Which is to say, the game's paced terribly and the plot is very bare bones for like the first half or so of the game? Because you can sit down and shotgun it.
So the place where the game very clearly sets up for Tao to get a new suit and then he doesn't, ever, would have been like 6 months into service at that pacing.
Also I understand this game's localization was on a budget of like 20 dollars and a copy of DeepL but you could have included something, anything for 90% of players to tell them why everyone was making such a big deal out of that one team in the tournament?