a piece of chalk at our head. So why is it noteworthy that Kamoshida’s hitting people during volleyball practice when it’s apparently normal for teachers to just chuck things at students’ faces because they’re mad? I think the problem goes deeper than a single teacher, guys.
Morgana: Good grief… Looks like you need more Proficiency to completely dodge that.
Oh my god, so is this going to be a regular thing? We need to grind stats to keep our teachers from throwing stuff at us the entire game?
The gang finally meets to discuss maybe possibly killing Kamoshida after school, because that wasn’t important enough to do earlier.
Morgana: Hold on, it’s still too early for us to head to the Palace.
He insists we suck and need better equipment. Ryuji knows a place where we can get weapons. Uh, okay. Morgana also plans to stock up on medicine from the clinic. …And that’s it, that’s the entire meeting. This could have been an email!
WHY ARE YOU LETTING ME WALK AROUND IF YOU WON’T LET ME DO ANYTHING. JUST TELEPORT ME TO THE CLINIC.
Sickly Man: I’m tempted to go myself, but those rumors… I wish I had the guts to go in like you…
Oh, so we’re not gutsy enough to mouth off to an imaginary dude in dreamland, but we can walk into a sketchy clinic to buy illegal medicine just fine?
And she’s rocking a pantsless lab coat, because that makes sense.
Languid Doctor: I’m going to prescribe you some pain relievers, okay? Actually, I still need to restock those… So let’s go with sleeping pills instead. Sleep is the best medicine anyway.
This is horrifying, yet significantly better than what we were told. If she was just giving us sugar water, she’d always have it in stock, which means she is at least giving us real medicine. She realizes we’re not really sick and accuses us of coming here because of the rumors, but she still decides, “Well, fine. I’ll prescribe you some medication.” Still sketchy as hell, but I can’t fault her bedside manner.
Languid Doctor: But only medication that will help you recover your health.
What does that even mean. This is obviously meaning stuff that recovers HP, but “health” is a meaninglessly broad term in medicine.
Languid Doctor: This is my private practice. All the medicine I dispense is original.
Wait, so she was lying about being out of stock on painkillers? Perhaps this means she’s going to give us the sugar water.
On the way out, a man comes in. We overhear him arguing with the doctor, insisting she’s developing some super-stimulant that gives people “unlimited power”. Cool, maybe she can hook us up. Ryuji then texts us to say the weapons place is where he got the model gun. Okay, that makes more sense than them selling real weapons.
Morgana: Well, we can leave that for tomorrow. Let’s go home!
HHHHRRRGGHHHH
You know how they could have made this actually work? If we were getting swamped with homework and that was using up all our free time. Say Sojiro refuses to let us leave the house until we show him we’ve done our homework. That would give teeth to the insistence that the school is so draconian and we’re being forced to walk the straight and narrow.
Morgana: Once we’re prepared, let’s take on the Palace. That’s where the real fun starts, got it?
YEAH I KNOW. GET ON WITH IT ALREADY.
The next day:
Game, why am I even here? Just make this a cutscene if you’re not going to let me interact with anything.
He rants about economic inequality, so I’m sure he’s evil.
Morgana: If you’re interested in politics, we should come back another time.
Do you not understand how street barkers work, Morgana? They’re kind of a limited-time thing.
Ryuji has no idea what to ask for even though he knows exactly what to ask for: A gun that looks really scary. Fortunately, Damien is smart enough to say this.
Surly Manager: Oh, and don’t let the fuzz catch wind of you having ’em. I don’t need them comin’ around here.
Damien: We hate the cops.
Surly Manager: How ’bout that? Me too.
Solidarity!
The shop is called “Airsoft”, which implies there are actually pellet guns, despite Ryuji saying they didn’t shoot anything. I wonder if this is a translation goof, or if the localizers are trying to softball what they’re actually buying?
Anyway, I’m curious what slingshot options he has.
That does not sound like a prop.
There’s only one gun available for everyone, which I expected, but still disappointing. Other equipment has options, though I have to wonder why they’re also selling knives and clubs.
…Ann’s armor is called a “Confident Camisole”. So we’re admitting she’s wearing lingerie.
And of course that’s the only thing we can do all day. Back at Leblanc, a customer is saying the crazy subway driver was acting crazy in his testimony. Shocking news. Apparently he can’t even speak.
Sojiro: Only an idiot’d believe a preposterous story like that.
It’s preposterous that trauma could make someone unable to speak? That can happen from something as minor as a burst blood vessel.
Sojiro: As long as I’m here, the world leaves me be.
…You run a cafe.
Morgana: We’re just about ready to go to the Palace.
But we can’t possibly go tonight! It’s so important to get sleep for the school we’re about to be expelled from! He finally agrees to let me clean a desk so I can make infiltration tools.
Morgana: That desk. Hurry now and clean it up.
I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO DO THAT FOR THE PAST THREE DAYS. You’ve got some nerve telling me to hurry up now, cat.
Why did they even bother making this interactive.
Morgana: Great, now you can make things whenever you want!
Can I? Can I, really? Or does this count against the one thing I can do each day?
Making tools will cause time to pass
Knew it.
Morgana: We’re heading into the Palace tomorrow.
Does that mean the game can finally start, please?
The next day Kamoshida gloats about how he’s totally going to expel us one of these days. I am annoyed we can’t tell him we’re going to explode his brain. We also get a name for the redhead.
Why is her nametag “Student Called”? No other nametag has done this.
Kawakami: [Kamoshida] gave me a brief lecture this morning, and your name came up. Something about the dangers of lack of supervision…
What is this weaksauce? Is he trying to get us expelled or not? This would sorta make sense if he’s playing the long game to make himself look like the good guy, so he needs to pretend he really tried to help Damien but there just wasn’t anything he could do. But his star volleyball player just jumped off the building, and he’s not even trying to do damage control on that? Does literally no one care about that? It’s like it never happened.
Kawakami just reminds us Damien’s on thin ice and everyone’s keeping an eye on him. Okay, what was the point of that? We’re not even allowed to say anything (other than whether we want to hit on Yoshizawa, because of course that’s an option). Why can’t we have fun with the fact we have an untraceable way of killing people? We could say so much spooky stuff!
But not fired up enough to skip class.
Ryuji: The board meeting’s May 2nd, right? We just gotta take care of him before then.
Knew it. Sure, he drove a kid to suicide and is regularly beating the entire volleyball team, but screw them, we can wait until it affects us personally. Also, how draconian is this school if they’re letting us text in class while talking to the stray cat in our backpack without so much as a second glance?
Everyone waits until classes are over, but then we finally, finally, FINALLY get to continue the plot already. Ryuji brings up the plot hole that we still don’t even know what a Treasure is. Seems like something we should have hashed out over the past three days, but I guess that would have gotten in the way of our one daily activity.
Morgana: A Treasure is the physical form of the Palace ruler’s distorted desires. In other words, it’s the core of the Palace. Once we steal it, the Palace will crumble… I think.
You THINK? What kind of exposition fairy are you? Is he a reliable source of information or not???