Alright, finally finished the story mode after way too much time invested, time to actually start playing the game for real in free mode.
I'm really not a fan of how story mode is mandatory as a slow introduction to all the mechanics, but then everything important is still different in free mode. The mansion shopkeeper isn't there, so where do I buy whips to actually get production started? Where do you get the womb bags for inventory expansion? I like this game despite its many flaws since the scenes are pretty good, but I don't even know how to do the stuff I'm already supposed to know, much less figure out any of the new stuff.
To be clear, I know the anwser to figuring this out is just explore - find cards on how to use items and catch new things in random chests all over the place. It's just kind of annoying to put all that time in to basically just unlock the ability to start playing.
EDIT: in retrospect this is kind of a silly complaint once you figure out that black also has an item shop and that's where everything you can't buy in the food stores is. still... story mode makes everything so much more convoluted than it needs to be